Thing #20

Another one of my favorite websites!!! Youtube! I love that there are videos for pretty much anything you can image: instructional videos, music videos (some with the song lyrics), movie clips, comedy routines, and so much more. I have been using this site for a long time and mainly for entertainment purposes, but it has been helpful in my academic life as well. Just last semester I had to memorize the first eighteen lines of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and I found a video on Youtube that helped me prepare to recite it to my professor. It had the pronunciation of each word written out and there was a person's voice saying the words  with the correct accent; it definitely made a difference in my ability to memorize the lines.
I also love that Youtube lets you create an account and a channel. You can subscribe to different channels, simply by clicking "subscribe" which appears above the video, and every time you go to your account new videos will show up. If you are watching any video on this site, on the right hand side there will be a list of related videos or other videos that you might find interesting. It is a good way to keep up with videos you like or ones that can be used in the classroom. Many professors have used videos from Youtube in class that relate directly to the lesson. The educational videos would be good to apply to the library's website because students can actually understand concepts better by watching them. The problem would be weeding out all the other videos that are not educational and distracting for students when doing research.
The only thing I don't like about Youtube is the commercials that come with certain videos, even though I understand why they do it. And I have heard that people who create a series of videos, upload them, and get a lot of views, get paid money for the commercials to appear on their stuff. It's often referred to as "going viral".

I was exploring educational videos to add to this blog entry and remembered one of the movies we watched in like elementary or middle school. I am sure there are some people who know what I am talking about...this video is from Schoolhouse Rock. I was very entertained by this movie as a kid and the songs have actually stuck in my head since then. Schoolhouse Rock is a series of movies that cover all subject areas. Here is "Conjunction Junction" and if you watch it you just may find yourself singing "conjunction junction, what's your function...hooking up words, and phrases, and clauses" as I often do. And I actually got it on here by clicking the add video icon on the bar that appears above the box you write your posts in. It gave me a "from Youtube" option and I just looked up the video, pressed select, and added it. It may not be the way videos are supposed to be added, but it worked and it was easy.