In the last weeks we learned how to filter information in the web, exploit its potential saving time and energy. It was very interesting and useful but using YouTube is great and makes a lot of fun! I must admit this has been the best e-tivity so far.
I knew that you can find really everything in YouTube and as soon as I had the change to visit this site I was very curious to look around. This time I got pleasantly lost because I saw many funny and weird videos! Youtube is user friendly as users can watch any video and grade it, while registered users have the possibility to upload as many videos as they want.
YouTube shelves its videos in broad categories; this means you have to know what you're looking for if you want to find something eye-catching. Tags, as usual, are fundamental as they function as filters and help finding what you really want to see.
There are videos for every taste: some are really hilarious, some nasty, some sweet, some serious and professionally competent. However, this tool should be carefully used and controlled especially after some recent facts happened in schools. YouTube and sites like it are said to encourage bullying among teenagers, who film fights or similar acts with their phones, upload videos to the net and are imitated by other teenagers.
This is surely a negative consequence of this exponentially growing website. There should be maybe more control to the quality of uploaded videos. In fact, according to Forbes, "YouTube is slowly cultivating a more mature fan base thanks to its vast archives of some 8 million video clips, with 65,000 additions daily". (from http://www.forbes.com/2006/09/28/youtube-internet-video-tech-media_cz_cs_0928tubesidebar.html)
As far as language learning is concerned I think it is possible to find many useful videos. I found, for example, a series of videos teaching the basics of German, a sort of survival course. It was elementary, simple but pleasing. The teacher was serious and kept repeating sentences more than once first in English, then in German. Nevertheless, there were courses for many other languages, for example Chinese, Japanese and so on.
The world is getting smaller, technology "invades" every field of our life, different cultures meet (and clash, sometimes) easily. There are new ways to communicate and to learn and nowadays we are given many tools and resources to learn everything online. Learning a language as autodidact, for example, is much easier than in the past.
On the other hand, for those who learn a language in the traditional way, there are web pages, radio, online TV, online magazines, computer programs and now even YouTube as support to their learning. The matter consists basically in finding efficient resources that really help you learn.
However, when your skills are rather advanced you can test your listening comprehension skills on YouTube, for free! YouTube is useful for many other things, too. For example in order to show how to do practical things, as Sarah did to show to us how del.icio.us worked. Or else, it might be useful for people who want to upload videos for relatives or friends that live far away.
A very positive aspect to point out is that you understand immediately how YouTube works, it's easy, funny, quick and free! In the future you might have to purchase if you want to use it, as it is so successful, but until it is free I think YouTube is a very good tool. It is fun (and personally I think that enjoying learning a language helps a lot) and learning is "visual". Moreover you can listen to a portion of a video over and over again until you get the sense of it.
I knew that you can find really everything in YouTube and as soon as I had the change to visit this site I was very curious to look around. This time I got pleasantly lost because I saw many funny and weird videos! Youtube is user friendly as users can watch any video and grade it, while registered users have the possibility to upload as many videos as they want.
YouTube shelves its videos in broad categories; this means you have to know what you're looking for if you want to find something eye-catching. Tags, as usual, are fundamental as they function as filters and help finding what you really want to see.
There are videos for every taste: some are really hilarious, some nasty, some sweet, some serious and professionally competent. However, this tool should be carefully used and controlled especially after some recent facts happened in schools. YouTube and sites like it are said to encourage bullying among teenagers, who film fights or similar acts with their phones, upload videos to the net and are imitated by other teenagers.
This is surely a negative consequence of this exponentially growing website. There should be maybe more control to the quality of uploaded videos. In fact, according to Forbes, "YouTube is slowly cultivating a more mature fan base thanks to its vast archives of some 8 million video clips, with 65,000 additions daily". (from http://www.forbes.com/2006/09/28/youtube-internet-video-tech-media_cz_cs_0928tubesidebar.html)
As far as language learning is concerned I think it is possible to find many useful videos. I found, for example, a series of videos teaching the basics of German, a sort of survival course. It was elementary, simple but pleasing. The teacher was serious and kept repeating sentences more than once first in English, then in German. Nevertheless, there were courses for many other languages, for example Chinese, Japanese and so on.
The world is getting smaller, technology "invades" every field of our life, different cultures meet (and clash, sometimes) easily. There are new ways to communicate and to learn and nowadays we are given many tools and resources to learn everything online. Learning a language as autodidact, for example, is much easier than in the past.
On the other hand, for those who learn a language in the traditional way, there are web pages, radio, online TV, online magazines, computer programs and now even YouTube as support to their learning. The matter consists basically in finding efficient resources that really help you learn.
However, when your skills are rather advanced you can test your listening comprehension skills on YouTube, for free! YouTube is useful for many other things, too. For example in order to show how to do practical things, as Sarah did to show to us how del.icio.us worked. Or else, it might be useful for people who want to upload videos for relatives or friends that live far away.
A very positive aspect to point out is that you understand immediately how YouTube works, it's easy, funny, quick and free! In the future you might have to purchase if you want to use it, as it is so successful, but until it is free I think YouTube is a very good tool. It is fun (and personally I think that enjoying learning a language helps a lot) and learning is "visual". Moreover you can listen to a portion of a video over and over again until you get the sense of it.
