Left Lane Ends

So, the argument goes that if we don’t block YouTube, our students will go home and video tape themselves going for a ride in the dryer like the video that they saw online. Point taken. But, there are fallacies to that argument:

1. The same ‘ride in the dryer‘ video is available on multiple sites, not just YouTube.com
2. Students were creating these videos the day after they got their hands on a camera - well before the creation of YouTube or other social video sites. (we’ve seen some creative ones here in our 1:1 environment that is going on its 6th year)
3. Even a block of the general category (video sites or social networking or network file storage/backup) will not prevent someone from creating their own website (like back in the olden days … remember those days??) and posting the video there

At this point, you may be asking ‘what’s the point?’. Well, the real power of sites like YouTube are demonstrated at places like Global Voices Online (go ahead - check out the chinese demonstration video that their government is trying to erradicate from the online world!!). I just don’t see how it could NOT be powerful education to draw similarities and differences between a current demonstration video in China and our American system of government. How can our students participate in this live history that is taking place before our lives if we block them out of it? Or is the simplistic history as outlined in a textbook the real way to go?

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 14th, 2006 at 12:00 pm and is filed under 1:1, edtech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.