Friday, August 7, 2015

Utilizing YouTube to Teach Students and Enabling Them to Develop into Creators of Their Own Content




Although I've been following this channel for awhile, I wanted to share this resource with my fellow education bloggers in case they were unaware of it.  Crash Course on YouTube is a great resource for educators and students alike.  Brothers John and Hank Green of Vlogbrothers fame, and now Craig aka WheezyWaiter, present fun, informational videos about a variety of subjects including Economics, Astronomy, U.S. Government and Politics, Anatomy and Physiology, World History, Psychology, Chemistry, and U.S. History.

What I like about these videos is they provide interesting colorful animations, insert a touch of humor here and there, and often relate their topics back to modern day concerns and events.  The hosts are very personable and keep the videos lively and interesting.  The videos are also about 6-14 minutes in length, just enough to keep your students focused and not have them glance at their smartphones every minute.

After showing these videos in class, instructors can ask their students to make their own "Crash Course" videos as a possible assignment.  Instructors can either assign or have their students choose a topic within their current unit and ask the students to write a script for their video. Then, they could use Office Mix (free from Microsoft), Adobe Captivate, or other types of software to create and narrate their own videos to share with the class, and possibly upload the videos later to YouTube.  If uploading to YouTube, instructors need to make sure that no identifiable information is present.

Have you done anything like this with your class?  Let me know in the comments below.

No comments:

Post a Comment