What is YouTube?
It is a popular video sharing web site that lets anyone upload videos for public and private viewing. It was invented by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim. YouTube was bought by Google in 2006 for $1.65 billion! It is another very useful venue for sharing videos between people around the world.
YouTube can be viewed by anyone, videos can be posted by anyone and can be downloaded by anyone. YouTube is used by people of all different ages and types in so many different ways. It has become a useful tool for educational, entertainment and marketing purposes in a society where technology and resources are always being updated and/or improved.
This site is used by people of all ages and although this is a positive factor, it is also potentially negative. It can be useful for school projects. For example, a student might need to find examples of historical dances that you possibly would not be able to find on another website, or examples might be avaiable elsewhere but Youtube make the search much easier. However, sites like YouTube have trouble controlling the access for this site. (I guess when you think about it, Youtube may not really want to control access - they want as many people viewing as possible to sell ad space!) Educators must put tight controls on what students can view at school. YouTube is obviously a site that has both good and bad content. Lately, we have been able to view more of YouTube content at school. Although not all files are available, most students are using this site to their advantage - it connects them to the most current, popular media and video files, educational or otherwise. It does seems to be ok for high school students to have open access to Youtube, but do we want grade 3 students to have the same access - obviously not!
YouTube helps to connect people of several generations and it makes videos, ads, and much, much more available and accessible to everyone. Youtube is another recently developed technology that although very powerful and useful can be negative if not properly controlled.
I agree with you! YouTube is a tool used to post videos on the internet and can negatively impact people if not used properly. For example one may post a threat which can scare people and one can blur out racial comment about a group of people which can offend someone. These messages should not be exposed to high school students because it may give them a negative messages.
ReplyDeleteNice Blog!
Hmm, I agree as well. I am a huge YouTube user, for many purposes, and I need access to it at school on almost a daily basis to help me with projects, and I'm very glad that we now have easier access. Though, I have seen many high school students goofing off watching silly videos. It can be good and bad for our students. Some content can be bad for students to view, then again there is a wide range of videos for research.
ReplyDeletei agree that youtube is very helpful to students but not only, to anyone else who has to make present a quick video oir slideshow. i love youtube !
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