The case for youtube and blogs

There has been some hard lines drawn in our district against students and teachers having access to youtube and blogs at least for a year now.

This is just folly. If you ask me.

Now, I'm well aware that one can use zamzar as a way to convert youtube videos into .mov or .wmv files to then download to your computer (at home) and then transfer to your school computer and use.

This has worked for me, but it's cumbersome. And it hogs memory on your school computer.

If we could access youtube from school, we could just stream the videos via the internet without having to download them.

It also seems hypocritical to allow presenters who come into our district to show youtube videos - the firewall must be disabled across the district for this - when those people have nothing to do with our students. Why not give teachers, who are in front of the students every single day and working our arses off to engage and connect with students, the ability to access youtube?

The biggest area where youtube access would be beneficial is the simple spontaneity of teaching. This happens all the time at our MNHS workshops. For instance, we were discussing the Great Depression. Then the presenter goes on line to youtube and shows us some videos from that time period. Not only are we engaged, but our learning and subject matter is enhanced as well. And this leads me - with my MacBook to see what else is on there and soon I'm finding several interesting videos that engage and enhance what I'm learning.

How often - honestly - can we use those two verbs (engage and enhance) in our classrooms? Not often enough!

I can envision discussing some topic or period in class - say the American Revolution or American Gothic writers - and then turn to youtube to see what we can find.

Or there are times when we are discussing stories in class and I'll realize that there I can make a reference to a historical event or even pop culture film or show and wish I could play it for the kids to make that connection clear. Youtube allows us to do that.

For example, I've referenced this clip in class several times when talking about the importance of clearly understanding a question and trying to envision all the different ways someone may interpret what you have written.



But nothing is as effective as being able to quickly show that clip to drive the point home for students.

Another benefit would be that students could upload their projects - whether they are iMovies or Keynote presentations - right to youtube. That would save me having to lug my portable hardrive around and hog up space on that. Then the next day we could watch all of the videos on youtube in class. Students would also be able to comment on each other's work and to get feedback from anyone around the world. Someone's grandmother in Idaho could log on and watch their granddaughter's work in her English class. How cool would that be?

Here's an example from my Science Fiction class two years ago where students had to read a novel outside of class and then produce a 90 second iMovie 'trailer' for it -



Now, the project is not without its minor flaws (much of that is due to iMovie's grainy resolution at time and too much text being crammed into a few slides), but to see a sophomore create (and isn't that skill at the top of Bloom's Taxonomy? How often do we allow our students to really create? Not nearly enough!) is brilliant. This remains one of the highlights from that year.

Just look at the feedback she gets? Isn't that what publishing is all about?

Now, I know youtube has a few inappropriate things on it. Sure it's a pain to have to monitor students. But - as one administrator said recently - what's stopping a kid from pulling out his BlackBerry in school and looking at inappropriate sites?

I know it's not without its faults, but I think the benefits of using youtube in school far outweigh the negatives.

Now on to blogs.

I think these go hand in hand with youtube. Look how I easily embedded two youtube videos into this blog.

Many schools, such as the one my former student, Luke Erickson, teaches (click here for his blog used for school purposes) at use blogs as extensions of the classroom.

This makes perfect sense to me.

I would love nothing more than to design a blog like this one for a novel or unit. And I just dreamed that assignment up in about five minutes. Imagine what we could do as a staff if we had some training or common prep time to really generate some ideas!

Additionally, I'd love to charge each student with keeping their own blog for my class. I'd have students read each other's blog and offer feedback. Now this would be tricky with permissions and screening feedback, but it could be done.

I'd also use blogs to have students do hypertext writing (that is the writing of the future). If you don't know what hypertext writing is, it's the type of writing that is used on wikipedia where you have certain keywords in your writing that work as links to other sources or other pieces of writing that you have done. My blog on the Ostfront is a type of hypertext writing.

In fact, more and more webpages are going to this. Just look at a newspaper column on-line and they'll include text that is linked to other stories or issues.

In fact, Leopard's new dictionary on my MacBook is almost total hypertext writing. That means if I look up a word - let's say supercilious - then the definition, which is behaving or looking as though one thinks one is superior to others, then if I move my cursor over any of the words or phrases in that definition, those words or phrases then become highlighted, signaling that I can click on them and get their definition!

This would allow students to bring in all types of media and formats. Talk about depth and meaning!