Sunday, April 17, 2011

YouTube: Advantages in Classroom Music Education

Topic 2: YouTube in Education


Though YouTube is blocked in many classrooms because of inappropriate materials on the site, there are many valuable (and downloadable) videos that do further learning.
For a music teacher, YouTube is a gold mine of performances, performance reviews, musician interviews, and music lessons. Video, perhaps more than any other medium, has the power to engage, enlighten, and fascinate your students. We can see and observe and listen. Not just listen and read.

By using a popular medium like YouTube,  you are fitting into your students existing habits and surroundings, making it easy for them to access your material, and projecting a more updated image for your class or school. 

"A lot of students these days expect information to be presented in a flashy, entertaining way, so videos can help draw them in," says Larry Sanger, executive director of WatchKnow, a site that collects education-related videos.

 "YouTube is not necessary for good teaching," writes Christopher Conway from Inside Higher Education, "in the same way that wheeling a VCR into the classroom is not necessary, or bringing in PowerPoint slide shows with images, or audio recordings. YouTube simply makes more resources available to teachers than ever before, and allows for better classroom management. Rather than use up valuable time in class watching a film or video clips, such media can be assigned to students as homework in the same way that reading is assigned." 

No comments:

Post a Comment