Monday 22 December 2014

YouTube


What the resource is, how it works, what you need to make it work

YouTube is a website where you can upload, watch and share videos. You can watch all kind of videos such as music videos, movies, TV series and educational videos. The website is free to use, however, YouTube is financed through advertising and video commercials. Users and companies that are uploading videos on YouTube provide the content and foundation of the website.

When entering YouTube you search for what you are looking for and receive a result containing a list of videos. Next to the presented result you will also see similar videos that may interest you depending on search words and previous activity on the website.

In order to use YouTube you need a device connected to Internet. The device can be a mobile phone, tablet or computer.


How the resource can be used by teachers

I’m working as a teacher in a British school in Madrid and we are using YouTube in our education. The children I teach are three years old and it can be a challenge for me to keep them focused and interested. YouTube is a good resource for me to use because it does have educational videos that I can show the children. I always start my lessons with a circle time when I show the children videos from YouTube. It can be everything from weather songs to videos about counting numbers.   


How the resource can be used by pupils

Since I have very young children its important that everything we do is fun so they don’t get tiered and bored.  My pupils like songs and music, and that’s why it’s convenient to use YouTube as an educational resource.

The children are singing a long with the video and by doing that they learn how to pronounce words in the song. Some of the songs we find on YouTube also include counting from one to ten, which is a fun way for the children to learn counting.


Other considerations when using this resource

I believe that using YouTube videos with audio is a good way of learning because you can watch and hear at the same time and it makes it easier to learn instead of only reading or listening. 


Beatrice Schelin 



2 comments:

  1. There is so much inspiration for lessons for small children on You tube! You can learn new songs, poems, chants and also listen to the melody and watch the motions that comes along. I´m sure it´s easier to capture the children's interest with the help of a computer with its pictures but the risk is perhaps that the computer gets all the attention instead of focusing on the social interaction, the different sounds in the chants, the delicate movements or whatever goal you had with your lesson in the first place.
    When I started go to the open preschool I was almost a bit disappointed. The preschool teachers used a CD player and played the songs in the lessons. I don´t think it's too much to ask for that the preschool teachers know simple children songs by heart and manage to capture their interest with their voice, little hand dolls or instruments instead.
    If you use YouTube with older children in school I believe that it´s very important to have a clear goal with the lesson, with clear instructions and limited time. If not it´s easy that the time on You tube just becomes an entertaining time killer.
    In several You tube clip the sound quality is not so good and it´s difficult to hear the exact word or pronunciation if you´re practicing English for example.
    Li Bergskans
    Engelska för lärare i skolans tidiga år (1EN131)

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is a verry good idea of teaching, I love it because it is fun and that itself is the greatest motivation for little children. I mean just a simple short song with lyrics would do so much, they would listen, then with help of the lyrics they could sing along. I remember very well whenj i was younger and started to learn English we sat and learned very much from almost everything from text books and glossary. But the few times that we watched something, it was on a VHS tape. Those lessons were something I looked forward to. I actually learned alot from it way more then i usually did. But youtube is so much better you can in a fast and very simple way get access to what it is you need.

    ReplyDelete