It’s our nostalgia trip, our on-demand highlight reel and our favorite internet rabbit hole. It’s YouTube, a place where we collectively spend more than a billion hours a day.
Students are some of its most loyal eyeballs. They watch videos featuring vloggers, music videos and conspiracy theories. And they’re watching a lot of them. Among teens, YouTube is the most popular social media site—more teens use it than Facebook and Twitter combined.
And as anyone who has ever needed step-by-step instructions on making romantic sushi or building a thatch-roof hut from scratch can attest, there’s also a lot of learning going on. But in an age where active learning is the holy grail of sound pedagogy, how much are students and teachers actually getting out of the hours per day we spend passively watching these videos?
That’s what EdSurge’s editorial team has tasked ourselves to find out this summer in our mini-guide on the influence of YouTube on teaching and learning. We’re looking at how it shapes perceptions of education by general public; how it influences what teachers are doing in—and out—of the classroom and how they share with each other; as well as how students use it as a study tool, and where the site’s future in education might be headed.
So tune in, subscribe, watch this space and leave a comment. We know you know the drill. Who knows, you might learn something.
