Editorial~ YouTube Teaches!
December 16, 2008 • written by Vanessa Tackman
Having trouble learning is a serious problem for students of all ages. Sometimes they cannot find help, or do not understand the homework assignments they have been given. Every student has their own pace and way of learning and sometimes students cannot process all the homework information given during class time. That is why YouTube has how-to videos for helping students with homework.
“I used the site for my English class when we were working on a play,” said Anna Deeg, a junior. “It helped out a lot.” There are many places students can go on the YouTube site to find different classes and different instructors to help them with their homework.
If students use YouTube to help them out, then it gives them a longer time to process things in their mind. They can stop the video anytime they want if they do not understand and think out what the instructor just said, or they can start the whole video over if they think they missed something. Also, they can think aloud and talk through the video to try to make more sense of things. Educational videos are a useful additions to YouTubes usual menu of movie clips, music video clips, and comedy skits.
Some educational videos for YouTube were made by Salman Khan; who thought of this idea when his sixth grade cousin was having trouble in math. Each of his videos is under ten minutes long. He works on creating the videos at least three hours each night. His motivation to keep making more videos is the feedback he gets from students who have visited his sites and learned from his videos.
Khan uses the low-tech Microsoft paint sketching software to teach his viewers because he did not like the idea of standing at the whiteboard and boring all the viewers with him lecturing the whole time. He chose a format that he thought would be a more productive learning process for students. Khan’s goal now is to create a school that uses technology to teach the students.
College professors have varied responses to Khan’s ways of teaching his subjects. University of Miami education professor, Walter Secada, thinks that his examples and explanations of equations are not very clear, and he thinks that some viewers may get confused when trying to learn from them. He suggests that students start by looking at a wide selection of videos from YouTube to find one that they think describes their homework in the best way and has the best picture quality.
Doing homework may be difficult for some students but it does not always have to be that way. Learning about different educational sites can be very helpful to some students, allowing them to learn at their own pace and in their own way. Some students are auditory learners, visual learners, or hands on learners. Whatever learning style they have, they may be able to find additional help on You Tube.
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