Conclusions on Youtube

Your students are already using Youtube.  Maybe they are taping their shenanigans in the cafeteria when no one is looking, making slide shows of their favorite boy band, taping an after-school fight or a video blog.

Teachers can use the tools Youtube offers without allowing their students to slum through the less savory portions.  Journalism classes can allow students to cheaply and effectively distribute their newscasts, English classes can have students stage Shakespeare scenes, language classes can have students post video blogs to video pen-pals on different continents and math teachers can tape their classes and post them up so students can watch old lectures before the test but what is the role in the library?

Students could create video-blog book reviews of their favorite books, book club discussions can be taped and posted up for later reference and other schools can be partnered with for video exchanges, allowing students to teach one another from all over the state, country and world.

And I’m just warming up.

A chair is a fine device for sitting on but you could also pick one up and hurt someone with it.  Youtube is no different.  It has to be used in an appropriate manner and it has to be monitored but not using it is like keeping a pencil unsharpened because we fear students might stick their finger in the pencil sharpener.

Good luck and please post ideas and feedback below.