#12 YouTube experience & lesson plans

[Steve Gibbs]

Part #1: Describe your experiences learning and using YouTube (or TeacherTube or SchoolTube) video stream sharing services. If you have been using video streaming services before this class, share what you use them for. Share a few examples by providing links. Do you have any problems, questions, or suggestions for others?

Part #2: Create two lesson plan ideas that could use video streaming in the classroom.

[amyy]

I frequently use youtube in class. One suggestion I would have it to make sure it works at your school. If it doesn't, ask if you can get your tech person to override the filter.

Youtube has been great to use in both of my classes. I've showed primary footage of World War II leaders giving speeches and debates on the floor of Congress. The students really get engaged with short video clips from youtube.

My students create videos in Civics class and I've often thought of having them post them to youtube. It would be a fast, easy way to show them to the class when we do a class viewing and it would be fun for other classes to see them. But, I think there is a problem with requiring students to post them and this might be a time where I would send out parental consent forms.

[lsnourse]

Like Amy I now (now that it has been unblocked) use Youtube videos to highlight or illustrate various topics and science concepts.

I have reservations about encouraging my middle school students to upload to youtube. There are the parental concerns that would require consent forms. At the moment it has been working well to have students create content and email it to me for sharing.

[lauren]

Youtube has a terrific number of videos that highlight, enhance, elaborate on specific science topics.

Lesson plan: Ask students to find relevant video on current course of study and email me the link for sharing with the class.

I hesitate to ask student to create videos and upload to youtube - I would require that I review the content first and of course my students are too young to post without parental permissions.

[Megan Gerdts]

YouTube offers amazing videos on almost everything you could imagine. At my school, it is blocked and I am the tech person, so I need to get on it and email the district for the password to open it up.

There are many concepts that would be greatly enhanced by a YouTube video as it presents a visual that students may not have had. My roommate has downloaded a program that will allow you to burn a DVD of a YouTube video. This is one way that I have made it possible to use these short videos in my classroom, but it is annoying and time consuming to watch and burn it at home, just to bring it into my classroom.

For classroom use and lessons, I hesitate to have kids give me sites without previewing them, so I would probably have them email me the link before we watch them as a class. There are many great "how to" videos relating to everyday activities. One of the writing assignments that we do is writing directions. I'd love to have the students watch the video, then write a detailed essay describing HOW to do a specific process. I would then read the paper to the class and watch the video to see how detailed the writer got.

Another lesson would be to simply find an interesting video that explains a scientific process or concept that is unclear to the student. It would allow me to create a database of great videos, but also allow the students to clarify misunderstandings.

[erlyn]

I haven't had the opportunity to use Youtube in the classroom - yet! I think it has many possibilities. There are some wonderful "how-to" videos, so students can see how to do virtually almost everything. There are some great videos to use to show a lot of literary devices: theme, plot sequencing, character growth, symbolism, etc... You just have to willing to filter through and pick the appropriate ones to show.

I am not sure how much of buy-in I would have from parents of 6th graders, so I would definitely be the one filtering through what is appropriate. I don't think many parents would want me to assign their child to look on youtube for videos. I could try.

I also have some students who post videos on youtube. Maybe some extra credit could be assigned to the students who post their appropriate videos (with specific guidelines that I am looking for - ie: make a video about the eight parts of speech) and we show it to the class.

[kellyh]

I have used YouTube in the classrom on a number of occasions. I love the fact that I can find footage of practically every current event, as well as noteable events from the past. I used YouTube to show Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech to my fourth graders. Many of them had heard the audio of the speech, but few had actually seen footage. I also used it to show Lou Gehrig's famous farewell speech after we had read a story of the famous Yankee.

Like other have mentioned, I am not sure how much buy in I would get from parents of fourth graders to allow them to post their own videos on the site, and I am not sure how appropriate I myself find it for students of this age. One downside to using Youtube is the fact that you need to really filter through videos that are classroom appropriate. Perhaps utilizing schooltube for student work would be more appropriate.

[brandys]

I have found so many great videos for language arts, science, social studies, and even math on YouTube. I have been even more excited by the content I have found on TeacherTube and SchoolTube and how it is directly related to what we are doing with the curriculum. My students are too young to post videos without parent consent, but with permission I know the kids would love to see themselves on the internet showing off a science experiment or performing a play. We could make different videos for the end of lessons or units of study and then create a type of video portfolio for the end of the year. I think it would be fun to show some of those videos to the next class of students as well, or create a sampler video for Open House.