Engaging Digital Natives: Media is the Key

Time for another installment of Dark Matter. This week's exercise: Online Video. Finally...something I feel really at home with!!!

One of the things that has influenced my thinking about teaching, and even my place on this planet and in society, is a video I saw on YouTube two years ago. It's called Shift Happens. Since then, the video has been updated a couple of times (here for ver. 2.0 or down below for ver. 3.0) and there is even a wiki for the next one and the creator has a blog!!! (Note: Some of the content is the same between each version but all have a little something different. If you're only going to watch one, then watch 3.0.)

I show this video to my first year Engineering Design students as these issues will be their issues once they are practicing and it accentuates that what they really need to learn in university are fundamental principles and, perhaps more importantly, HOW to learn and THINK critically. We usually end up watching the video three times in a row at their request. How's that for getting a bunch of lazy, unengaged teenagers' attention! I am speaking (writing?) tongue in cheek of course. I believe that sometimes students today need to be engaged in a new way. The way in which they have been acclimatized to being engaged: through media. That's not to say that this is the only way they can be engaged but it certainly does help get them there. As with many things, balance is crucial.

In another of my courses I use videos from YouTube to illustrate complex phenomena like the shoch wave shown below. I have found that the students' level of engagement has increased 5-fold and their understanding and "gut-feel" for the subject matter has also dramatically improved. In addition, the fact that I present stuff from YouTube alters their perception of me as an instructor and ultimately benefits the classroom dynamics.

Now for a technology related teaching tip:

When inserting video into your presentations, be sure to download the video to your own computer first. Don't assume that you can just link to the video on YouTube or some other site. Sometimes classrooms don't have Internet access or hardware is down, or there's not enough bandwidth, etc., etc. If you're using a YouTube video, do the following:

1. Find the video you want to embed in your presentation and click on it to bring up its page
2. Open a new browser or tab and go to the KeepVid website
3. Switch back to YouTube and ook for the box on the right side of the screen that has URL in it
4. Select the text and copy it to your clipboard
5. Paste the URL you copied into the URL box on the KeepVid page
6. Right click on either the Flash Video (flv) or mp4 video download buttons and specify the location and desired filename
7. The file will download to your computer and can be inserted into your presentation, sent to Blackboard, etc.

Hope you find this useful and thanks for reading.