Using YouTube material in your classes

Free video resources that can enhance learning

We teach at a distributed university. As teachers, we use a combination of technologies and methodologies to reach our students. These tend to consist of whatever we have selected in terms of books or multimedia material, and whatever presentations we provide and conversations we have via whatever online media channels we have decided to use. The reality is that we learn best when we have options for presentations, follow-up and support. Everyone learns at least slightly differently. Providing a number of ways to address the same material can be helpful for students.

Using YouTube for teaching and learning

Distributed social media (media that anyone can create and distribute) has a bad name in academia that is not entirely deserved. YouTube is a good case in point. Sure, there’s lots of goofy, unintelligible and just plain wrong stuff on YouTube. But there is also some great stuff too. A focused search for an academic topic reveals that many professors post lectures and, more importantly, short presentations about specific topics that you and your students might find helpful.

Searching for statistical significance

For example, a concept that is important to many of us is “statistical significance.” I searched YouTube recently and found a number of academic mini-lessons (generally 4- 9 minutes in length) taught by professors from a number of universities that explained this concept. Again, what is important is the range of explanations that are available, expanding the possibility that one will connect with you.

I liked this 8-minute mini-lesson created by Dr. Tim Urdan, author of Statistics in Plain English. You might prefer this 5-minute explanation from Educate Virtually about the p value. In fact, Educate Virtually provides a number of free mini lessons via YouTube about concepts in statistics that you might find helpful as supplemental material for your students.

Hold the pizzazz. All of these presentations are short on media glitz, which is fine with me. I just wanted a clear, focused explanation. And that's what I got.

But it is not peer reviewed. Neither are most lectures. What these YouTube presentations are, however, is created by credible people, with credentials, which you and your students can then peer review. Like any information source, it should be critiqued.

Ideas for learning

This opens up many possibilities, including:

• Asking students to review presentations on topics from a class you are teaching, comparing and contrasting your text with what they watched. Their final product could be a critical presentation about what they saw on YouTube.

• Asking students to post their own short explanations of a concept on YouTube. Most recent laptops have built-in mics and video cameras that make this very possible. I recommend one shot, no editing. Production values are not the point here.

• Posting mini-lessons yourself on YouTube on particular topics that you find your students are having a difficult time with. I often do this in direct response to questions about topics that cluster in certain areas. A side benefit is that students from other universities will be able to benefit from the posting as well.

YouTube is now my first stop when I want a quick explanation about something, whether about statistical significance, how to do something in Photoshop or even salmon filleting techniques. After all those years in Alaska, I thought my filleting skills were pretty good. Yet, the author of a YouTube video I watched showed me some tricks I never knew before.

Other good sources

There are other great sources that you also might like to know about.

Academic Earth. This features video lectures from elite universities.

National Science Digital Library. I went directly to the psychology section.

( These are from, "Ten great sites with free teacher resources," an article in eSchool by Jenna Swang (http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/02/18/ten-great-sources-of-free-teacher-resources/2/?)