YouTube in the College Classroom: History, Impact, and Curriculum Enhancements
By Reed Markham, Faculty, Daytona State College
Peter Drucker, author of Managing the Future observed: “We live in a very turbulent
time, not because there is so much change, but because it moves in so many different
directions.” (Drucker, 1993) Effective college and university instructors have to be able
to recognize and run with opportunity to learn, and to constantly refresh the knowledge
base.” The complexity of rapidly changing teaching technology makes it a critical
objectives for practitioners to learn about the latest tools to enhance presentations in the
classroom. YouTube has proven in the last two year to be an emerging technology with
strong potential for enhancing classroom discussions, lectures and presentations.
The following paper discusses the history of YouTube, the impact of YouTube on
today’s public speaking audience, and the use of YouTube to enhance public speaking
curriculum. As part of the research 77 undergraduate students taking the introductory
speech course at Daytona Beach College (DeLand, Florida campus) were surveyed about
the use of YouTube technology in the classroom.
History
YouTube, the latest gift/threat, is a free video-sharing Web site that has rapidly
become a wildly popular way to upload, share, view and comment on video clips. With
more than 100 million viewings a day and more than 65,000 videos uploaded daily, the
Web portal provides teachers with a growing amount if visual information share with a
classroom full of young multimedia enthusiasts. (Dyck, 2007) Based in San Mateo,
YouTube is a small privately-funded company. The company was founded by Chad
Hurley and Steven Chen. The company raised over million of funding from Sequoia
Capital, the firm who also provided initial venture capital for Google, The founders
initially had a contest inviting the posting of videos. The contest got the attention of the
masses and Google, Inc. In October 2006, Google acquired the company for 1.65 billion
in Google stock.
Since spring of 2006, YouTube has come to hold the leading position in online video
with 29% of the U.S. multimedia entertainment market.YouTube videos account for 60%
of all videos watched online . . . The site specializes in short, typically two minute,
homemade, comic videos created by users. YouTube serves as a quick entertainment
break or viewers with broadband computer connections at work or home. (Reuters, 2006)
.In June (2006), 2.5 billion videos were watched on YouTube. More than 65,000
videos are now uploaded daily to YouTube. YouTube boasts nearly 20 million unique
users per month, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. (Reuters, 2006) Robert Hinderliter,
Kansas State University developed an interesting video history of YouTube.com. The
segment can be found on the YouTube.com website.
Impact of YouTube in the classroom
“The growing adoption of broadband combined with a dramatic push by content
providers to promote online video has helped to pave the way for mainstream
audiences to embrace online video viewing. The majority of adult internet users in
the United States (57%) report watching or downloading some type of online video
content and 19% do so on a typical day. (Madden, 2007). Daytona Beach College
students surveyed indicated that a majority of the students watch videos on a weekly
basis. College instructors can capitalize on the surge in viewing online videos by
incorporating their use in the classroom.
Communication research on using visuals as an enhancement to presentations is
supported by early researchers including Aristotle. “Although ancient orators weren’t
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