Digital Signposts

A 2 Speed YouTube?

image credit: theqspeaks CC Licnece BY_NC_SA

“Opening up a world of educational content with YouTube for Schools”

As a firm advocate of video for learning, I really hope Google’s recently launched YouTube for Schools service will get YouTube into more schools.  Then if those schools were to move from YouTube for Schools to the default open YouTube, that would  be even better.

As expected the initial reactions to the launch of YouTube for  Schools on the  educational blogs and twitter feeds has been welcoming and positive and .... largely.......uncritical.

Google’s  bold statement (above), has obviously struck a chord with lots of educators, despite the fact that the content on YouTube has always been open and available to schools should they wish to access it. There are of course many schools and administrations that have; (misguidedly in my opinion), chosen to block it,  but that is an entirely different matter.

Therefore is Google really opening or providing anything new?  No, what YouTube for Schools does is offer a filter switch by which school IT admins can allow access to the Youtube.com/education subdomain  i.e. YouTube Edu, whilst still allowing the blocking of  open YouTube. The keywords in Gooogles rationale are:  safety and distraction together with  school friendly/teacher friendly and free. Taking these points in order:

• if YouTube is really that dangerous;  why are many schools using it without any significant issues as Daniel Stucke points out in his post?  
• distraction; lots of glib references to cats and music; from both Google and commentators but no analysis of the causes of distraction
• school/teacher friendly is a pretty meaningless term, but could possibly be interpreted as spoon feeding.....having the spadework done for you.... avoiding issues of digital literacy?
• YouTube has always been free ... ‘no brainer’

The YouTube Edu content is sourced from over "600 partners” and indeed there are some excellent videos from the likes of NASA, RSA, Smithsonian and TED. Nevertheless there are also a lot of talking heads and dry lectures.  There is very little evidence of student authored videos or the student voice, instead it is very much a one-way street where video is used to "illustrate."  I think YouTube Edu focuses too heavily on 'subjects' and ‘grades’ rather than the interconnectedness of knowledge or the educational affordances of video. Perhaps it is just my take, but there seems to be a very US centric feel to the service. I have also noted; that many, if not the majority of clips still feature pre-roll and pop-up adverts.

There is of course no shortage of educational video being curated and shared on the web.  A good example is WatchKnow.org; a moderated wiki where and  teachers  recommend, aggregate and curate educational content from a number of video services including YouTube. Another developing service in the UK is EdmediaShare, where educators in HE and FE upload, share and discuss the videos they are using. The emphasis within EdmediaShare is on  how to leverage the pedagogical value of the videos and can be used in different learning contexts as well as subjects using the Dial-e framework developed at the University of Hull.

I am not convinced about new either; YouTube  hosts hundreds or even thousands of  channels and playlists that have educational value. I  would argue that this value is best determined by a community of educators curating and sharing, rather than a committee even if it does include teachers and Google educators. YouTube has become such a powerful educational platform because of its serendipity - the discovery, of new videos and channels, facilitated and promoted through social networks.

Of the 35 hours of video uploaded every minute to YouTube, a significant amount will be extremely current, relevant and topical. YouTube provides instantaneous access to many events of local and global significance as they happen, for example the recent Japan Tsunami, Arab Spring or a local Starling roost  - all good  examples. Teachers should have access to; and be able to decide; if, how, and when to use such videos; and also consider the age group and how to frame them in an appropriate learning context

In my opinion what YouTube should be doing, is helping teachers to understand and use the
excellent creative YouTube tools such as: Playlists, Editing, Captions, Video Manager  and promoting embedding YouTube content in other educational resources, as they do in YouTube for Teachers. Teachers should be encouraged to address the issues of raised by comments and how related videos algorithms work and evaluate their effectiveness. This is all part of developing digital and media literacies. Offering a solution based on 'removing' comments and related videos is pedagogically unsound.

To give Google some credit they have factored in a suggest option for  channels, but here's the rub - it must must be sourced from a YouTube partner! .... rather than selected for its true educational merit.

 

So in the final analysis what we end up with is a digital video library, a walled garden.

whereby a ‘committee’ and Google deems what is educational video, which can then be allocated to teachers on an individual basis by an IT admin. I think this is  a backward step for video for learning. It will will be interesting to watch how this plays out and follow the crossover, both ways,  between YouTube for Schools and Open YouTube. Of course my big worry is that some currently Open YouTube users would move to the YouTube for Schools.

Looking inside video...

Within current discourse on video for learning, there are many concurrent ideas on how to use video in educational contexts. These cover a wide spectrum, ranging from recorded lectures,  or the Khan Academy video tutorials, (which have inadvertently given rise to the flipped classroom meme), to dedicated educational platforms that aggregate online video, for example  Watchknow.org  Sometimes video is mixed with other content using APIs, as on the HistoryPin website.

Other platforms such as EdMediaShare which uses the Dial-e framework, (developed at the University of Hull), are designed to promote an alternative way of using video. However the most frequent use of video in learning  is still to illustrate or amplify subject matter or to present didactic information in the form of a recorded  lecture or presentation.

This is understandable, one of the drawbacks of using video, as opposed to text, is that it cannot be searched in as easily as texts.  Whilst it is straightforward to search search a library of documents for a word - sentence or paragraph but with video search relies on title or associated metadata. This may be about to change.  Research at the Hasso Platter institute has come close to making 'semantic video' a reality. Using  semantic media analysis;  in the near future, it will be possible to conduct searches  within video, (collections, and individual videos), directly by the content within them

Here are a few thoughts on how this might work, using some clips from EdMediaShare to illustrate:

•  OCR, (search for text in shots of maps or signposts) 
• Audio  (the stirring music, so common in old newsreels,  used to illustrate the Berengeria clip)
• Speech recogniton (look for topics with  specific terminology, eg, Mobile learning.
• Motion Vectors  (Tacoma Narrows)
• Visual analysis (identify structural  changes in video;  tone/colour/pace  as in this JISC resource on copyright)
• Face recognition (identify specific speakers in the  JISC collection) 

It seems likely that such tools will completely redefine the ways in which we can learn through video. Hopefully some of these tools them will also be found within YouTube in the not to distant future.

The Slideshare presentation from Hasso Platter gives a very detailed overview of the underlying process and there is also a demo screencast here.

Panoramic Video for Learning

 
Screencast  - panning and zooming into 360deg video

Last week the delegates at the Diverse 2011 conference were  treated to a fascinating presentation by Dr Roy Pea, Professor of Education and Learning Sciences at Stanford  University, on using video for classroom observation. Roy described how he used a 360 degree Lucy videocam to develop a model for observing lessons and classroom interactions. The Lucy enables all corners of the class to be filmed simultaneously, together with the surrounding audio; and the DIVER software developed by Roy and his team lets viewers zoom in to, comment and annotate different parts of the video.  This  lets different viewers, including both researchers and trainee teachers, pick up on different events happening in the classroom simultaneously, and from different viewpoints. This method of audio-visual analysis brings together multiple perspectives resulting in a multilayered and multidimensional narratives.

Indeed, these video research techniques could be applied to other situations outside the classroom, a good situation might be an art gallery or museum, where the system could record data on visitors strategies and engagement with exhibits and resources. Of course filming in public spaces, and classroooms, raises ethical issues; and to be effective, needs to be consensual and offer privacy safeguards.

Roy also introduced the audience to  Dot, a panoramic camera lens for the iPhone 4, which  is due to launch and retail at around $99. This looks awesome, and makes 360 degree video capture avaialable at a consumer price point.  As you can see in the screencast above, I have been having a play with one of the video examples from the Kogeto site.  I think it really works with movement as you can follow and zoom in or out on the overtaking cars, or turn back to see something you have passed.  Because every viewing is a different experience, learners can draw their own meaning from a video sequence. Combining movement with multiple viewpoints offers remarkable opportunities for sport and travel based videos. Whether filming a walk through a neigbourhood, recording environmental spaces such as a wood, or simply placing the camera on a table during a conversation; the Dot is sure to offer opportunities for creating innovative video for learning.