We must educate the students we have, not the student we used to have, nor the student we wished we had. We must adapt to today's student, not them adapting to us. We must adapt to their world of today's 21st century technology. We cannot teach like we've taught forever anymore. We must change ourselves to adapt to their world.
Today's student is the millennial, born 1982-2000. They are the first networked generation. They are hyper-communicators and must "power down" just to go to school.
One way that we can reach them is through YouTube. The world is changing and our own standards must change in order to move forward.
Students are writing short blurbs and video-taping their lives. Are lengthy documents even necessary anymore? Today's student has grown up in a very visual environment and loves it.
You can have students to:1) Find YouTube videos that relate to classroom topics.
2) You can have them to create their own videos, perhaps in the form of a video "manual" for a project they've created.
Here are some good videos and/or idea topics to search for on the http://www.youtube.com/ site. Be creative in how you can use them in your classroom. One instructor, I heard, starts class EVERY DAY with a YouTube video.
- Evolution of Dance
- Treadmill Dance
- Mom Overture
- Tom Rush
- Idea 3D Manuals
- Playstation 3 Manuals
- Windows Vista and the Graphics Processor (commercial, but good info)
- What are the pieces? Howstuffworks video
- Death by PowerPoint
- http://www.letheonline.net/
- http://www.warriorsofthe.net/
- Defragging
- Privacy & Security, Oh My
- Personal Privacy - Think Before You Post by Ad Council)
- Civil Liberties Union (Pizza Surveilance)
- Big Brother Watching
- Securing a Wireless Router
- War driving
- Lewis Black - End of Universe
Project Ideas:
Require YouTube to be incorporated into student PowerPoints (this can be embedded)--- (objectives met, see below):
- They will pick up knowledge while surfing
- Will help them to learn how to refine search techniques
- Research in moving/living color
Have students create their own YouTube video
- Can be uploaded to private side or distributed to general public
- Will allow students to receive feedback from others, not just their instructor
- Have them view the video named "Video Tutorial 1 part 1 (windows movie maker)" on YouTube
Have students to create a blog and embed a YouTube video into the blog.
- They will improve their writing skills while having fun with video and/or audio creations.
YouTube Alternatives:
What do students need to get started?
- Digital camera, web cam, or cell phone
- Audio files/narration with good microphone for narration
- Windows MovieMaker (freebie with Windows Vista operating system) or equivalent software
- A little bit of time and creativity
- YouTube account