16mm Filmstrip Reels to YouTube
Is Youtube a learning
tool?
When many of us were
in school if we needed to learn new content or even share an instructional
video with a friend or family member it was a little complicated.
It tended to require expensive equipment, 16 mm filmstrips with their reels and
postage. We now live in a time where content can be shared instantly.
Problems/Challenges
YouTube's
greatest challenge is also its strength. Anyone is able to create an account
and post content allows for sharing literally all over the world. But this also
makes it easy for radicals to proselytize and amateurs to
present themselves as credible sources. If anyone can post anything it
means that students are sometimes exposed to content created by people who are
passionate but not always objective and not necessarily experts.
Societal Needs and Benefits
In our global
society we benefit from being able to share content globally
instantaneously. This has created a smaller world and allows people who were
previously disenfranchised by location to access anything. In terms of the
population of students with which I work YouTube has allowed Deaf people
living in rural locations to stay in contact with family and friends all
over the world. This has opened up
the possibility for more community development and lessened the need for the
Deaf to stay confined to one locale their entire life.
The plethora of
resources available on YouTube also allows for new information and content
to be learned. Prior to the invention and implementation of YouTube the
only place other than school, or a mentor to learn new ideas was the library. Now experts
are able to share new ideas and new techniques instantaneously and the videos can
be rewound and paused as many times as needed to get a quality understanding of
the information. Parents can now go to a teacher’s YouTube channel and
learn the lesson that their child is struggling with in order to help with
homework. Professionals working in remote areas have access to cutting edge
information as long as they have internet access thereby providing better
service to clients.
Digital
natives as those students who prefer
receiving
information really fast. They like to parallel process and multi-task. They
prefer their graphics before their text rather than the opposite. They prefer
random access (like hypertext). They function best when networked. They thrive
on instant gratification and frequent rewards. They prefer games to “serious”
work.” (Prensky, 2001 p 2)
These digital natives
are the students who we are currently teaching and the ones who are currently
coming out of teacher preparation program. By studying preservice teachers in
educational technology courses Dreon, Kerper, & Landis (2011) proposed that digital
storytelling connects to todays generation of learners through the methods that
they access information. Students are able to access, share, and comment on
both their personal work and the work of others as they engage in learning
tasks that correlate to them as digital natives.
Pitfalls
One approach to
dealing with the plethora of questionable content is doing
serious lessons with students about reliability and accountability and what
that means when using a resource. Years ago in one of my educational
journals and I now can’t find the article there was reference to an
elderly Auschwitz survivor who was told by the teenager living next to her
that the Holocaust never happened. His argument supporting his
opinion was based on an online resource posted by an English teacher who
claimed that it was all a hoax. This survivor was understandably
upset by being told that something for which she still carried not only
the memories but the number printed on her arm didn’t happen. She
lobbied for internet usage to be banned. While this is an extreme case of
inappropriate content and response to it, it does highlight the need for
teaching students about reliable sources. Last year middle school
students were given a critical thinking assignment in which they were to argue
if the Holocaust ever happened based on the beliefs of some that it was a
political propaganda tool. (Yarborough & Wong, 2014) Many students completing this assignment came
away denying a historical event that affected millions of Jewish
people.
An
additional approach to dealing
with the pitfall YouTube and easily accessible questionable content was the creation
of TeacherTube. TeacherTube and an
education channel on Youtube's regular site.
Works Cited
Burke,
S., Snyder, S., & Rager, R. (2009). An assessment of faculty usage of
YouTube as a teaching resource. The Internet Journal of Allied Health
Sciences and Practice, 7(1), 1-8.
Dreon, O., Kerper,
R., & Landis, J. (2011). Digital storytelling: A tool for teaching and
learning in the Youtube generation. Middle School Journal, 42(5), 4-9.
Fleck, B. K.,
Beckman, L., Sterns, J. L., & Hussey, H. D. (2014). YouTube in the
classroom: Helpful tips and student perceptions. The Journal of Effective
Teaching, 14(3), 21-37.
Prensky, M. (2001).
Digital natives digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1-6.
When I was in grade school I was a student employee who was sent to classrooms to set-up and troubleshoots 16mm, projects, filmstrips, reel-to-reel films. Thank you for taking me back down memory lane.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the reasons that YouTube has taken off for education is that some schools are finding that flipping their classroom, at least for some lessons, has many benefits. However, some parents are resistant to viewing their children’s lessons as videos on YouTube. I spoke with another student who said that the parents in her school district are not happy with the idea and technology being used in a flipped classroom.
I look forward to exploring this topic with you further.
It's funny I am not a student employee and still running to coworkers classrooms to troubleshoot although more frequently now it is to teach them how to turn on the captions for my deaf/hard of hearing students
ReplyDelete