Friday, November 23, 2007

YouTube: useful but...


Hi my peers!
We’re evolving in our learning of technology, so now we’re here to talk about YouTube!
I think it can be a useful tool for our English learning but this depends on the way we use it; I mean we have to filter all the videos that can be interesting and we can’t stop to the first we found because I think that something could also be unuseful, for example video in English but where it isn’t English native speakers who speak. I think it’s important the fact that we listen to native speakers to learn the right pronunciation and intonation of words.
Another thing I think it’s important to pay attention to is the content of videos, because we can learn more from certain types of video than others. For example, I think that certain videos are not interesting from the point of view of contents because they’re too personal or they’re about strange things etc.
Then I think that the structure and the length of the video are also important. As the structure is concerned, I found more helpful videos without subtitles because in this way we have to concentrate more on what we’re listening to. As regards the length, I think that it isn’t important watching to a long video to do practise in English, because if a video is too long I think I’ll get bored. I really liked the video Sarah proposed us, I found them concise on what they wanted to say and they let us think and discuss on the war in Irak and on stereotypes.
In general, I think that YouTube is helpful for our listening ability but we have to select the material we think it’s interesting.
Moreover, I like the fact that everyone could post a video of his/her interest, which is a peculiarity of web 2.0, but I also think that there should be a control over the videos posted because I think that some of them are really violent or deviating. For example the boy who two months ago provoked a massacre in his school, posted a video in YouTube saying his intention. I think it’s horrible and there should be an authority that watches over videos like that.
What do you think, girls?
Bye!

4 comments:

monica said...

Hi Vale,
I completely agree with your thoughts. There are many positive sides of YouTube but we can't left out the negative ones. As you pointed out it's really horrible to see violent and discriminatory videos on a video sharing tool such as YouTube.
For that reason, also from an educational point of view, we have to filter all the videos that can be interesting without wasting time with superficial and unuseful ones.
In the end I 'd say that the content and the structure of the videos have surely a great importance.

elenacarlet said...

Hi Vale!!
I agree with you of course!! I'm thinking about the guy who posted a video in You Tube in which he announced the massacre in his school...He was like a terrorist I think! However, if there would have been some controls on You Tube, I'm sure that the massacre could have been avoided. In fact, as I wrote to Monica, I would put a kind of censor for "the dangerous videos" on You Tube; do you agree?
Bye!!

Elisa said...

Hi Vale, how are you? Monique and Ciarlet told me you don't feel very well...I read your comment about YouTube...and I obviously agree with you and with our blogmates (yes even with the witch Monicààà...hahahaha...I'm joking)...YouTube has really a great variety of videos to share, some of them are extremely funny other quite useful for different purposes but there’re some videos which are not so interesting and amazing…It’s clear that intelligent people avoid them but weak people as children not…so as I always say: look out
bye

Valeria said...

Hi girls!
Yes, fortunately I'm feeling better now!:-)
As YouTube is concerned, I agree with you. There should be someone who watches over the videos posted... A powerful tool like YouTube, that conveys ideas and thoughts, can't be left without a supervision. I don't intend censorship -everyone can post videos of his/her interest- but videos shouldn't go over the common sense... For example, violent and discriminating videos should left out YouTube.
Bye girls!