Blog #2: Videosharing

Reflections on the process of learning about YouTube

YouTube and I are no stranger to each other. I have been watching videos on YouTube for entertainment purposes for a few years, especially since there is no TV - by choice - in my home. My musical interests have been well served by YouTube: I started listening to the band Ok Go because of their impressive treadmill video; I became a fan of Regina Spektor after noting her Fidelity video was one of the top-rated and most watched; I appreciated the work of Imogen Heap only after watching her live performance layering her own sound samples to create an entire song; and I even have been known to pull up the lyrics for a favourite song in one browser window, the YouTube music video for the song in another window, and rock out to my own private karaoke.

But I've never really looked at YouTube as a tool for teaching and learning. 

Discussion of YouTube vs. TeacherTube for my own personal learning

I considered using TeacherTube for this assignment as I was less familiar with it, but found the content, focus, and layout to be too 'safe.' Other than being surprised by how much advertising there was on TeacherTube, the site was fairly easy to navigate, I was able to find videos of interest (like these Math ones from Mr. Duey on fractions and long division), and as an educator who has spent many hours creating my own worksheets, templates, and classroom materials, I REALLY like the document sharing portion of the site. I am often jumping between computers, schools, professions, PCs and Macs, so having a site where I can safely store and access my own teaching materials is fabulous. However, it was just too obvious how the content on TeacherTube could be used for teaching and learning. 

What I was really interested in learning through this assignment was how this contentious website, this YouTube, could cross over from my personal life to my professional one. With my teaching goggles on, I began to examine YouTube from an educator's perspective. 

Discussion of YouTube in terms off teaching and learning

Obscenity! Near nudity! Offensive content! If this were a guest speaker, they would not be allowed in the school. Is this what I want in my classroom? No. Is this who shows up when you invite YouTube in? Probably. We need to protect our students from viewing this inappropriate material.

Interestingly, coming from this protectionist stance, my local school district has blocked YouTube in the high schools but not in some of the elementary schools. Why would younger students have unfiltered access, whereas more mature students be blocked out? I asked a few teachers about this situation, and the consensus seems to be a question of supervision and bandwidth. 

The bandwidth of the school district can't support large numbers of teachers and students accessing streaming video all at the same time. To ensure that the whole system doesn't crash, potential high-rate users (high school students) are prevented from accessing this potential tool.

Elementary students are rarely unsupervised when using the internet and less likely to be on YouTube. High school students have more unsupervised access, and as one teacher reported, "are more likely to go looking for that kind of stuff." By "that kind of stuff," I am assuming the teacher meant objectionable content. Having worked as a Teacher On call in all levels, this synopsis matches my observations. The elementary students I observed using YouTube were re-watching favourite videos such as Potter Puppet Pals while high school students who figured out how to get around the blocks were searching for wacky items, preferably those that involved their friends or were spectacular in some way. For example, some local high school students were watching this clip (WARNING: physical stunts, not for the weak-stomached) which involved both their friends and physical wackiness. 

Seemingly without any parent involvement, the students who made this video were collaborating, scripting, blocking, performing, editing, and adding soundtrack to their montages. Whether YouTube is allowed in schools or not, students are not only viewing inappropriate videos, but possibly creating them as well. My personal favourite piece of evidence for the argument of whether or not our schools should unblock YouTube is contained in this mountain biking video featuring Mike, another local high school student. See that red building that appears in the background five times? That's the HIGH SCHOOL. This video has been viewed over 49,000 times in a town with a population of around 7,000. 

Students are engaging with technology to create and share, but who is teaching them how to do this safely? I don't know these particular students, so how was I able to even find their video? YouTube, similar to Flickr, has a geotagging feature that allows users to find video based on geographic location. Armed with this piece of information and the names posted in the video, I am now able to grab my phone book, look up this student's number, and ask his parent(s) if maybe they were supervising their son while he was jumping off cliffs.

Other objections to YouTube in schools have focused on cyber-bullying (as reported in The Australian IT) and physical assaults, or 'happy-slapping' (as reported in the New York Times). This bullying and physical assault has always occurred, the only differences now are the ability to record and upload the incident, and the potential scale of audience. These two factors compound the harm to the victim by making the attack public to the world and providing a discussion forum for continuing the violence. 

So, rather than educating students about violence, cyber-bullying, harassment, the public-ness of YouTube and other sharing sites, schools are blocking YouTube altogether. I am at a loss to see how blocking YouTube in schools as a reaction to cyber-bullying would lend itself to fixing the problem. Instead, schools are sending a message: this is not our problem, it does not happen here. And they are sending a sub-message: we are not watching. This blind-eye approach does little to help our students navigate their already tumultuous lives and allows the cyber-bullying to continue to an even greater extent.   

Phew, heavy stuff. I need a little video to cheer myself back up.

Teachers can control the amount of potential filth that comes with YouTube by embedding videos (just as I did above) rather than linking to the original video on the YouTube site. This is a handy little trick I learned this week which allows me to bring videos into the classroom without the wild-card comments section and the Related and Featured videos side bars which often have material inappropriate for classroom purposes. Yay! This is also the approach suggested by Davies & Merchant (p. 54). They extend the idea of imbedding video by surrounding the video with other related materials such as links, photos, and news articles that relate to the topic. Another educator, Jerry Everhart, uses this rich stye of presentation to launch Science units in the classroom (Everhart, 2009). Everhart also reveals how to be able to use YouTube videos in the classroom if the embedding function is blocked: download the video onto a hard drive by using RealPlayer.

Now that I can control the content for viewing, how can YouTube aid my classroom practise? Considering how many schools block YouTube, I was pleasantly surprised to find numerous examples of using YouTube for teaching and learning. I had an a-ha moment when I read about a dance teacher using YouTube for her students to research and learn dance moves (Lepczyk, 2009). Video, the combination of movement and sound, is the only format that would allow the students to explore a world-wide variety of dance techniques. 

To me, an obvious use for YouTube videos in the classroom would be as a "hook." My teacher education program was big on the use of hooks, the introduction to the lesson that makes the students interested and excited about the learning to occur. If the hook is really good, it also encourages late students to be on time as they will miss "the good part."  

Merchant and Davies also suggest that teachers should upload videos "to demonstrate tasks for students so that they can watch at home, or to explain concepts so that they can 'listen again'" (Davies and Merchant, p.64). Woodworking teachers could demonstrate machines to their students, upload videos of the process to YouTube, and have a discussion forum for students to ask questions. Students would be able to re-view the video until they felt comfortable using the machines, and the teacher would be aware of any instruction that needed to be refined based on the number of questions received in the discussion forum. 

And finally, I think teachers should consider student creation of video for school assignments as the process ties so nicely into Bloom's taxonomy of learning. The act of students creating video "positions them as experts and encourages them to become very familiar with the knowledge they need for the film" (Davies and Merchant, p.65). 

Everhart, J.. (2009). YouTube in the Science Classroom. Science and Children, 46(9), 32-35. Retrieved September 27, 2009, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1755933371).

Lepczyk, B.. (2009). Technology Facilitates Teaching and Learning in Creative Dance. Journal

 of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, 80(6), 4,8. Retrieved September 26, 2009,

 from ProQuest Nursing & Allied Health Source. (Document ID: 1838383171).