Monday, April 02, 2007

e-tivity 6

YouTube

OK. After all this serious stuff, trying to figure out these new tools to function as filters on the web, let’s have some fun! This week we’re going to explore (no panic!) YouTube. YouTube is the largest online video sharing tool. It is probably the fastest-growing tool on Web 2.0. According to wikpedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youtube), “the company was named TIME magazine's "Invention of the Year" for 2006.[2] In October 2006, Google Inc. announced that it had reached a deal to acquire the company for US$1.65 billion in Google's stock.” In other words, it was something special if Google was willing to invest that much money. You might be asking yourselves, as you often have in this course, ‘cosa c’entra con l’inglese?’ Well, let’s see if you can figure out how it may be useful for your language learning, or blogging, or anything else!

Sarah

Purpose: To learn start reflecting on the potential of YouTube for language learning and Web filtering.

Task:
1 – Go to the group I have created for us on YouTube. There you will find three videos and three discussions. I have invited you to participate, tough the invitation should not be necessary. Should you have problems accessing, send a comment to this post. Before clicking on the videos, click on each discussion and read my message first.

2 – Complete the tasks in the discussions in YouTube. As indicated in my comments, please complete the tasks on YouTube by adding your own comments.

3 – Find a video for your blog. This part of the e–tivity is optional. If you so desire, search for a video on YouTube that says something about you and add it to your blog. How do you do this? When you click on a video, on the right you should see information about the video including ‘embed’. Copy the html, go to blogger, click on new post, click on html and paste the html there. Post the message and the video should appear. Again, if you’ve got questions, feel free to ask via the comment function here! Note: the videos I’ve put here so far have been from YouTube and I’m no expert so it can’t be hard!

N.B. Some videos on YouTube are 'channels' and have RSS feeds to keep you up to date :-)

4 – Reflect. What do you think are the consequences of this tool? Do you think it has been / can be useful for your English language learning? And for other purposes? Make a blog post reflecting on your YouTube experience.

Respond: Go to each other’s blogs (using bloglines!) and read your peers’ reflections. Have they said things similar to what you thought? Different? What does this mean? Add comments that help develop the debate on the potential or non-potential of these tools in language learning. Remember, what you contribute may help future students! You’ve got two weeks to complete this one, so take all the time you need to reflect!

Happy Easter!!!

Timeline: Wednesday, April 11 (task), Tuesday, April 17 (respond).

2 comments:

Viola said...

Dear Sarah,
I watched the videos and they're really great!Good thing you had told us that there was a political message otherwise I wouldn't have caught it! I think I need to get info on Bush's policy!Anyway, I tried to join the group but it keeps telling me that this function is temporarily unavailable!I hope I'll be able to do it, in case I'll put a post with my comments on the course blog or on my blog!Love,
Viola

avalonne83 said...
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