I am very surprised how I have taken to YouTube as a website! I always avoided it because I thought its main demographic was teenage boys who wanted to share random videos about themselves (remember that boy who wanted people to "LEAVE Britney alone!"). But YouTube has become a favourite site of mine, and I really like having my own account. It lets me share videos with friends through my inbox, save videos to my favourites when I view them, subscribe to different channels and have videos recommended to me based on my predilections (on the customised homepage). This morning I discovered two new things:
1) I can create a playlist (which I made into a Library and Technology videos playlist) and move videos there from my favourites, or save a video I like straight into it after viewing. That is, as long as I am logged in to my account at the time.
2) I saw on my home page a link to YouTube Edu. This is fantastic because it lets you search the videos and channels from colleges and universities affiliated with YouTube. They had some interesting lectures on web 2.0 and libraries. Check it out if you're interested (they are a little too long to embed, they would slow the blog down...).
Below is a mocumentary about a (fake) application called Flutter, it really shows that people are thinking and talking so much about the possibilities of Twitter that the mocking inevitably follows! Seriously, though, it shows that the possible advantages of a new technology need to be balanced with the possible downsides of using it (suitability and purpose). I know that we blogged about whether twitter could truly be useful for libraries or whether this is just trying to adopt a new fad. The jury is still out on that one, in my opinion.
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I liked your discussion here. YES, no one could forget the Leave Brittany alone guy. You Tube is awesome. Do you remember the Indigenous guys who did the Greek dance? They got famous on You Tube and now they have just performed on the Comedy festival. I don't care about the getting famous side of it but it does show that it is an excellent avenue for getting anything out there: people will see it. This is the same for getting people to understand Web 2.0 technology. It is also the way to get "issues" out. Librarians hate censorship so if anything's censored... :)
ReplyDeleteHehehe Flutter! I liked the lady reading updates from inside her glasses.
ReplyDeleteYeah, hopefully the glasses thing isn't a way for the future! People have a hard enough time paying attention to what other's are saying as it is...
ReplyDeleteYouTube does have its advantages, as it removes the 'middle-man' for getting a message across or a group publically recognised. However, do you think it is being misused? Is there the need for some censorship - this is a tough issue.
Following on from your discussion above, censorship is a tricky issue. I do feel that there has to be some censorship, especially if we want people to feel comfortable using youtube, or as a teacher, if you wanted to be able to use it with students. I'm also a youtube convert. I thought, like you said above, that it was just a place for people to put really random videos, but actually there's a wealth of good information on there, not the least of which are some of the gems that we've found in this course, and the lee le fever videos which have really made me realise how good youtube can be for education too. It sounds like you're also getting a lot out of having your own account. Maybe this is something I'll consider signing up for in future as well. As long as I can remember all the passwords I'm now carrying :)
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