The phenomenon of video sharing in general and YouTube in particular is currently asserting its influence on news, politics, law, music, entertainment, advertising and many other areas of society. For the language teacher, YouTube may be the single best source of material the classroom has ever seen. The question, “How can we use YouTube in the classroom?” encompasses many others including:
- How can we use moving images in the classroom?
- How can we use audio in the classroom?
- How can we use film in the classroom?
- How can we use art in the classroom?
- How can we use technology in the classroom?
- How can we use music in the classroom?
- How can we use adverts in the classroom?
- How should we use and approach news and current affairs in the classroom?
- How should we approach the subject of the media in the classroom?
- How can we organise class film-making projects?
This website has been set up in order to address some of these questions. Through a series of lesson plans and teaching ideas, the aim is to explore the possibilities for the use of sites such as YouTube in education with a special emphasis on language teaching.
As a sideline to the lesson plans and teaching ideas - which will be posted on a weekly basis - a large list of links to useful or notable videos is being compiled (see Clips Bank) as well as a section which looks at technical aspects such as how to download or ‘capture’ YouTube videos so that they can be stored on a memory stick and taken into class (see How to).
This project has been set up by Jamie Keddie (contact: jamie@jamiekeddie.com). Click here to see blog.
Finally: I’ll be very grateful to anyone that would like to pilot a lesson plan from this site - either one that you have already used or one that you intend to use. Please download, complete and return the following feedback form:
