You Tube

After having used You Tube for both professional (classroom) and personal (stupid funny clips) uses it was very different to produce material on You Tube. Knowing this, I enlisted the help of an expert my 11 year old niece. I was not outright shocked about her use of You Tube, she is very technologically savvy, but I was surprised by how expansive her You Tube use was. Not only did she produce short clips on You Tube, but she did so with her friends. In her core group of friends they made You Tube videos independently and in groups and critiqued each others work. There work focused on everything from their own skits to school projects. I had a pretty good grasp on making movie clips from previous experience working with Window Movie Maker (sorry but I cannot afford a MAC), but I was definitely lost when it came to uploading it on You Tube. My niece came through here showing me what files went where and how to tell when my video had actually been publish (we published it on her site because as she said without her the video would not be online if it was not for here). She did me a little bit, when we discovered we could not load the video as preview file, but had to load it as a WMA. So my knowledge with windows movie maker pulled through. This whole experience was really interesting because it really showed me how children can really be vital tools when it comes to using technology both inside and outside of the classroom. In reality, this assignment was a case study of many of the readings we have discussed in class about using students' technological ability to not only learn new things yourself, but empower students. Secondly, I realized there is a huge difference between consuming a technology medium and actually producing it. Really understanding how the medium actually works and how to use it will definitely help me use this tool in the classroom anyway, here is the link to my video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrsMKsF5HTI