In November of 2006, Time Magzine named YouTube the invention of the year. In the supporting article, Lev Grossman writes: “ YouTube created a new way for millions of people to entertain, educate, shock, rock and grok one another on a scale we've never seen before.” (Grossman, 2006a)
The minute people saw YouTube they did its creators a huge favor: they hijacked it. Instead of posting their home movies, they posted their stand-up routines and drunken ramblings and painful-looking snowboarding wipeouts. They uploaded their backyard science projects, their delivery-room footage and their interminable guitar solos. They sent in eyewitness footage from the aftermath in New Orleans and the war in Baghdad—from both sides. They promulgated conspiracy theories. They sat alone in their basements and poured their most intimate, embarrassing secrets into their webcams. YouTube had tapped into something that appears on no business plan: the lonely, pressurized, pent-up video subconscious of America. Having started with a single video of a trip to the zoo in April of last year, YouTube now airs 100 million videos—and its users add 70,000 more—every day. (Grossman, 2006a)
In December Times made the “You” in YouTube and other social networking apps on Web 2.0 person of the year. This time Lev Grossman writes “It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.” (Grossman, 2006b)
It might be hard to fully embrace the utopian optimism and hyperbole of from this American media giant, but being named Time Magazine’s invention, and indirectly person of the year is not a small feat.
What is YouTube? It is an online, video-based social networking application that has taken the world wide web by storm. Like it’s antecedents: wikis, and text and still image based web logs, YouTube is helping to create a user driven collaborative culture and community in virtual space.
Other Web 2.0 applications such as web logs and wikis have found their way into the classroom, but many schools and in fact countries have blocked or banned access to YouTube, although it remains one of the most widely used applications on the WWW.
James Gee, in his paper, What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy examines the qualities that make video games compelling and analyses the skills and knowledge players acquire while mastering these games to apply these systems and strategies to education. His five principles have distilled the allure and success of video games into solid principles of teaching. (Gee, 2003)
Inspired by the work of Gee, I will examine the Web 2.0 phenomenon You Tube: what it is, the different needs it answers, and it’s pedagogical possibilities.
References
Gee, j. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning literacy. Semiotic domains: Is playing video games a "waste of time"? (). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Grossman, L. (2006a, Times best inventions. [Electronic version]. Times Magazine, (Techguide) Retrieved November 21, 2007 from http://www.time.com/time/2006/techguide/bestinventions/inventions/youtube.html
Grossman, L. (2006b). Time's person of the year: You. Times Magazine, (December 13, 2006) Retrieved November 21, 2007 from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html
