YouTube has been a popular modality in the classroom for much of my academic life. Particularly through my study of history, I find YouTube very helpful. Throughout my history classes from middle school through to college so far, I’ve gotten so much out of watching and listening to former presidents speak, for example. When I started learning about the Cold War in eighth grade, the subject came to life for me, as I was being shown some of Reagan’s famous speeches or interactions with Gorbachev. My teacher was also able to show us music from the 60s-80s protesting the Cold War. YouTube is very convenient for both students and teachers. Teachers no longer have to rent or buy a specific film, video or CD in advance, and students with Internet have full access to anything the teacher shows in class. With that being said, not all students have Internet access at home and many who do have to share with multiple people. This puts many students at an unfair disadvantage from the start.
Another positive use of YouTube in an adolescent classroom would be for research. When I had to do research projects or papers throughout high school, we typically had to find written primary source documents from databases approved by the school. Though written documents are one important form of a historical source, videos can be helpful and fun as well. During my first semester of college, I wrote a research paper and gave a presentation about United States public schools and No Child Left Behind. I was excited to be able to use a video of an Obama speech. I would have loved to have had that opportunity from my teachers in middle and high school, because it brings a little more life to topics or assignments that kids may find boring.
A feature I love on YouTube is the ability to play a video in different speeds: 0.25x, 0.5x, 0.75x, normal, 1.25x, 1.5x, and 2x. For students viewing an educational video at home, they can view it in whatever speed they’re most comfortable with. This feature can be helpful for students who speak English as a second language or learn at a different speed than others. There is also a feature to view closed captioning on a video, though there’s still much room for improvement from YouTube.
One issue, however, with using YouTube to learn is that it can be easy to lose focus. Whether I’m using the site for study or leisure, YouTube’s column of recommended videos on the right side of the screen sends me down a “rabbit hole” of videos, sometimes for hours. I’ll start out with one topic or focus and end up watching something completely unrelated to the original focus. This could hurt kids who may already have difficulty staying focused.
Although YouTube can also be used for students to post videos of presentations or projects, an obvious issue with that would be adolescents’ self-consciousness, low self esteem, or bullying. When I was in sixth grade ten years ago, everyone in the class was assigned to create their own civilization and talk about it in a video. I used quick cuts to create and act as two characters: an interviewer and interviewee. Though I enjoyed making the video for myself, I ended up feeling self conscious about my changing appearance and social awkwardness in front of the camera. In hindsight, I’m glad that that video was made on a DVD that only I had, rather than being on YouTube where students could easily download it. With all the cyber bullying that goes on through social media these days, I wouldn’t be surprised if kids would download someone’s YouTube video to make fun them. A possible solution would be for students to post their YouTube videos as private, so only the teacher would be able to view it and show it to the class. However, even when a YouTube video is set to private or unlisted, a tech-savvy person would probably be able to find it.
The way you’ve critiqued YouTube is absolutely perfect (in my opinion) for your content and purposes. I had no idea you could determine the speed of a video!!! I knew about the captions options and the cutting/editing choice, but have never picked up on anything to do with its speed. Thank you for sharing that!! I think you brought up a really good point about the “black hole” though that YouTube users can easily fall into, adults and students alike. That’s absolutely something you would have to watch out for. Something else I have personally found difficult when using YouTube (as a professional) is that amount of time I spend searching for the “right” video. I think using videos in a history or social studies class significantly helps students contextualize the lesson and build their schema….the problem using the same tool in a Spanish class (in my case), especially for beginning learners, is that it’s hard to find level-appropriate material. Now that I know I can slow down the speaking, I may re-evaluate it. It could also just be that I suck at searching for videos…because that may be a huge possibility. Anyway, great ideas!
I also chose YouTube for my media of choice, but it is really interesting to read your post through the lens of a social studies teacher. Being a math learner and teacher, I only ever used YouTube as a way to re-watch lectures or view different ways of solving a problem. I never thought about how powerful YouTube could be for a social studies classroom! Of course, using it to watch historical speeches, interviews, newscasts, even entire documentaries and videos that people themselves have recorded first-hand of different events. The platform is so rich in historical information, and I find that especially with history, watching it is even more powerful than reading about it. The videos help the students step back into time in a way. I really appreciate you bringing this up in your post.
Of course, I also agree about the distractions–even I am guilty of that. It is definitely a skill that students need to practice of staying focused on the task at hand!