Category Archives: Media and Technology Critiques

Let’s learn through watching YouTube!

    Throughout today’s education, there is nothing hesitations about the utilization of technologies. In school environments, computers/laptops and iPads becomes second resources for students to engage through their learning. Comparing with the traditional classroom, calculator was the only one technology allowed. How did such dramatic changes happen in today’s education? In other words, why should we implicate technologies in the education system?
    As you may notices that YouTube is a worldwide social media (except the countries limited). In YouTube, there are plenty of media resources for people to watch based on their personal interests. It has diverse contents and some of them categized by hashtag (like in Instagram) such as, #tvshows; #gaming; #entertainment; #sport; #music; #beauty; #food; #education, etc. According to each category, most media created through the lives and it from what we called Youtubers. We could describe YouTube as a visual commutation platform, which makes connections with the people who watch the lives and videos.
    YouTubers are diverse. They might be the persons who well-educated or the persons who just enjoy for lives. Especially in terms of education, you will see that some YouTubers lives for educating English, Math, Science, etc. One of my favorite YouTubers called Deeva Jessica, a South Korean. She utilized the mystery contents (i.e. ghost, supernatural phenomenon, UFO) to increase the interest in learning English. Honestly, by enjoyed watching her videos, I learned so many vocabularies that I never used in school, as well as to recognized many historical events that I never learned from my social classes. By connecting to my teaching content area, I really encourage students to enjoy the person who teaching in math in this platform because no matter the contents students learned or not, it develops a sensible recognition of mathematical thinking. Also, when students watch videos on YouTube, they could review the contents they already have learned in math class. Similarly, students could learn the contents ahead if the contents itself which haven’t learned yet. Consideration to the students who could not join school community because of certain disabilities, I think watching educational videos are another pathway of learning each subject instead of being present in school.
    In YouTube, you can make comments on the specific media that you want to deliver to that specific Youtuber. Students may leave questions and thoughts about the contents that they watched. Some YouTubers might reply to students or if not, students may share that questions and thoughts into the class! By doing so, students might become one of the YouTubers if they would like to express their thoughts & understanding through the media. For instance, students have a presentation on word problems that I assigned. As we expect, students may present as the creation of poster with colors. But other than that, don’t you think recording video about their presentation is another way to achieve their task, too? It’s realistic about students who they are and how their voice sounds like, as well as how their thinking enlightens to other learners or educators in the YouTube community. Once they upload their video on YouTube, the purpose is not for having the number of likes or comments instead to understand how the others think about the contents that they presented. Of course, the numbers of likes and comments increase students’ self-efficacy of learning and most importantly, I think this is another way to develop students’ own identities, as well as be part of the communication since their thoughts and opinions are valued. Another cool feature in YouTube is the subscribe. If students willing to see more contents about what Youtubers upload, the subscribe button helps students to see more relevant contents in the future.

Let’s chat–Wechat

When you see Chinese people typing on or talking to their cellphones, they are probably using Wechat which is a cross-platform instant messaging service created by Tencent in China and has become world famous with over a billion created accounts as of 2016. The Wechat app can be downloaded for free and is available for many systems including IOS, Android, Blackberry, etc.

Like many other social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, Wechat provides a way to share and express in public. Users can put pictures, type words or do both to share anything with friends, and nobody else can see your posts unless you “allow strangers to see at most ten posts”. Wechat also supports different ways of instant messaging such as texting and sending voice messages which is one of my favorite features of it since it brings a lot of convenience to us.  People can send what they want to say by just pressing a button to talk and releasing it when they finish. Besides, making videos, scanning QR code, adding contacts via other social media, finding friends nearby can also be done though Wechat. In mainland China, even shopping is available by using electronic cards.
Continue reading Let’s chat–Wechat

Texting: not as bad as you think it is

As a student teacher in high school, there is not a single day in class in which I don’t have to ask at least one or two students to stop texting and put their phones away. Although I’d prefer that my students leave their cellphones in their lockers during my class, I understand that the way adolescents communicate has changed. What used to be done orally, today’s teens like to do it by texting. Continue reading Texting: not as bad as you think it is

Make Youtube a learning tool

Youtube is a great entertainment tool and learning tool as well. Everyone can create their own channel, share their videos, and comment on others’. I personally follow some youtubers and some channels to learn English and somethings I can never be exposed to. There are tons of videos in different topics, ranging from entertainment, politics,to education, you name it.
We all know good videos c Continue reading Make Youtube a learning tool

The modern day pen pal

Approaching the topic of youth’s connection with media and technology through a parental lens, I have a conservative stance. I believe that too much technology can negatively affect a child’s ability to create and imagine; to a teenager, the internet serves as an extremely useful tool, however, with its great power comes great responsibility. Continue reading The modern day pen pal