YouTube

YouTube is a resource site where you can host, tag and share videos. If you want to use a video, you can either link to it on the YouTube site or embed it into a web page or blog. It is therefore a useful resource of user-generated video content (1).

In learning contexts YouTube is a valuable resource that provides students with the ability to listen and learn from some of the best educators in the world from the comfort of their desktop computer. This learning can take place anywhere and at anytime, both at home and at school.

Having upgraded from dial-up to broadband internet in the past year I increasingly find myself turning to YouTube as a source of information to reaffirm my findings and/or increase my knowledge on certain topics. As a visual learner I am better engaged using videos for learning rather than reading through pages and pages of information.

There is also endless potential for teachers who choose to use YouTube as a teaching aid. I sourced the following video from YouTube which focuses on the topic of cyber bullying. The video is humourous and short and I feel that it would appeal to today's students because the message is established fairly quickly and the video is visually appealing and professionally developed. I would use this particular video as an introductory feature to spark discussion on the issue of cyber bullying and what students think the major differences are between cyber bullying and non-cyber bullying



References
1)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube

REFLECTIONS
Have you ever used YouTube for learning? How? and would you recommend it?