YouTube Adventure

My History ~

Before this adventure, I used YouTube much like our children use it, when I needed a quick tutorial or to find that funny video everyone was talking about.  I've used some videos found on YouTube to supplement class learning but not a lot. I was shocked to learn YouTube is a Google product and that I had my own YouTube channel by simply having a Gmail account.

I'll admit, it was a little daunting stepping into the unknown of accessing my channel and creating playlists, but it was painless and I enjoyed the challenge once I got started.

The Adventure ~

It was exciting to explore videos in the areas assigned.  I really enjoyed adding a playlist for my area of teaching and a free choice. During my exploration, I was introduced to other web tools that were noted for further investigation.  What makes the playlists so valuable is the ability to save those videos for viewing later.  That saves you a lot of time in the future. Playlists can easily be created when learning specific content to share with your students. My goal is to try using videos (saved on my channel) for pre-teaching lessons.  I also want to give students the opportunity to video and share learning. I'm still planning how it will work, but I really like the idea of incorporating a class blog and including videos from their own YouTube channel.

Always Preview ~

It's highly encouraged to always preview your videos before sharing with students.  There are websites to clean-up the advertisements to avoid them from taking away the important content you're trying to share.  A few to check-out are Viewpure and TubeChop.  Also, some of the videos may look good but have poor sound or graphic quality.  It's better to play it safe and view beforehand, or you'll be you're sharing with students and something terrible will pop up in the middle of your video.

Twitter Continued ~

The link http://www.cybraryman.com/edhashtags.html provided many hashtags related to education that I never knew existed.  Some of the hashtags I plan to include in my tweets and use when looking for more information on a particular topic include #writechat, #writegoal, #writers, #writing, #writingmod, #web20, #web20chat, and #web20tools. This site also provided some informative education links. I found an article that discussed the importance of web tools with student writers.

Using Hootsuite and TweetDeck continue to leave me with questions of uncertainty because I don't feel like I know enough about them. I understand they're platforms for housing social networks in one place, but I guess I have trouble understanding how they will benefit me. However, that doesn't mean I'm throwing in the towel. I aim to give them more time, exploring their uses and how they might be helpful to me the upcoming months. Some phone apps I've found to work with Twitter, Hootsuite, and/or TweetDeck are Tweet Libs, Narrow, and Slack. When you're looking for specific information and don't have time to sift through the useless materials TweetLibs gives you a leg up on finding the content you're looking for without all the hassle. Among other things, Narrow allows you to follow specific users using keywords and hashtags by looking in bios and tweets. Slack is a messaging system to integrate all social networks and allows a group, or channel of people, to communicate. It doesn't limit you to text only because files can also be shared when using Slack.  

My experience with Twitter has grown so much during the last few weeks.  I'm beginning to feel more comfortable with tweeting and did so this last week.  I had the privilege of seeing George Couros (Amazing!) at a technology conference this week. It was affirming to hear George speak about the impact Twitter can have with your learners during his address, and he even showed us by reading the feed from the audience while he talked.  I continued to tweet during the conference about all of the amazing tools I was learning, and I used hashtags to include specific audiences that might find the information useful, too. It was truly invigorating to see Twitter as a tool, that can be used effectively with students during learning because I was doing it!  My feelings have changed and I now know the impact it can have in the classroom. I can't wait to use it this upcoming school year.