Thing #20 At the Movies

I had such fun at the movies. I searched for libraries on YouTube and got all sorts of videos, from educational and serious, to corny and ridiculous. My favorite videos presented librarians in a positive light, and I embedded my two favorites. As a teacher, I want to help promote respect for librarians with their wealth of knowledge and valuable resources. All too often, movies and media present librarians in a negative light as being angry and stern. These two YouTube videos present librarians as welcoming, fun, and helpful. The L-Team video is fun for those of you who remember the series The A-Team.
My concern about YouTube is that anyone can make and submit a video without any quality control. My daughter made and submitted a video this week. I was amazed that in one afternoon, she made a slide show and had it posted on the web! As parents, teachers, and librarians, we need to know what our students are watching and be able to give some guidance. At least movies have ratings that let parents know what type of content to expect. Although I think YouTube has some positive applications such as freedom of expression, seeing your work in print, making available mini-lessons and information, I have concerns. Just like other types of media, this tool can be used for good or evil (is that too strong a word?). If I ask my students to view something on YouTube, I would not ask them to do a blanket search. I like the idea of Rollyo with YouTube--is there such a thing? Where you limit the search on the site to certain videos you pre-select? I would definitely give specific parameters to students, so they would not waste time viewing videos that are irrelevant and irreverent. I will think more about how I could use YouTube with my classes. I can see where it would be fun for students to publish an oral presentation of a project with visual aids on YouTube. That is a possibility. I will think about that some more.
TeacherTube seemed to have more quality videos, both fun and educational. I will return to this site to view more of the videos that interested me. I embedded one fun video I watched called If You Give a Teacher a Mouse . . . . I think this video fits well with this course we are taking. Oh no, my kids ate all the popcorn! Well, that's a sign that movie time is over. Moving on to thing #21!