YouTube in the Classroom: Bringing Old Subjects to New Life

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YouTube in the Classroom Bringing Old Subjects
to New Life

• Kristine Larsen
• Physics-Earth Sciences
• CCSU

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Users of online communities 2006 Persons of the
Year
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Net Geners learn differently

• Traditional lectures bore them
• They prefer video, audio, and interactive media
  to reading
• They dont want to learn material they deem
  irrelevant to their personal life/interests/major/
  career goals

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Benefits of using YouTube videos in the classroom

• Theyre short
• Theyre free
• Theyre interesting
• Theyre current and reflect current events
• Many are eyewitness videos of important and/or
  catastrophic events

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They make the foreign relevant and personal
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Warning!

• YouTube should not be an electronic babysitter or
  time-filler
• (remember filmstrips?)

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Web 2.0 harnesses the stupidity of crowds as
well as its wisdom. Some of the comments on
YouTube make you weep for the future of humanity
just for the spelling alone Lev Grossman, Time
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How can we integrate YouTube into the curriculum?

• As part of a lecture to illustrate a concept
• As a prompt for discussion or inclass writing
• Ancillary material linked on a course website
• Homework where students find a YouTube video and
  write an analysis of the content
• Creative capstone students make their own videos

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Now, the entertainment portion of this mornings
presentation

• Mt St Helens
• Tornado
• Plate tectonics
• Hurricane Katrina
• LHC Rap