Your Students’ Videos:Learning from YouTube examples

A friend who has written over 20 books indicates that fewer people are turning to books for information; many turn to YouTube. They want to watch and hear about topics. He has watched numerous YouTube videos about his topic and has found that most are severely lacking content. He says that the creators seem to have only a very basic (at best) knowledge of the topic and yet they are creating videos that hundreds are watching. Furthermore, he adds that the creators seem to lack a sense of how this small part fits into the bigger view of the topic. To teach a complex skill takes a multitude of videos and yet the creators have only done a few basic ones which means the viewers cannot proceed in this skill. In addition, they have not presented the information from an experienced view of what to do and what not to do in the topic.

What type videos or podcasts do your students produce? Do they display in-depth knowledge of the topic? Do they produce several videos that take the viewer from the lower levels to the complex levels of thinking about the topic? Do they help the learners to avoid learning pitfalls in the topic? Do they scaffold the learning so that all can succeed? Do they take the learners to the bigger view of the topic?

© Harry Grover Tuttle, 2007

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