Week 2 Homework

The set homework this week is to create a YouTube channel, learning the practicalities of setting up a portal into YouTube on a blog, embedding the links to the relevant videos watched. 

Three topics have to be chosen, illustrating the learning outcomes of (a) a task (how to...) ; (b) a question (why is...; and (c) a concept (explain...). Let's try this then, in the following areas of interest:

How to change a washer on a tap:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMaFmHBrpy4

Why do leaves fall?:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuuEB0sb804

Explain Joyce's Ulysses:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI7ZnHIF0Xo

YouTube appears most admirably suited as a learning medium in regard to practical hands-on matters, as illustrated by the chosen topic of 'How to change a washer on a tap'; where the visual act of 'seeing' something done can then be applied - having literally seen the thing actually done - to whatever practical matter applies, from repairing taps and engines, to building things to the size of houses, to learning to play musical instruments and particular guitar tunes for example. We learn by example, predominantly, seeing things done. Reading the same construction by text in an 'instruction manual' just complicates and very often obfuscates the task in hand. 

YouTube can certainly be employed to answer questions (why...) though it appears (at first glance) to be far less useful (far less adept) in the field of explaining scientific principles. The biological field of 'leaf senescence' chosen here by way of example is so much better illustrated (or so it seems to me) by the institutional conventions and traditions of lecturing and studious independent reading about the subject in the relevant scientific literature. I have been reliably informed, however, that YouTube is useful as a learning tool for students in the realm of Psychology. 

Learning about the Arts (I am thinking here of Literature) may well be best conveyed through the comprehensive medium of YouTube, giving the broadest spectrum of learning opportunities far more expansively than the 'restrictive' (more rigidly defined) practices of the Sciences. YouTube, nevertheless, even in the Arts, is no substitute for reading. 

In summary, in general, my first impression is that YouTube as a learning medium works best when it comes to demonstrating practical 'tasks' (how to do things) and perhaps also in regard to 'concepts' (explaining things) and clearly YouTube also has a function in answering all manner and kinds of 'questions', whatever question is addressed to it. If there is a weakness (I must emphasise that at this point in the proceedings I am not necessarily claiming that there is) that 'weakness' may reside in explaining to the 'viewer' the concepts inherent in the Sciences (Physics, Chemistry, Biology, et cetera). 

There you go then. The above was accomplished in a rush, in the last half hour (sorry about that, Stefano). It serves to represent my initial critical assessment of the usefulness of employing YouTube in learning, at least. Whether this most recent blog comprises the obligatory weekly '300 words' as demanded, I have no immediate way of knowing. Whatever, I feel that I'm becoming more adept at this, more confident in navigating, and have a growing sense that I might indeed (eventually) one day become a blogger...