Aug 16 2008
“An anthropological introduction to YouTube”
I’ve been kind of struggling– well, that might be too strong of a word, but I can’t think of another one right now– with what kind or kinds of readings to build into the short video project for English 328 this fall. I don’t know if this is going to be the only one or not, but I came across via Weblogg-ed Michael Wesch’s “An anthropological introduction to YouTube.”
It’s just over 55 minutes long, so obviously not a “quick view.” But if you’ve got time, it’s well worth the watching. Interesting stuff. And it will give me yet another chance to assign YouTube homework in a class.
Update:
I came across this excellent critique by Alexandra Juhasz and an exchange between Wesch about his video/project. It’s here.
I can’t believe you too are doing youtube! This fall, my english 121 students will create a youtube video and launch it on youtube. However, I’m still thinking about 328 and now you’ve given me impetus to have them do a video too! Brilliant. So, I guess I’m going to need somehow (any advice?) put this video on my ereserves. Or, I could just have them access your blog, right?
Well, I am actually going to give students a choice. I’m going to strongly encourage them to post their videos to YouTube through a channel I’ll be creating for the class. But because of some FERPA crap that I don’t want to deal with– namely, there are apparently some folks at EMU who mistakenly believe that posting this kind of student work in a public space is a potential violation of the law– I will give students the choice to post their videos on emuonline. I wouldn’t suggest eReserves because I don’t think that will work well.
Anyway, I am literally making this up right now. I do have these FlipVideo cameras, I am pretty sure we have iMovie in the labs, and I am relatively confident that students working together in small groups will be able to make this work. I’ll keep you posted though.
Well, maybe I should do the same, that is have the students post via a channel . I’m confused: how does posting a youtube video violate FERPA?
This is kind of a long story, but the basic version is that there are those here at EMU who think that if you ask students to do ANYTHING with their work that puts it on a server/space that is not officially associated with EMU– e.g., YouTube– then you can be in trouble. I think this is a categorically inaccurate interpretation of the law, but it is also one of those things that I am not that interested in fighting about. Yet.
I don’t think it’s going to be an issue, so I’m not going to worry about it much.
If you two are thinking about teaching with/on/about YouTube, I hope you’ll look a bit deeper into my blog about the class I did entirely on and about youtube (Learning form Youtube). I’ll be teaching it again this Fall, and would love a group of colleagues to continue the conversation with:
http://www.youtube.com/mediapraxisme.