Thing 20

YouTube....Yet another one of those sites that I have spent WAY too much time on!  I love using YouTube for a variety of reasons.  I love flash mobs (and am secretly waiting for the day that I just happen to be in the right place at the right time) and have watched countless flash mob videos....With my husband deployed when I'm feeling sappy and in need of a good cry, I will spend countless hours wiping away happy tears watching military homecoming ceremonies.  And the inner romantic in me also loves watching creative proposal videos for more hours than I care to admit :)

 

That being said, YouTube also has it's place in education.  It is often one of the first places I look at when I'm assigned a research topic.  For example, on a recent project on Bilingual Education in the United States, I began my research (you guessed it) on YouTube.  I find that it's a great way to get a feel for some of the key topics that will be covered in my research articles, and gives a bit of light and perspective to some of the articles that I might read.

 

YouTube also has it's place in the classroom setting.  I am currently observing for another class in a local kindergarten classroom.  The teacher uses YouTube for a lot of phonics activities.  YouTube has an abundance of phonics videos that help to make learning fun for kids!

 

As for my selection of videos to post for Thing 20, I decided on 4 very different videos.  The first video is shamelessly my own video that took me forever and a day to put together, and is something that I'm oober proud of.  Since my husband was deployed over Christmas, I got over 50 people involved to make a video message for him.  The first part of the video is simply the quick "We miss you," "Come back safely," and "Merry Christmas" messages from friends and family.  The second part of the video was A LOT of work.  I mailed out word signs for all the words in the song "All I Want For Christmas Is You" to friends and family in all different states.  They each took pictures with their words, emailed those pics to me and I put it all together with the music.  Turned out pretty cool if you ask me :)

 

 

 

The second video is probably my favorite video on YouTube. I may have watched it 100 times, and it still puts a smile on my face! I dare anybody in a bad mood to not smile watching this video!

 

 

The third video that I posted is a video that highlights the Milwaukee Spanish Immersion school. This is one of the videos that I used as a source for the Bilingual Education project mentioned above. As a Spanish major, in an ideal world I would LOVE to teach in an immersion school like this. I chose this video because it gives a good glimpse of the education that students in an immersion school can experience.

 

The fourth video that I chose is a simple song that helps young learners learn the sounds of each letter. This particular video focuses on the letter "T." However, a quick search on YouTube is all that is needed to find various songs focused on any letter. These are great resources to use in the classroom, and really help to make learning fun. I saw first hand how successful this sort of lesson could be when observing in a kindergarten classroom. The teacher used videos like this to introduce a new letter sound. The students LOVED it! They were focused, intrigued, and singing/dancing along! In my opinion, that is one successful use of technology in the classroom!