Is Video Blogging Appropriate For Education?

Video blogging, or vlogging as it is sometimes referred to, began during the early part of this decade. The forerunner for this form of blogging, YouTube, was founded during February of that year and officially launched during the fall 2005. The popular search engine, Yahoo!, also has its version of vlogging called Yahoo! Video. With each of these brands, users can upload their own videos, watch other user's videos and share them with each other. These videos can include television clips, music videos or home movies. In order to view these videos properly, a high speed internet connection would be required. Otherwise, the time for a video to upload will be lengthy.

There are teachers from all grade levels and even college professors are using this method to teach certain aspects of their course content. You can find videos online designed to teach kindergarten students the letters of the alphabets. There are videos that cover different aspects of science, such as space, the structure of atoms and gene splicing. I found several videos pertaining to my career, agriculture education and FFA. Several FFA chapters and/or agriculture instructors have posted videos to YouTube promoting the various activities that they take part in. This is a great way to gather ideas for your own chapter to use. The FFA Creed is a very popular topic on these vlogging web sites. There are several renditions of the FFA Creed presented by FFA members from all across the country. This could be one way to show a freshman the proper way to speak, stand and present the Creed when preparing for that career development event.

This method of teaching can be facinating for students. But, if the medium that is used to present lessons falls into the wrong hands, what are the consequences? The most important factor to consider is the amount of inappropriate content that are present on these sites. If you are dealing with high school students, they are very smart when it comes to technology, so they know ways to get around things like age verification. My second problem with using this form of technology in my classroom is that YouTube and Yahoo! Video are blocked by our school system and cannot be accessed on any computer. In fact, many school systems block these services from being viewed for the reasons mentioned above. A factor that I have to take into serious consideration is that at least 50% of my students do not have a computer at home. So, I cannot require my students to log onto the internet at home to view something and expect everyone to be able to participate.

With new technological ideas becoming reality on a daily basis, I am waiting for the web site just for educators to post and share videos. Many teachers will admit that there days do not always start at eight and end at 3:30. And, with more and more requirements being handed down from the State Departments of Education, that drastically reduces the time for teachers to prepare lesson plans and teach our competencies. It would be very beneficial to this profession to have another outlet for teaching our material and I think video blogging is the way to go.