Hi there!
And finally I found a video on YouTube that reveals something about me: my love for the sea and my romantic nature! This video shows where I spent the most beautiful holidays of my life. It was in Sardinia in summer 2006 (Arcipelago de La Maddalena: Budelli and Spargi islands) and that memorable and lovely landscapes are still intact in my heart…Now I can only dream of them!
I'm sure you'll love it too!
Elena
Visualizzazione post con etichetta video. Mostra tutti i post
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domenica 25 novembre 2007
Dreaming of the sea...
Language Learning -YouTube or not YouTube: that's the question!
(photo source) Hi everybody,
This time I’ll delight you with a post about…YOUTUBE!!! By the way, before speaking about how it can be exploited for language learning, I’d like to share with you some data I gathered both from rev2.org and from a video on YouTube. Founded by three young PayPal employees in February 2005, YouTube is a free service that lets users upload, share, and view video clips. The first video ever was published in April 2005, and now there are, on average, more than 65,000 uploads and 100 million videos being watched daily; with 30 million visitors per month, it is the fourth most visited website in the world!
Hence, there’s clear evidence that YouTube is one of the greatest things Web 2.0 is offering us: YouTube is changing, or rather increasing, the ways we experience the world! Geographical, social, cultural boundaries have been knocked out and, thanks to YouTube, you can easily upload videos and let anyone in the world know something about you. Moreover, you can watch videos about things, events, places, TV programmes, conferences, ads, people from any country, comment them, or even start discussions about any topic: from politics to gossip, from sports to music, from religion to education,…It’s so amazing, nearly unbelievable! What’s even more startling is that it’s entirely generated by users! It’s us who decide what YouTube looks like, i.e. its content!
I was wondering if ‘Its Majesty YouTube’ :-) can be of help for language learners and education in general. Since I’m a bit sceptical, my answer is: “Yes, but with some restrictions!”. Let’s begin saying why YouTube can be an educational tool: in YouTube (mainly under categories like ‘Howto & Style’, ‘News & Politics’, or in TeacherTube) you can find a lot of videos, presentations, lectures, and tutorials useful in order to learn more about a subject (maths, science, geometry, IT, social sciences, etc.) or how to do something, such as creating a blog with Blogger or uploading a YouTube video.
As far as language learning is concerned, YouTube is an unlimited resource for language acquisition; i.e. you can listen to all kinds of spoken language (formal, neutral, informal) and genres (comic sketches, songs, parodies, debates, political speeches, talk shows, lectures, everyday dialogues,...) and, thus, learn a lot of vocabulary too. I assume, however, that the main and only edge of YouTube over podcasts is that you can watch (and not only listen to) clips; this helps memorize and hold your attention high. In addition, YouTube offers quite a lot of authoritative presentations about Web 2.0 tools applied to education and language learning, or video lessons to learn English, such as EF PodEnglish videos. I also think that creating a discussion group around a video (see the one I did in my English course this week) is a good and fresh way to practice English since students have to develop skills such as arguing in a public context that goes beyond class boundaries.
However, exploring YouTube allowed me to know its negative aspects as well. I found out very vulgar, filthy, or simply stupid videos, and this made me cut back my trust in it as an educational tool. As an English teacher, either of a primary school or high school, I’d never suggest my students to use it freely for their self-learning. It’s too dangerous! The best way a teacher can use it is to download a given video and propose it to students in order to start discussions. Anyway, I quite agree on using it freely for students at university level since it’s assumed they’re critical enough to choose what videos can be helpful or not for their language learning. What do you think?
Bye,
Elena
This time I’ll delight you with a post about…YOUTUBE!!! By the way, before speaking about how it can be exploited for language learning, I’d like to share with you some data I gathered both from rev2.org and from a video on YouTube. Founded by three young PayPal employees in February 2005, YouTube is a free service that lets users upload, share, and view video clips. The first video ever was published in April 2005, and now there are, on average, more than 65,000 uploads and 100 million videos being watched daily; with 30 million visitors per month, it is the fourth most visited website in the world!
Hence, there’s clear evidence that YouTube is one of the greatest things Web 2.0 is offering us: YouTube is changing, or rather increasing, the ways we experience the world! Geographical, social, cultural boundaries have been knocked out and, thanks to YouTube, you can easily upload videos and let anyone in the world know something about you. Moreover, you can watch videos about things, events, places, TV programmes, conferences, ads, people from any country, comment them, or even start discussions about any topic: from politics to gossip, from sports to music, from religion to education,…It’s so amazing, nearly unbelievable! What’s even more startling is that it’s entirely generated by users! It’s us who decide what YouTube looks like, i.e. its content!
I was wondering if ‘Its Majesty YouTube’ :-) can be of help for language learners and education in general. Since I’m a bit sceptical, my answer is: “Yes, but with some restrictions!”. Let’s begin saying why YouTube can be an educational tool: in YouTube (mainly under categories like ‘Howto & Style’, ‘News & Politics’, or in TeacherTube) you can find a lot of videos, presentations, lectures, and tutorials useful in order to learn more about a subject (maths, science, geometry, IT, social sciences, etc.) or how to do something, such as creating a blog with Blogger or uploading a YouTube video.
As far as language learning is concerned, YouTube is an unlimited resource for language acquisition; i.e. you can listen to all kinds of spoken language (formal, neutral, informal) and genres (comic sketches, songs, parodies, debates, political speeches, talk shows, lectures, everyday dialogues,...) and, thus, learn a lot of vocabulary too. I assume, however, that the main and only edge of YouTube over podcasts is that you can watch (and not only listen to) clips; this helps memorize and hold your attention high. In addition, YouTube offers quite a lot of authoritative presentations about Web 2.0 tools applied to education and language learning, or video lessons to learn English, such as EF PodEnglish videos. I also think that creating a discussion group around a video (see the one I did in my English course this week) is a good and fresh way to practice English since students have to develop skills such as arguing in a public context that goes beyond class boundaries.
However, exploring YouTube allowed me to know its negative aspects as well. I found out very vulgar, filthy, or simply stupid videos, and this made me cut back my trust in it as an educational tool. As an English teacher, either of a primary school or high school, I’d never suggest my students to use it freely for their self-learning. It’s too dangerous! The best way a teacher can use it is to download a given video and propose it to students in order to start discussions. Anyway, I quite agree on using it freely for students at university level since it’s assumed they’re critical enough to choose what videos can be helpful or not for their language learning. What do you think?
Bye,
Elena
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