Thing 20

Oh, YouTube, I have wasted countless hours watching videos on you.  One video can quickly turn into 2 which turns into 3 and so on.  Before I know it, I've lost an hour.  Like anything, I think youtube has its place and time.  Overall, I'd say the benefits outweigh the negatives.  At the school where I work, YouTube is blocked, which really limits the ability of teachers to use it in the classroom without converting the videos to files and saving them.  When I taught English in Spain, I had a class of juniors in high school.  Their English teacher wanted me to use videos about current events to work with them on their listening and comprehension skills.  I only saw each class once a week, but on my day with this class, I would bring a video that I had to convert to a file and save.  I don't think YouTube was blocked in their schools, but it was a poor school and the likelihood of us having a computer in the room, let alone internet, was always iffy at best.  I would type up a transcript of the audio and take out words for them to fill in as they listened.  Then, I would come up with questions to have them answer to ensure they understood what they had just watched.  Then, we would talk about the current event in English.  They really liked this activity and by the end of the year, they were able to only watch the video once or twice to get all the information rather than 5 or 6 times like they needed to at the beginning of the year.  I like YouTube because it is really easy to use.   I have the app on my phone which is what I use more than the actual website.  Whenever I want to hear a new song or check out a video I have heard about, I just type some keywords in the search bar, and any and everything related to my terms pops up and the videos almost always load quickly.  I like that when you watch a video, similar or related videos pop up along the side (though this is also one of the dangers of getting on YouTube as you can waste hours looking through multiple videos).

I used Vodio.  I didn't spend a ton of time exploring it, but from what I noticed, it was very similar to YouTube.  I try not to spend much time on YouTube either though.  It was easy to search and navigate through Vodio.  I wonder if this site is also blocked by schools.  If not, that would be a good way to bring videos into the classroom.  I always loved when we watched videos in school (though back then, it was usually a VHS tape and the teacher spent half of the class trying to figure out how to get it to play), and when DVD players made their way into the classroom, things only got worse.  I think videos can help break up the monotony of instruction and get kids interested.  They're also a great way to appeal to visual learners.  Providing kids, especially younger ones, with a concrete visual example of whatever you're talking about is always a good thing.  Videos can help clear up confusion and misconceptions.  Vodio was easy to search and advertises that it keeps track of what you watch to help make suggestions about other related videos that may be of interest.  I think YouTube does this as well.  This would be a helpful feature.  If you were teaching a topic, you could find a video to share with the class.  Then, more videos that are related may be suggested to you, providing you with more resources to share with your class.

I picked this video from YouTube, "Things Teachers Lie About", because I thought it was funny.  How many of those lies did we hear as students?  The biggest one that stuck out to me in this video was that if you study hard and get good grades, you'll get a good job.  I heard that at school my whole life and what a joke it was.  I was a great student.  I worked hard in high school and college.  I graduated from both with honors and never got below a B.  Ever.  What a waste of effort all of that turned out to be.  I graduated with no job and no direction.  I went to Spain for a year to try to figure things out, and that's how I ended up here.  This is NOT the way I pictured things going in my life.  By this age, I thought I would have things together and already have a decent job.  Boy, was I wrong!