YouTube

YouTube once flooded my inbox with funny videos deemed worthy of forwarding to everyone in my contacts list.  Laughing babies, wedding mishaps, SNL spoofs, and everyday bloopers were the clips that defined what YouTube was - a means of entertainment.  However, it has become so much more than simply a site for entertainment.  It truly has shown its educational value with increasing frequency.  

Miguel Helft, in his New York Times article, "At First Funny Videos. Now, a Reference Tool," states, "The explosion of all types of video content on YouTube and other sites is quickly transforming online video from a medium strictly for entertainment and news into one that is also a reference tool. As a result, video search, on YouTube and across other sites, is rapidly morphing into a new entry point into the Web, one that could rival mainstream search for many types of queries."  

I have used YouTube in my classroom on many occasions as a quick reference for something I am teaching.  When teaching about the ancient Mayan civilization, I found a YouTube clip explaining and demonstrating the famous ball game they played.  It was a brief but perfect accompaniment to our discussion.  I typically show a quick clip from the animated Disney movie The Road to El Dorado to provide a light-hearted and humorous visual for the Mayan ball game, but this year I was unable to get the movie in time.  Sure enough, trusty old YouTube had the clip from the movie ready for my use.  

I have used YouTube clips to teach about Dia de los Muertos, the Great Wall of China, and the traditional practices of the major world religions.  I have shown Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famous "I have a dream..." speech as well as interviews with authors of the books we read. 

I still enjoy the entertainment aspect of YouTube...I mean, you can't really beat a truly funny kid... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM  

However, YouTube in my classroom has truly proven to be a useful tool aiding me as a teacher.  

Wikipedia

When writing research papers with my sixth-grade students, I did not allow them to use Wikipedia as the source of their information. We talked about the fact that because anyone can edit the site, it is not always completely accurate. One student asked, "So is it EVER ok to search for an answer to a question and find it on Wikipedia?" The question was convicting as I reflected on the number of times I have searched for a quick answer, statistic, or fact and found what I was looking for on Wikipedia. How would I answer that question without being a complete hypocrite? What followed was an interesting discussion on the availability of information on the internet. What can you trust as reliable? We practiced searching for the same information using many different sources to see if the information given was consistent. I realized afterwards that a simple conversation about Wikipedia (and my fear that my students would blindly believe potentially inaccurate information) led them to dive even deeper into research.

David Wolman, in his article in Wired Magazine, "The Critics Need a Reboot. The Internet Hasn't Led Us Into a New Dark Age" states, "The explosion of knowledge represented by the Internet and abetted by all sorts of digital technologies makes us more productive and gives us the opportunity to become smarter, not dumber. Think of Wikipedia and its emergent spinoffs, like Wiktionary. Imperfect as they may be, the collective brainpower contained within these kinds of sites — and the hunger for learning and accurate information they represent — is something human history has never known before. (Even Encyclopedia Britannica will soon be accepting user contributions.)"

If students are simply "set free" to use the internet in any capacity, we as educators have no right to complain about the outcomes. Wolman goes on to say, "We need better schools as well as a renewed commitment to reason and scientific rigor so that people can distinguish knowledge from garbage. The Web is not an obstacle in this project. It's an unparalleled tool for generating, finding, and sharing sound information. What's moronic is to assume that it hurts us more than it helps."

I have a renewed commitment and enthusiasm to further my knowledge about and use of the internet WITH my students so that I can use it is a tool as opposed to an opponent.

Books vs. Video games

We all have the grandparents and parents who remember, "In MY day...." and remind us how much better off they were and how the youth today are going astray. "Because of calculators, kids these days can't even count change!" "Kids can't hand write anything anymore because they are only expected to type on the computer." "Kids can't use their imaginations anymore because they no longer listen to the radio...they only watch TV." I must admit, I am guilty of the same thoughts when it comes to video games. We've all heard the argument that video games are ruining our kids' minds.  Our society has blamed video games for everything from violence and lack of socialization to poor test scores and ADHD.  As an English teacher, I want to believe that if kids spent HALF the time they spend immersed in their video games reading a good book, they would be far better off.  I thought I could make a fairly strong case against video games and an even stronger case FOR books.  However, what if I looked at both of them from a different lens? Stephen Johnson, author of Everything That's Bad is Good For You, hypothesizes what we would say about reading had gaming been invented long before reading:

"Reading books chronically understimulates the senses. Unlike the longstanding tradition of gameplaying—which engages the child in a vivid, three-dimensional world filled with moving images and musical sound-scapes, navigated and controlled with complex muscular movements—books are simply a barren string of words on the page. . . .

Books are also tragically isolating. While games have for many years engaged the young in complex social relationships with their peers, building and exploring worlds together, books force the child to sequester him or herself in a quiet space, shut off from interaction with other children. . . .

But perhaps the most dangerous property of these books is the fact that they follow a fixed linear path. You can’t control their narratives in any fashion—you simply sit back and have the story dictated to you. . . . This risks instilling a general passivity in our children, making them feel as though they’re powerless to change their circumstances. Reading is not an active, participatory process; it’s a submissive one."

It seems people of every generation think that the younger generation is worse off than they were. Progress, however, is inevitable. We need to look for the benefits of the changes that occur from one generation to another. Just because it is different...doesn't make it bad.