YouTube in the classroom

At the APEE conference in Guatemala last April I sat in on a great session where Tawni Ferrarini and Dirk Mateer presented "Use YouTube to Upload Interest in Economics". They are behind the excellent website commonsenseeconomics.com and showed off some of the videos their students had made as part of their basic econ classes.

My main hesitation was that the novelty of shooting a film would detract from the message (i.e. a triumph of style over substance) and the technical considerations and complications would obstruct the delivery of a piece of sound analysis. Tawni did a great job responding to these concerns and so I gave the students in my QM class this year the option of either presenting their work in class (as normal), or upload onto youtube in advance. Of the 19 groups 2 of them did videos, and they're available here.

The main lessons are:

• We need to invest in skills - I took for granted that students would be able to use basic video editing software, but this isn't always the case
• Make equipment available - the video quality does matter and using mobile phones won't work. The IT department need to be able to loan out equipment
• The videos tended to focus on one key message (which is a good thing), but the instructions of the assignment become all the more important
• Making a video takes significantly more time and effort than a powerpoint, but it does seem to be fun and enjoyable for the students. The engagement of the class was brilliant

I'm now more likely to encourage videos. I am convinced that they satisfy the main learning objectives, and - a massive additional bonus - they break down the barriers between the classroom and the outside world. If other students are watching and sharing these videos outside of class that is fantastic. And they also contribute to our interface with the wider community.