Using YouTube for Learning

There are so many possibilities with this resource. YouTube carries vids on everything from Uncle Harry cleaning his teeth, to the very best of pro-am live performances and theatre. It is an exciting resource that I have been using for years, as a reference, research and teaching tool. Performing Arts is my thing, and my students and groups all learn early on to access YouTube and download anything they would like to sing or perform. They have been bringing me these ideas for vetting and selection for a long time. Being 'old school' I could see the value in the tool, but was too afraid to try to download any of it myself. So while I used immediate access, I had no archive of all the material. But not anymore. Thanks to the GDLT course work I am now as proficient as the very best of my teens. Now I can impress them by coming to class with ideas and downloads. I have even learned an ultra-quick way to complete the download which involves no pasting of addresses - just type "keep" in front of YouTube in the address and hit return. How easy is that? (My seniors were very impressed when I shared that one with them). Perhaps you already knew this, but its empowering for me to feel some degree of confidence in my IT skills, at last!

My plan for YouTube in my EPL is for a learning experience on Dreamtime Stories as Plays. I have chosen Tiddalik the Frog for the play, and have sourced three excellent and very different performance/presentation ideas from YouTube. These downlolads will provide the foundation awareness for my year 8 music class. From there we will work on script development, character development, costume, set and promotion using other ICT frameworks, working towards our own performance in NAIDOC week.

See my posting on "Tiddalik" for more details on the project.