I
have several people I am friends with on Facebook that always post their
YouTube videos and state, “Make sure to subscribe!” I had never created a YouTube account, so
this was not an option for me; well, not anymore! This week’s Web 2.0 tools required me to set
up a YouTube account. I found that when
I went to YouTube on my desktop, I was logged in through my Google account. I knew I needed to share my YouTube channel
name in the ETEC527 class document, but I had a hard time finding my channel
name. I figured out it was because I did
not have any content on the channel. I uploaded
a video, and then I still wasn’t sure what the name was. I email my husband a test link, and it
worked. My review on the initial set-up is
so-so; it was confusing but not too difficult.
I
did upload a video and noticed I needed to complete a caption/title and then a
description. It also required me to
chose if the content was kid friendly. I
noticed if I chose that option, a few other options disappeared from the
screen. I wanted to upload a thumbnail
for one of the videos, and it said I need to verify my account. I chose to do that, and it sent a
confirmation to my phone to verify. I
wanted to chose the last moment of my son’s Lego video to allow someone finding
it to see the finished product before they clicked on the time-lapse. I was not successful in doing this. It only gave me a few video options to chose
from for the beginning image. When
posting the video, it allows the user to share the video via other platforms:
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. I chose to
tweet my videos with our class hashtag to see how it posted/viewed from the Twitter
side.
The
next requirement was to set up specific playlists in my account. This was the easiest part of using YouTube. I
was able to creates specific playlist titles and search for content to add
under the playlist. When logged in, it
is as simple as one-click in order to save a video to a playlist. I was also able to subscribe to two of my
friends’ channels. The playlist I
created of my own choice was Young Adult Literature/Library as I will be
graduating in August with a masters in educational technology/library science. I thought this would be a good spot to search
and save any videos that I could use to promote novels to middle and high
schoolers.
One
way I think YouTube would be successful as an educator is to create playlists
for each unit that I teach. I could save
any video clips that I would want to use in one location, and I wouldn’t have
to search for them every year or save the link on a Word document.
I
continued Twitter this week and still prefer TweetDeck when using it. I think it makes the search feature so much
easier, and I prefer to order what I see first in my feed. It definitely is an “upgrade” to the basic
Twitter app. I was able to search
several hashtags including #librarytwitter and #Shakespeare. I wanted to tweet videos of celebrities or
teachers reading elementary books in read-a-louds during this distance-learning
time period. I searched for celebs and
books and that did not result in a very “elementary” friendly hashtag
return. I then searched for readalouds
and had a few hashtag hits. One of those
tweets used the hashtag #weread, and from this hashtag, I was able to find
several videos to retweet. I am slowly
getting the hang of using Twitter. I see
it as primarily a news source and celebrity platform, but I also see the educators’
professional uses too.
I
used Screencastify this week to help with our group project as the project
required a brief demonstration. This was,
by far, the easiest tool I have used to date.
I was able to download it quickly, and with 4 simple choices, I was
recording my desktop or specific tab. I did
note that if I chose a tab, if I wanted to click on a link that opened into
another browser tab, it would not record the new tab, so I chose to make most
of the videos with recording of the entire desktop. I used a plug-and-play microphone, and I had
no problems with this software. My
favorite part was that it has a shareable link to copy and paste, and it
automatically saves in your own Google drive, which is a win for me! I would recommend this for teachers and
students. Personally, I will try to record
lessons for MLA formatting for my seniors and load them onto my webpage or a
class YouTube channel for students to access when they “forget” how to do
headers or page numbers, etc.
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