Mind the Gaps:
What schools miss out on when they block access to YouTube
Currently, the video sharing website Youtube is blocked for use by students in Queensland schools (Queensland Department of Education and Training). Queensland students are not the only ones who are banned from the site. It is a similar story across all states and territories in Australia, and across many schools in the United States. The ban on the site is designed to shield students from inappropriate content and use, but YouTube is a dynamic website, and there is more to it than merely inappropriate or offensive material. What else are our students not being exposed to when they are excluded from using the site while at school? What knowledge, skills, and opportunities are also being blocked when YouTube is banned, and do the risks really outweigh the benefits?
Esther Rosenfeld’s article, Blocking Web 2.0 tools in schools: Creating a new digital divide explores some of these ideas and Rosenfeld argues that, “Such blanket blocking of Web 2.0 sites by district and school technology administrators prevents the effective use of technology in teaching, the acquisition of vital 21st-century literacy skills by students, and the professional development of teaching staff”.
I would argue that this “divide” which is being created when YouTube is blocked in schools goes even further than the digital divide which Rosenfeld has highlighted. More than just the skills, technologies, and digital literacies that students are missing out on, blocking access to YouTube also creates knowledge gaps, generational gaps, and gaps in the range of educational experiences and opportunities that students are exposed to.
Lost Knowledge
“Why is this new communication form – short, mostly self-created videos – so important for educators to understand? The answer is that a huge portion of the world's knowledge, especially new knowledge, is going uniquely into this form. There is unique video on practically every subject. Banning, or ignoring this work (as often happens in schools) is saying, in effect, “We don't want to give our students access to a large part of the world's knowledge.” (Prensky, 2010)
Now more than ever, people who have something to say, intellectual arguments to make, and have knowledge and information they want to communicate and share, are doing so in a non-written media, and choosing to share and collaborate using sites such as YouTube. As Prensky notes, “They are putting their thoughts and ideas into video rather than writing, and sharing them on sites such as ted.com, bigthink.com, and even You Tube. Today, when searching, if one does not perform a separate video search in addition to a Google search, one misses vital information” (Prensky, 2010).
So when students are excluded from accessing YouTube at school, they are also excluded from conversations, information, arguments, and knowledge which are unique and may be of great value to their learning and understanding of issues. They are also not being exposed to the practical skills that are required to acquire, evaluate, contribute, and use this knowledge and information effectively.
Undeveloped Skills
“We now have a new digital divide - between, on one side, students and teachers who have access to the tools of 21st-century learning and, on the other, those who have that access blocked. Too many schools prevent students from using the tools that these same students use outside school-tools that can engage and excite them to meaningful learning”. (Rosenfeld, 2008)
A number of parallels and similar divides can be seen in the Australian context. Firstly, those students who do not have access to the internet outside of school may never get the opportunity to access YouTube, and are therefore getting left behind in the skills and experiences they are acquiring. The same can be said on a global scale, where students in other countries are using YouTube in the classroom environment and developing their digital literacies and educational experiences in this context, while Australian students are not because they are blocked from accessing the site. This includes both the information and content that is available on YouTube, and also the skills required to acquire, evaluate, contribute, and use this information. As Rosenfeld argues, “Schools cannot teach students to evaluate information and make good choices, because so much of what students would instinctively access is blocked.” (Rosenfeld, 2008)
A number of significant skills are not being learned or developed because students don’t have access to these new interactive web 2.0 technologies such as YouTube at school. These are the skills required to participate, collaborate, and contribute to the information process in a meaningful and effective way. YouTube is a dynamic site, and the skills that need to be developed in order for students to contribute to it effectively include video productions skills, audio production skills, presentation skills, scriptwriting skills, basic literacy skills, web skills, knowledge about promotion and marketing, evaluation skills, and search strategy skills. The idea and importance of learning the skills needed for participation and collaboration in digital media such as YouTube, not just the consumption of it, is an issue that Henry Jenkins (2006) also advocates in his paper Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture. Jenkins argues that,
“In a world where it is often difficult to determine the source and status of the media we are consuming, traditional literacy and research skills are no longer sufficient. We should no longer consider young people to be media literate if they can consume but not produce media. It's like confusing penmanship with composition” (Jenkins, 2006).
Educators and students are also missing out on opportunities to create and participate in dynamic educational experiences and opportunities using video sharing sites such as YouTube to engage with learning. This idea was explored by Anna Adam and Helen Mowers in their article YouTube Comes to the Classroom, which looks at ways in which YouTube is being used as an effective educational tool in the classroom, and in particular, as a platform for giving students a voice.
“YouTube can be a valuable resource and is just one more example of the potential of Web 2.0 tools, which, in the hands of enlightened educators, can inspire students and support their digital learning style. Youngsters will always want a voice--it's up to us to utilize available resources, such as YouTube, to help our students create content that is relevant and engaging”. (Adam & Mowers, 2007)
Burnt Bridges
Another facet in this discussion about the inclusion of sites such as YouTube in schools is the idea of building bridges. Building bridges not only across the digital divide, but also across the generational divide and from students’ lives outside the classroom, to their experiences in the classroom. If young people are participating in digital media and social networking sites such as YouTube in a whole range of ways in their out of school lives, then one way to add value to that and to help young people’s educational experiences to be more meaningful is to create a bridge to the classroom. As Jenkins argues,
“We are raising a generation of media producers and distributors who are doing what previous authors have done—create a dialogue with existing cultural traditions. So, librarians have a role to play in helping them to understand the poetics and politics of appropriation, to help them understand what constitutes a meaningful engagement with existing cultural materials and what constitutes intellectual dishonesty or violations of copyright. This brings us back to the ideal of the librarian as a facilitator of new forms of research and expression, rather than as a curator and archivist of traditional print materials” (Jenkins, 2006).
By allowing students to use YouTube at school, and teaching them the skills that are required to use it effectively, educators can add relevance and value to their students’ experiences both in the classroom and outside it.
A Call to Arms…
So now what? What can we as teacher-librarians and teachers do if our students can’t access YouTube at school? Rosenfeld makes a strong argument that it is up to us to fight for this, and show the decision makers that there is value in YouTube, and that by blocking students’ access to it, they are also blocking knowledge and skills and relevant educational experiences. We need to show them examples of its effective use, and highlight the gaps that are being created by the exclusion of YouTube. That the dangers of not allowing this conversation and experience to take place at school are far greater than allowing it to take place behind closed doors without the adequate skills, guidance, and understandings of the applications and implications of using YouTube.
“As teacher-librarians, we need to press our principals, our technology administrators, our district superintendents, and our school boards to provide the type of web access necessary for 21st-century teaching and learning. We need to show decision makers exemplars of the fine work and outstanding practices that are occurring in schools that have such access. We need to educate decision makers and change their minds about filtering collaborative tools and sites. We need to lobby for district-acceptable use policies that explicitly state that students are using Web 2.0 tools, and we need to provide examples of the proper use of these tools. By advocating for such Web 2.0 access, we can help to create the information-rich environment that students and teachers need”. (Rosenfeld, 2008)
References:
No comments:
Post a Comment