Assignment #2 - Part 3

YouTube as a Reliable Educational Resource

YouTube has become a valuable supplement to education since its introduction to the internet in 2005.  Thousands of viewers and contributors to YouTube use the site as a means of entertainment by posting home videos, pictures, music and other forms of media. Many companies also post videos on YouTube to sell their products through advertisements which demonstrate how their products are used. However, YouTube also provides educational information that has become a fantastic teaching aid especially for courses with practical applications.

As documented in the article by Misty Harris, YouTube 101: class at McGill University uses video site's Creator Playbook to teach marketing, Harris, Misty. Postmedia News [Don Mills, Ont.] 28 Jan 2014, many post secondary classes find internet sites to be very useful for learning.  Harris writes that

most professors exhaust themselves trying to get their students off of social media. Andy Nulman, however, has designed his entire class around being on it. In what's believed to be the first syllabus of its kind, McGill University's marketing and society class uses YouTube's Creator Playbook as its sole course book. And, in lieu of a final exam, students will be evaluated on their launch of a unique channel on the video-sharing site.  

 

The oversold class, which is the brainchild of Just for Laughs co-founder Nulman, portends a brave new world for post-secondary instruction - one in which free online resources and real-time knowledge are favoured over expensive, and often outdated, textbooks.
"With most business books, unless (they address) a big, new idea, they're almost obsolete by the time they're published," said Nulman. "At Just for Laughs, I really learned the power of YouTube - not necessarily as an entertainment platform, which it is, but as a marketing platform, and as a way to get a message across in a very direct manner." (Harris, 2014)

Many times in the ICT program I have referred to YouTube to show students about instrumentation equipment that is utilized in industry.  Companies post videos to demonstrate the theory of operation behind their equipment.  They also explain in the videos which products or equipment they have built to meet the specific requirements of industry.  The videos provide industry and educators with information on the latest technology such as transmitters with wireless capability.  Other types of videos accessible on YouTube, and a great asset to training ICT students, are the instructional videos to help students with various 'hands-on' practical tasks required of the program.

As with any teaching tool, there are pros and cons to the technology or media type.  Of course there is the necessity of having a computer and network access in the shop and classroom.  Also, a projector and screen, SMART Board, or similar display method must be available to show the YouTube videos.  Credibility and validity are two important considerations.  It is best to find videos published by reputable companies whose information is respected and accurate.  Since there are dozens, possibly hundreds, of videos for any topic on YouTube it is very important to discern the credible ones prior to showing them to the students.  Preparation through lesson plans and creating lists of reliable sources of videos found on YouTube, before teaching a class, is critical to avoid showing videos that turn out to be of poor quality with inaccurate information.

About YouTube
Founded in February 2005, YouTube allows billions of people to discover, watch and share originally-created videos. YouTube provides a forum for people to connect, inform, and inspire others across the globe and acts as a distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers large and small.

Retrieved from:  https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/

Harris, M. (2014, Jan 28). YouTube 101: Class at McGill university uses video site's creator playbook to teach marketing. Postmedia News Retrieved from  http://search.proquest.com/docview/1492423587?accountid=45452

Assignment #2 - Part 2

Interactive SMART Boards for Training Students



SMART Boards are another effective media type introduced to many schools, colleges and universities to enhance the education of students at many stages of their development. There are many reasons to include technological devices and applications in post-secondary education.  Easier access to information found online, providing interaction with new technology from industry, and bridging the classroom with industrial settings are just a few of the advantages of having SMART Board technology at our disposal.

In the Instrumentation and Control Technician program there are new technologies that have proven to be effective for teaching and learning and make the program a more interesting experience. The students in this program thrive on the hands-on experience provided by activities that teach them the basics in construction, maintenance, process measurement and control applications.  The SMART Board is useful for demonstrations of procedures and an instructor can make notations on the screen where necessary for extra details.  Notes and diagrams can be saved for future use, saving time for an instructor who might decide to use the notes for another lesson or recall them for review to prepare for exams.

As with any electronic technology, SMART Boards rely on the computer network capability of the college to access resources.  An instructor has to be prepared for network downtime or hardware issues with the equipment by always having an alternate method of delivering the course material.  SMART Boards are an expensive technology  and might not be available to every classroom or the shop facility used by some trades programs due to possible damage in those areas caused by the nature of the activities required of these trades.  Many trades programs teach practical tasks such as using power tools (drills, grinders, chop saws), hand tools (hacksaws, wrenches, hammers), or using equipment (ladders, valves, testing devices).  Students have to be careful around the shop to avoid doing work around computers or a SMART Board.

The article discussed in this part of the assignment is directed towards the secondary school system but still describes similar pros and cons to using a SMART Board.

The authors report on their research into the effectiveness of using SMART Board technology in classrooms at an elementary school level.  They discovered multiple benefits for both teaching and learning.  SMART boards can be used in so many different ways making it a tool that can easily be integrated into any subject area.  For example, many of our students tend to be very visual learners and the SMART board is a perfect match for their learning style.  The visibility of the board is not only engaging for our young learners but it also facilitates whole-group instruction that is more collaborative and active in comparison to traditional whole-group lessons that tend to be more passive and oriented toward direct instruction.

Bates, Christi; Hopkins, Amy; Kratcoski, Annette. “Using Smart Boards to Enhance Student Learning.” Journal of the Research Center for Educational Technology.
3.2 (2007): 47-49. May 3, 2012.

Assignment #2 - Part 1

Augmented Reality (AR) - Simulations as a Teaching and Learning Method

This article is written by Kangdon Lee to discuss the pros and cons to consider when new technology, Augmented Reality for example, is used for educational purposes as well as industrial applications.  Augmented Reality refers to training using simulation software and hardware technology. 

Augmented Reality technology has many applications in K-12 and post secondary education and becoming more widely accepted as a viable addition to learning.  Technology needs to be relevant and productive and must be beneficial to the educator and student. Cost of hardware, software and maintenance of the AR programming and usage is an important consideration.  Schools and colleges are particularly limited by budget restraints more than industry.  Therefore, it is vital that any new technology, especially for education, has to be budget conscious and worth the spending to achieve a superior value to a program

Lee, K. (2012), The Future of Learning and Training in Augmented Reality.  Volume 7, pp 31 - 42.  University of Northern Colorado.

Application of Augmented Reality in the ICT Program - The video shown here is a great example of training students for Instrumentation and Control Technician work using a simulation software package from GSE's Activ3Di Task-Based Trainer.
This software package has realistic images in the videos and there are dozens of activities to choose from that encompass a variety of topics in the field of instrumentation.  Students can benefit from this type of simulation software in a computer lab.  Often it is unrealistic to expect students to have access to real industrial equipment to practice on.  The real equipment can be extremely costly, would require adequate storage space, and could it be difficult to provide enough time for the activities to be completed compared to simulation projects.
Simulation software packages can be a great supplement to an instructor lead demonstration, using real equipment, whereby students can see the actual process in the lab and follow up with the simulation activity.
The link to Youtube, shown below, demonstrates the high quality of simulation software video instructions available to educators and students

http://youtu.be/eglbe2V0PUw?list=UUDfzMgS2e_oryJtCQABlKhQ