Judging the quality of Wikis and Non-vetted sites
You Tube (Teacher)
I absolutely love You tube. I know that many things are posted to you tube that are inappropriate, but there are many videos on you tube that are very appropriate. When I was at my old school I used you tube because we did not have a curriculum. If I needed a video on main idea, compound words or even rounding I was able to find it on You tube. You tube gives you a variety of videos to choose from and we as educators need to view the video before showing it to our students to make sure it is appropriate.
You Tube (Student)
We need to be careful when letting students view You tube videos on their own. I am not really sure at what age is appropriate to let students view videos on their own, it really depends on the maturity level of your students. Some of my 4th graders would be able to find a video on you tube and view it for a lesson and others would need to be monitored closely.
Do I think school districts should block you tube? No
Wikis and Non-Vetted Sites
I am not really familiar with Wikis. I did create my own classroom wiki and it was a lot of fun. I look at Wikis as a clean canvas ready for you to paint it with your own content, and for me that works. You can have students create their own wikis and they would definitely enjoy doing it while learning. As teachers we always need to monitor our students. If we set firm guidelines and rules most students will follow and begin to view education differently.
School districts not blocking You Tube??? For student use? Oh yeah, I work at a middle school and if these kids had access to You Tube, when they are supposed to be doing other computer work, that is where they would be. You can not monitor 30 computers at once, even with Teacher spy. There are times when you are directly helping one student and the others will take advantage, there are just too many videos that are inappropriate at school. Maybe it is the difference between elementary and middle, but I would never allow You Tube in school. As far as their using it at home whether it be for school or personal, then it is up to the parents.
ReplyDeleteI feel that if you model the behavior and zero tolerance for not being on task it will work. If you give them a specific website to view, and a writing assignment that goes along with the video, they wont have time to play around and get on other sites. If we begin to say "oh no they cant handle this or that" aren't we lowering our expectations?
ReplyDeleteYouTube is definitely a tricky one. As you have stated, it has a lot to offer, especially the educational version (http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3yA8nDwraeOfnYfBWun83g). As long as schools are monitoring content that students are viewing and limiting access, I see no issue with allowing them to use YouTube.
ReplyDeleteI agree that with appropriate monitoring, YouTube could be a valuable source for the students to use. Even if that means the teacher trying to help students search for videos on YouTube, I don't think it should be blocked.
ReplyDelete