Using Youtube to Teach

For the past couple of years I've been using Youtube videos in my courses. It's amazing how many useful clips can be found here. With thousands of videos uploaded every day, it's almost too easy to find video content to supplement lectures on almost any topic. And what's even more impressive is the degree to which students will engage with each other when they're talking about a short film clip, a slide show, or even a really good lecture they've seen on Youtube. Of course, the problem becomes how to access and utilize this content for the purposes of your course. A lot of universities and colleges these days have so-called "smart" classrooms that are ready-equipped for audio/visual instruction. But anyone who has ever spent time on Youtube is familiar with the small inset window that displays the videos - not exactly optimal for projecting in front of a classroom, and if you expand to full screen the resolution is so poor when projected that it is difficult to make out the images.

The easiest way I've found for presenting Youtube clips is to use a course blog. By running a course blog and making it a grade-able element of your course, you can add discussion topics, generate discussion between students, extend the reach of the course beyond the classroom itself, and, of course, embed countless relevant films, short video clips, music, pics, etc. As long as you - the teacher - can navigate to the content you want to use somewhere freely on the web, you can pretty much corral it, contextualize it, and have it available for students at their leisure.

You can start a blog with few hassles. If you teach at a University, you might want to check first with the library (usually they manage such things) to see if they provide blogging space and software for instructors. Some do, but most colleges and Universities don't. In that case, start a blog on one of the many free blog sites on the web. There are lots of hosting sites that are completely free and easy to use, including Blogger and WordPress. One word of warning: some students may be loath to participate on a blog that anyone "out there" can read. It's true that even the blog sites set up on University servers with their own blogging utilities will be available for anyone to read who has access to the web. It just goes with the territory. You can allay students' fears, though, by asking them to simply sign all their posts and comments with their initials rather than their names. Presumably you, as the teacher, have their full names in your gradebook and can compare to initials for grading purposes. I have done this in the past and have not had a single complaint about compromising anonymity. Also, most blog sites allow the editor (you) to moderate comments. I've only had to use this feature once when two students who hated each other tried to use the blog as a space to launch personal attacks. I'm sure they were both mildly disappointed when their well-aimed insults were intercepted by me.

Once you have the blog started and have figured out how to write and publish posts, then the leap to embedding videos is really only a small step. First get a post started. Let's say you have students going away for Thanksgiving, and you want them to be thinking about alternative and competing meanings for the holiday - maybe it's a U.S. History since Reconstruction class. Why not have them watch that short video of William S. Burroughs reading his "Thanksgiving Prayer" for a view from the anti-patriotic, cynical beat poet? Introduce the piece however you like, then go to www.youtube.com and do a search for "Burroughs":




Click on the "Thanksgiving Prayer" and the video will start playing in a small window automatically:





Next highlight everything in the "Embed" column and do a right click, "copy" (or Edit, copy for Mac users):




Now, back at your blog, paste what's on your clipboard into wherever in your blog post you want the video to appear. You'll see a bunch of html code like so:



But as soon as you click on "Publish Post," your students will see this:




And now all they have to do is click on Burroughs' face and they have something to discuss on the blog or in class when they return, not to mention a slight sense of unease while they eat turkey. Here's the "Thanksgiving Prayer":