Things # 12 & 13 Discovering and Using You Tube

YouTube is a powerful tool in education.  As I often say " if a picture is worth a thousand words, then how many words is a video worth?"  It's use is beyond comparison to most other forms.  What I like best about YouTube is its ease of use. Almost everyone who uses the Internet has seen a video from YouTube.  I have even heard students and teachers refer to a video as a YouTube just like we do with Kleenex.   I choose a YouTube of  Dr. Tina Seelig at Stanford. She teaches a course on innovation and entrepreneurial thinking. Since I first saw this video, I have sought out several more of her.  I find myself asking how I can use her message to instill persistence in our students.

An assignment from my tool box is to ask students to define a certain idea, word, process, or object by using a YouTube video.  For example define how mirrored triangles can be used to show the height of a three story building in feet and you can't leave the ground.  Well this was such a common task that I found dozens of videos.  Some were terrible and some were good and a few were excellent.  Then next time I proposed this assignment,  I suggested students to find three good videos and a fourth excellent one.  Then to write a paragraph about why one stood out from the other.  So in the tool box goes, define an item with there good videos, and one great video, then write what stands out, that made the fourth so much better.


For a new twist, make your own video.  With almost any digital camera sold today, you are able to record at least 720 P video.  Or you can take still pictures like I have done here and create a video of those pictures.

YouTube makes video easy.  Once you create a log in and password, you are able to up load you video file.  Youtube then indicates where that video is located. For example HTTP://youtu.be/uF7W7DeY3Jo is the actual address for the video on the left. YouTube also has a B blogger icon that sends the video straight to your blogg and creates a new live post or a hidden edit ready post.  With blogger.com you can also use the insert video command and choose youtube as a source for your video file.

Video is so easy to use that teachers ought to create lessons that create alternative mapping routes in the brain to where the brain has stored the information you want them to remember.  Think TPACK and think pedagogically as you create a lessons around video.  The Tina Seelig video above has taught me about innovation and creativity.  Her lesson is easier for me to remember than the same out line if it were printed.