Introduction
Teaching and studying are both very complicated processes that demand great skills from those who teach and from those who are taught. Different people invent different ways of teaching; create teaching programs for the classes they have to teach and look for the most efficient methods for this. Some people keep to the point of view that the best way to study something is the so-called self-education when a person does not need any teacher to learn some material and use it in practice.
This is a valuable point of view that works in some cases, but it can not be applied to all situations and, because of this, can not be treated as the right one. The most useful point of view is that for any kind of studying a teacher is necessary whose role will be to present the most useful material to the students and to make them memorize it. To achieve that, teachers must use special means, and these means are specific for every single teacher.
The most modern teachers, with the development of technology, resort to using visual aids and different technological means in their classes. One of the means that can be helpful to any teacher is the Internet site YouTube that is specialized at videos of various topics and can provide a great amount of material for study of any kind. Our group created a project that is aimed at getting teachers acquainted with the modern technology and with the teaching potential of YouTube (Fahs, p.12). In this paper, we are going to present the process of creation of the material dedicated to this Internet means of study, including our aims, means used and difficulties faced while working on the material.
YouTube as Educational Source
To begin with, let us describe the material we created for educational purposes only. The web site dedicated to the educational opportunities that YouTube presents was created with the help of the software web 2. 0 which allows to achieve great quality of the material and spent less time, than doing this with another software, like for instance, HTML or web 1. 0. The source provides every visitor with the information necessary to be well acquainted with the opportunities that the site presents and teaches how to use the site YouTube with the highest degree of efficiency.
The source called “YouTube as Educational Source” deals with such points as ways to register at YouTube, ways to upload or download video from this site, certain useful information about the rules and restrictions of the site, as well as certain tips and recommendations for teachers who get interested in the work using the site in educational purposes in their classes. All the sections of the information are specifically marked and separated to insure the fast access and easy operation.
The source created by our group is also supplied with visual aids, including pictures, schemes and videos. The information is presented in a clear way without the odd sophisticated vocabulary in order to make the use of the site as easy and pleasant as possible.
Pedagogical Purposes
YouTube Technology
The usefulness of the source created by our group for the pedagogical purposes is evident. First of all, the site helps some teachers to come to know about YouTube and its opportunities. There are teachers who keep to the point of view that the old methods are the best in teaching. They still use the technology when one teacher explains the material and a group of students listens and tries to memorize all the information.
But they can be surprised at the wide range of opportunities that modern technology, and YouTube in particular, can offer (Fahs, p. 32). We tried to create the source that will be equally easy to operate for both experienced people who are familiar with the online media and for those who only start learning it. This is precisely the topic of the section of our source called the Website Description.
Registration
To be a confident user of YouTube, there are several steps that every one has to go through. The first of them is registration process, and our internet source provides clear and precise information as for how to register in YouTube. The section called Registration Steps is dedicated to this problem. Here teachers can find all the necessary information about the site and about how to become its member, as well as which benefit can one get from being a registered member of the YouTube site. The whole way of registration is at first outlined, and then the complete explanation of every step is given. From this section teachers can come to know how they can use YouTube in their classes where, for example, there is no access to the Internet (Sahlin, p.118).
Upload/Download Videos
To make the use of the educational videos that YouTube offers, there is another section of the site called How to Upload/Download a video file. Here, all teachers that get interested in the usage of YouTube in their practice, can find out the technology that helps to download videos from the wide range of videos of YouTube. This section is rather informative for teachers, as far as it allows them to use the videos in their teaching.
Moreover, a teacher can choose a necessary video to conform to the topic of the class and download it easily by means of using a Real Player from the site to his or her personal computer. There is also a nice opportunity to share videos by means of uploading them to YouTube. Thus, teachers can share their own experience in teaching and creating new techniques and methods, as well as learn the experiences of others by means of watching the videos teachers or students from other educational establishments and cities upload (Fahs, p.14).
Sources
Finally, the Bibliography section of the source created by our group presents the information about the sources we used in the process of creation lf the site, as well as the sources that everyone can use in order to improve his or her knowledge in modern technology and their opportunities in order to improve the teaching skills and the results of the teaching process, because it is widely known that students learn the material that is presented with the help of visual aids better than the material they have to read on their own or the material they are taught in class.
The section called About Us presents little teaching value, but it provides every visitor of the site with the information about the people that created the site and with the opportunity to contact the site creators in order to make improvements and eliminate defects that visitors can notice (Sahlin, p. 132).
Personal Challenges in Doing the Work
Group Work
It goes without saying, that the work over such an important project was connected with a lot of challenges that we had to take. The work in a group itself presents a challenge for any kind of assignment, and the work over such an educational material is not an exception to this rule. As far as our group consisted of several members we had to always meet together to work on the assignment we had.
For m personally, it was quite difficult because other members of the group did not always have time to meet because of some other activities they were busy with. Besides, their mobile phones were sometimes switched off, and sometimes it was quite expensive for us to hold long talks on the telephone. Thus, we had to find another way to communicate and discuss the problems that were inevitable during such an assignment. The way out was found in using the e-mail contacting to communicate between the members of our group. This way proved to be very fast and convenient as far as people had to spend less time by the work than they would have t while communicating directly.
This can be explained by the fact that among the students of our group there were many foreign students who had o go to their native countries for holidays or to visit parents and relatives. Therefore, they did not have opportunities to be present at the group meetings directly, but their answers that they sent by the Internet were very helpful for the general work of the whole group.
Another point that was difficult to cope with during the work, was that the students were busy doing their dissertations and they had little time for the group work. It was not surprising as far as the summer is the time when all courses come to an end and students have to show all that they learnt during the semester.
To make the work easier for the whole group of students, we decided to divide the work in several parts so that every member of the group could have less work to do and more time to complete his or her part of the work with the best quality. For example, one of us was busy with the design of the site that we decided to create, while other members of the group had to look for the information that constitutes the topics of the sections of our source.
As long as I was busy with the search of information about the ways to register at YouTube and about the means to upload or download videos from that site, I needed a constant access to the Internet. I do not have any ADSL to insure the good speed of data traffic; broadband is also out of my access. So it was quite difficult and time consuming to use the dial-up Internet a far as its speed is very low and to find some information, and moreover to download some helpful videos it took a lot of time and patience.
To speed the work up, I had to use the services of different internet cafes in my city. This was another difficulty as far as I had to spend time while finding the café with the highest speed of the Internet, and also it took me a lot of money as the services are costly and I needed a lot of time to find all the necessary information and compile it into a good piece of work that would be of help to the whole group work.
Finally, the most unexpected challenge that I had to face during the preparation of the material for the group wok was that I could not return to Manchester in time as I could not get the tickets for any flight earlier than the 4th of August. This was so because of the summer holidays during which all airlines are so busy and there is no chance to book the tickets in advance. To overcome this, I had to spend more time and money in the internet café in order to communicate with my group and to be informed about the progress of the work.
Conclusion
To make the logical conclusion of the essay, I would like to state that the source created by our group is a good piece of work, as it has been created with skills and can help teachers considerably to modernize their work with usage of such technology as YouTube. It is a good educational source and the aim of our group work was to prove this fact and to give teachers and other people who want to get acquainted with YouTube and its educational opportunities.
Our work presents a detailed guide to the use of the site including its registration rules, uploading and downloading techniques and specific recommendations for teachers who plan t use it in their practice. Of course, I faced a lot of challenges, as well as my group, while doing the work but I managed to take them and thus, our group managed to submit a high quality project.
Works Cited
Fahs, C. (2007). How to Do Everything with YouTube (How to Do Everything) McGraw-Hill Osborne Media; 1 edition.
Sahlin, D. (2007). YouTube for Dummies. Publisher: For Dummies.