How can Online Technologies Engage Learning?

Lee Revere, Jamison V. Kovach (2011) Online Technologies for Engaged Learning, A Meaningful Synthesis for Educators, The Quarterly Review of Distance Education, Volume 12(2), 2011, pp. 113–124

Online education is well established in academia; however, the effectiveness of course design and student engagement remains uncertain. To deliver the highest quality online education, students should be engaged in learning exercises. Appropriately integrated technology can be used to foster student engagement, build a learner-centered environment, and make course content come alive. This article synthesizes information about well-established and relatively new technologies, such as discussion boards, chat sessions, blogs, Twitter, Skype, YouTube, and so on, to provide guidance for educators interested in integrating these tools within their online learning environment. Instructors who effectively incorporate technology as learning tools in their online courses can expect to achieve enhanced student engagement as well as higher levels of learning and more efficient classroom management.

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Can YouTube be an Effective Resource for Social Science Research?

Sun Hee Jang (2011) YouTube as an Innovative Resource for Social Science Research, AARE 2011 Conference Proceedings

This paper explains why YouTube can be used effectively as a research tool in the social sciences, and deals with challenges and uncertainties in Web 2.0 research as well as considering the potential benefits of investigations in this area. It concludes with a discussion of some of the key issues for ethical considerations, and as such will hopefully assist researchers, teachers and students who intend to use YouTube in their research work.

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How does YouTube help teachers and students cultivate cross-cultural exchanges and understandings?

Kristen Bloom & Kelly Marie Johnston (2010) Digging into YouTube Videos: Using Media Literacy and Participatory Culture to Promote Cross-Cultural Understanding, Journal of Media Literacy Education 2:2 (2010) 113 – 123

The role of the educator, as a result of new media, has changed substantially from one that is focused on the one-way transfer of information to one that trains students how to participate in digital environments with intelligence, skill, and literacy. It is our contention that educators and learners can exploit this media to engage in cross-cultural exchange and ultimately greater cross- cultural understanding. This paper will elaborate on the ways in which teachers and students can use YouTube as a site for cultivating cross-cultural exchange and understanding by establishing video-pal relationships with other students from outside their home culture. Digital exchanges can help students and teachers build connections with their colleagues abroad and to develop an international perspective.

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What is the influence of YouTube on academic publications?

Kayvan Kousha, Mike Thelwall, Mahshid Abdoli (2012) The role of online videos in research communication: A content analysis of YouTube videos cited in academic publications, This is a preprint of an article to be published in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology © copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

This article explores the extent to which YouTube videos are cited in academic publications and whether there are significant broad disciplinary differences in this practice. To investigate, the URL citations to YouTube videos were extracted from academic publications indexed by Scopus. A total of 1,808 Scopus publications cited at least one YouTube video and there was a steady upward growth in citing online videos within scholarly publications from 2006 to 2011, with YouTube citations being most common within arts and humanities and the social sciences. A content analysis of 551 YouTube videos cited by research articles shows both disciplinary differences and the wide variety of innovative research communication uses found for videos within the different subject areas.

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How does Vlogging on Youtube support collective problem-solving and informal learning?

Lindgren, S. (2011). ”Collective problem-solving and informal learning in networked publics. Reading vlogging networks on YouTube as knowledge communities ”. In E. Dunkels, G. Frånberg & C. Hällgren (Eds.) Interactive Media Use and Youth: Learning, Knowledge Exchange and Behavior (pp. 50-64). Hershey: IGI Global.

Social network sites like Facebook or MySpace, allow their users to create a public (or semi-public) profile and to articulate their relations to other users in a way that is visible to anyone accessing their profile. As these sites have become increasingly popular, many other sites – like YouTube – have started to adopt SNS features. According to Cheng et al (2008, p. 235), YouTube is indeed a social media application. This can be illustrated of how social networks are established on the vlogging arena on YouTube. To be able to assess this issue in a smaller scale, vloggers with a specific interest – in this case the urban art form of free running, so called parkour – were selected.

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How are YouTube Fridays providing students with open-ended problem solving practice?

Matthew W. Liberatore, Charles R. Vestal, Andrew M. Herring (2012) YouTube Fridays: Student led development of engineering estimate problems, Advances n Engineering Education, Winter 2012, Volume 3, Number 1

YouTube Fridays devotes a small fraction of class time to student-selected videos related to the course topic, e.g., thermodynamics. The students then write and solve a homework-like problem based on the events in the video. Three recent pilots involving over 300 students have developed a database of videos and questions that reinforce important class concepts like energy balances and phase behavior. Student evaluations found a vast majority (79%) of the students felt better at relating real world phenomena to thermodynamics from participating in YouTube Fridays. Overall, YouTube Fridays is a student led activity that provides practice of problem solving on open-ended, course related questions.

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How is YouTube used for Teaching and Learning Chemistry?

Joseph Lichter (2012) Using YouTube as a Platform for Teaching and Learning Solubility Rules, Journal of Chemical Education

Two challenges faced by university instructors in introductory chemistry courses are the need to keep the course material connected with technology that students are using as well as engaging students in a manner that keeps them interested in the subject. A case study is described where students in a general chemistry course were challenged to create and upload a video to the video-sharing Web site YouTube that could be used to learn solubility rules (which ions combine to form insoluble precipitates in dilute aqueous solutions). An assessment of the assignment was done by comparing results on a common exam question for courses with and without the assignment, as well as a follow up question on the final exam, survey questions, and comments. Results suggest that the solubility rules YouTube video assignment improved student learning of the rules and promoted interest in chemistry among a majority of the students involved in the activity.

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How do scholars use their YouTube channels?

Mariana Martinho, Marta Pinto, Yuliya Kuznetsova (2012) Scholars’ YouTube channels: content analysis of educational videos, Internet Latent Corpus Journal VOL. 2 N. 2 (2012)

YouTube is a Web 2.0 platform of distributed video sharing, widely used by students, universities and scholars. This article looks into the YouTube channels set by three scholars whose research interests are linked to technology enhanced learning. The focus of analysis is on the sample of videos each scholar uploaded and categorized as “education” in their YouTube channels. The data collected from the content analysis allows to understand what content is being shared and with what approach.

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