Learning from YouTube: Teachers Should Consider

FROILAN M. SILAO

Master Teacher I, Bartolome Sangalang NHS

It is an irrefutable fact that most, if not all of us, are already captivated by the marvels of technology. Most of our students today specially those in junior and senior high school choose to open their gadgets such as cellphones, tablets, or laptop computers to browse software apps like Encarta, Merriam Webster’s, or Oxford instead of a traditional dictionary just to look for meanings of words. Wide varieties of topics are now being explored in the internet instead of going to library and researching from reference books. Nowadays, the most frequently visited websites are YouTube and Facebook just to see updates on the activities of people, events, celebrities, breakthroughs, and innovative progresses and institutional developments.

Things change and transform constantly, they say, and getting out of the usual practice and traditional way of teaching-learning process within the classroom is fast becoming the new norm. Using the internet particularly Learning from YouTube is a technologically advanced system of learning. Students learn to maximize the use of their gadgets, surf the internet, and have abundant choices of related readings to pick from. Aside from those mentioned, students can hone their graphical skills, and learn animation through motion presentations, among others.

Learning is free in YouTube. The vast majority can have access whenever they want. Teachers do not have to be confined in a specific locality in order to upload educational videos for their students. This means that as long as there is an internet connection, there is the ability to upload videos for students anywhere in the country. It makes YouTube a particularly worthwhile tool that is aimed for distant learning.

With YouTube, teachers can upload reference videos and lectures therefore giving students ample information to complete their homework and assignments on their own. Videos can be viewed as often as needed and as a result, lessons or information can be thoroughly studied and retained in the mind of the students.

Educational videos from YouTube offer manifold learning options for the same task. Some students learn better through visual components. Others learn better by directly reading the information that needs to be retained. With YouTube, teachers have the option to provide multiple approaches of showing a problem’s resolution so students are able to learn in an approach that suits their needs.

But let us be reminded that technology is not perfect. Not every video on YouTube is reliable. Therefore, we need to exercise prudence in choosing the video to avoid misinformation coming from unreliable sources of information. There are also some contents in videos that may not be suitable for a particular age group. There are videos that are intended for the elementary learners, not for the Junior and Senior high school students, so we have to choose videos that are appropriate for the age group to avoid boredom on the part of the learners in the process of studying.

Learning from YouTube could be one of the timely and innovative measures our basic education can offer especially in the elementary, intermediate, and secondary levels, particularly at this moment that face to face learning is almost impossible due to COVID 19 pandemic that is crippling our country and almost the rest of the world.

With proper trainings and updates in the technology, teachers can effectively utilize this application for the benefit of our learners at the same time prioritizing the safety of both learners and educators.