Don’t
know if you guys have seen this one before, but this is a great article that
you should check out and read! It
seems like more and more YouTube has been under fire about being used in school
or not. I am the type of person
who likes using YouTube due to its many features. Along with that, it is my thoughts that YouTube can be used
in a very educational and beneficial way for a child’s schooling.
So
what is all the fuss about blocking it from our schools to keep harmful
material from a child’s eyes?
Since when has the Internet been so vile and despicable that we find it
necessary to keep a useful and educational teaching tool from their use? That seems absurd to me that there is
such a drive to block it when there are countless useful possibilities in an
educational setting.
An
article put out by “State Impact” from 2011 touches base on a lot of the useful
aspects that YouTube allows teachers and students to do. For instance, a teacher can create a
video on something that they are going to cover, and instead of having the kids
come and sit through it, they could watch it on YouTube and come prepared to
class to do an activity and expand on it.
To me this sounds like a great idea to actually reach children on their level
and get them interested in school.
As
talked about in Tina Barseghian’s piece linked at the bottom, YouTube is a way
to access more students. Not just
the ones who are in the classroom but any other that might find it. Isn’t that what education should be
about? Reaching as many students
as possible and broadening their horizon?
That is how I see our educational system, which is why I am a strong
supporter of using videos and especially YouTube in our classrooms for our
students.
Stokes, Kyle. "How YouTube Is
Changing The Classroom." Indiana RSS. State Impact, 11 Oct. 2011.
Web. 16 Apr. 2013.
Barseghian, Tina.
"MindShift." MindShift RSS. KQED, 8 Sept. 2011. Web. 16 Apr.
2013.
I agree with you. There are so many benefits that YouTube can give to students and teachers. Posting a video before class that the students watch is an excellent time saver. Plus, posting a video like you mentioned, can help other learners, but it can also be good for students who were absent. I think YouTube is a great source for students to use and I am all for utilizing it in my future classroom. There are just two concerns that I have about using it, 1) not every student has access to Internet or a device that has Internets at home, and asking that student to be responsible to watch a video outside of class is kind of asking the student for too much; especially since most do not have control on the access they do or do not have; 2) there is a lot of material on YouTube that is not age appropriate for elementary aged students. If every student was able to have access to Internet and if there was a way to block certain videos then I think that more educators would use YouTube in their classrooms.
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