the educational use of youtube

By: Mireia Saragossà Mendiola

Introduction to Media Studies
Mrs. I. Vovou
Athens, Greece
SUMMARY
Under the theoretical framework constructed for Computer Mediated Communication, by
documentary research, various contributions on YouTube were reviewed in order to spot the
educational opportunities offered by it. The result distinguishes it as an asynchronously,
transmissive and interactive communication media; classified to share videos and create
communities around shared resources. Educational studies collected in this review describes
it as teacher ́s tool for content management and community’s creator; and for promoting the
development of learners seeking skills, selection and evaluation of audiovisual
representations of own or strange authorship.
Key words: web 2.0 tools, YouTube, computer mediated communication, education.

INTRODUCTION
At the beginning, the Web was a receptacle of information that could be displayed at the
request of users, a sender-receiver information process, that is, a unidirectional
communication model. Later, with Web 2.0, it became an interactive communicative scenario
of social reconstruction that enables the modeling and collective renewal of digital
information (texts, images, videos and audios). As Web 2.0 was consolidated as a set of
technologies and media available to the general public, it began to have an impact on the
educational field and configured a new field of research called Computer Mediated
Communication (CMC) (Siles, 2008).
CMC has been defined by different authors (Gómez, Arvizu and Galindo, 2005; Siles, 2005,
2008; Bowler, 2010). The first meanings distinguish it as a medium for the exchange, transfer
and storage of information and textual messages. Later, it was defined more precisely as the
set of communicative possibilities that allow composing, storing, transmitting and processing
multimedia statements (not limited to texts only) (Perera and Torres, 2005). From the field of
education, it is conceived as the set of digital technologies that assist in communication and
teaching and learning processes. Tools that can be used to support didactic processes,
allowing learners and tutors to interact through a mediated dialogue, privately or collectively,
in the development of both teaching and learning (Ramirez, 2016).
Tools that offer a communicative scenario with multiple features: multimedia, hypertextual,
pluridirectional, temporally and geographically independent, of focused dissemination,
updated in real time, free of arbitration, with the requirement of a minimum of digital
competences by the user, and facilitator of a process that allows interactive, identified or
silent participation (Orihuela, 2002).
Although the authors differentiate two temporal types of CMC transmission, synchronous or
asynchronous (Perera and Torres, 2005), other classifications have been proposed. One refers
to its communicative purpose: transmissive, active and interactive (Quirós, 2009). Another is
in terms of educational purposes: to create social networks, create resources, retrieve
information and share resources (SCOPEO, 2009).
CMC mediation includes technical, psychological and social tools interrelated in unison
(Bentolila and Clavijo, 2001), which have been to understand how teaching-learning
processes intervened by CMC are configured. In general, educational research has shown the
potential, benefit, viable use, integration and acceptance by the educational community.
According to Perera and Torres (2005), two thematic cores can be distinguished in these
studies:

- Teacher discourse analysis: Descriptive and ethnographic studies, which were to be

combined with ethnomethodological discourse analysis, classified into formal,
informal and spontaneous statements. They conclude that the style of teaching
discourse is an important factor in student participation, quality of responses and
interactions.
- Collaborative learning: Another trend is concerned with the study of collaborative
learning supported by CMC. Studies focused on recognizing the social interaction that
occurs in a group. In the same vein, comparative approaches have been developed
between face-to-face and virtual collaborative learning.
The set of features mentioned above can be reorganized according to the axes proposed by
Conceptual Cartography (CC) and thus constitute a series of categories of analysis conducive
to examining any Web 2.0 educational tool.
CC is a procedure to address the construction and communication of concepts in the
formation of cognitive competences within the field of virtual education, accounting for their
relationships and organization, which makes it possible to understand the object of study
(Tobón, 2014).
Under these references, the present work is a documentary research that examines and
analyzes the educational attributes achieved by YouTube. The purpose is to review the
features and possibilities of the tool to reconstruct a characterization that offers renewed
references of teaching utility to create learning environments in face-to-face, blended and
virtual modalities.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
The elaboration of this research required the analysis of different types of information
sources. We examined content from the official YouTube website, educational research
reports in indexed journals, books and congress participations related to the educational
intervention of the tool, as well as contributions from our own experience as a teaching user.
The documents were selected in the following way: first, authors who deal with the YouTube
tool were located. Subsequently, we selected those who focused on the application of the tool
from an educational perspective.
The criteria used to evaluate the information in the selected documents were the following:
relevance, reliability, applicability, timeliness and usefulness. Contents were collected and
reorganized according to the following conceptual axes:

- Notional axis: definition of the object of study. In the present review, it corresponds to
the educational concept of the YouTube tool.
- Subdivision axis: Identifies the classes into which the tool is divided educationally.
- Characterization axis: Description of the general attributes of the object of study. It
refers to the description of the communicative characteristics of the tool.
- Differentiation axis: They establish the propositions that show the difference of the
concept in question from other similar concepts.
from other similar concepts. That is, the media difference of the tool.
Youtube.
- Categorical axis: Identification of the general class of concepts within which the
concept in question is included.
The concept in question is included. It concerns the distinction of the temporal type of
communication and type of communicative and educational purpose of the tool.
communicative and educational purpose of the tool.
- Axis of linkage: The relations of the object of study with another field of study are
established.The review makes it necessary to recover the contribution of research on
the educational intervention of the tool.
- Exemplification axis: Propositions that exemplify the concept with specific cases are
described. Likewise, the review requires showing specific examples of the use of the
tool.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Notional Axis: Educational Definition of YouTube

YouTube is a free service for storing, managing and broadcasting videos through a
registration account. Users and visitors can upload, search, view and download, thanks to free
tools such as ssyoutube, material in any video or audio format. YouTube started in 2005 with
a growing number of videos, which in 2007 reached more than 42.5 million videos (Cheng,
Dale &Liu, 2007). Currently, it has more than 100 million users (almost one third of the
people connected to the Internet), generating billions of views per day (YouTube, 2015),
making it one of the most visited sites on the Web.
In general YouTube is a meeting point for those who want to exhibit and watch a video; a
favorable circumstance to carry out teaching and learning activities. For example, searching
for the word Education gives us more than 3,450,000 results; while Education yields more
than 11,000,000 videos.
However, the largest proportion of reproductions is in the music category (31%), followed by
entertainment (15%) and social (11%). The education category barely reaches 4.1% of the
videos saved (Sysomos Inc., 2010).

Subdivision axis: YouTube's educational subdivision

The demand for educational videos in a space that does not distract the student by music and
entertainment led to the launch of YouTube.EDU in December 2009 (Open Cultura, 2009;
YouTube, 2009, 2010, 2011). This is a site that, under a network configuration, Internet
server administrators can activate in order to access only content from this page. Thus, users
can choose from more than 20,000 videos created by universities such as Stanford, UC
Berkeley, UCLA, and Yale. Within a year of its launch, YouTube.EDU has become one of the
largest repositories of educational videos in the world, which in 2011 increased its
membership base to 6,000 college and university accounts. It includes tutorials for university
studies in seven languages from 10 countries and has more than 350 complete courses, an
increase of 75% per year. In addition, it has added new support such as the addition of
subtitles for automatic translation of videos.

Criticism of YouTube: EDU focuses on two aspects: a positive one, the trend of publishing
complete courses on the Web, such as the guitar playing series of the University of California
at Berkeley; and a negative one, which refers to the use given by educational institutions,
which, with some exceptions, have entrusted their channels to marketing departments, who
send more promotional videos than teaching videos. This fact causes that, despite the
educational intention, videos that are one hundred percent educational are the least
reproduced (Higher Ed Live, 2011).
In this scenario, Khan Academy (Khan, 2012) was born, a non-profit organization with the
mission of offering quality education free of charge to everyone, at any time. It has a library
of more than 2,942 videos and more than 8,115,815 reproductions. It is the most visited
channel on YouTube.

Subdivision axis: YouTube Educational Subdivision

The demand for educational videos in a space that does not distract the student by music and
entertainment led to the launch of YouTube.EDU in December 2009 (Open Cultura, 2009;
YouTube, 2009, 2010, 2011). This is a site that, under a network configuration, Internet
server administrators can activate in order to access only content from this page. Thus, users
can choose from more than 20,000 videos created by universities such as Stanford, UC
Berkeley, UCLA, and Yale. Within a year of its launch, YouTube.EDU has become one of the
largest repositories of educational videos in the world, which in 2011 increased its
membership base to 6,000 college and university accounts. It includes tutorials for university
studies in seven languages from 10 countries and has more than 350 complete courses, an
increase of 75% per year. In addition, it has added new support such as the addition of
subtitles for automatic translation of videos.
Criticism of YouTube.EDU focuses on two aspects: a positive one, the trend of publishing
complete courses on the Web, such as the guitar playing series of the University of California
at Berkeley; and a negative one, which refers to the use given by educational institutions,
which, with some exceptions, have entrusted their channels to marketing departments, who
send more promotional videos than teaching videos. This fact causes that, despite the
educational intention, videos that are one hundred percent educational are the least
reproduced (Higher Ed Live, 2011).
In this scenario, Khan Academy (Khan, 2012) was born, a non-profit organization with the
mission of offering quality education free of charge to everyone, at any time. It has a library
of more than 2,942 videos and more than 8,115,815 reproductions. It is the most visited
channel on YouTube.Edu.
Characterization axis: communicative attributes
The following is a reconstruction of the communicative attributes of YouTube, according to
the features proposed by José Luis Orihuela (2002):
- Multi-media. Although YouTube offers mainly videos, text comments can be written
under them or subtitles can be activated. And within the videos, messages and
hypertexts can be placed.
- Hypertext. The view of each video displays a list of videos related to the same topics
or published by the same channel, which can be accessed with just one click. And
within the videos you can find hyperlinks to other pages.
- Multidirectional. The subscription option allows users to associate themselves with
the channel of the video of interest. Thus, every time a channel adds a new video, all
subscribers are informed by e-mail. In addition, the sharing options allow the video to
be shown on another page or sent by any of the different means of distribution.
- Independent geographically and temporally. It is viewed at any time and anywhere in
the world with Internet service. It is estimated that 80% of YouTube traffic comes
from outside the United States of America. Localized in 76 languages.
- In real time. The modifications and written comments to the videos are published
immediately after they are saved.
- Updated. It is estimated that 48 hours of video are uploaded per minute, resulting in
almost eight years of content uploaded every day.
- Demanding digital skills. Not a prerequisite for browsing, but could be for writing
comments, advanced searching, subscribing, downloading, uploading and editing
videos within the same page.
- Silent communication. We did not obtain statistical data on this behavior, but silent
communication can be estimated. For example, Salman Khan in his TED 2011
speech, one of the most played videos of the Khan Academy channel, has 4,487,752
reproductions; 22,642 likes; 680 dislikes and 2,550 comments; so the proportion of
silence is higher than interaction.
- Focused. YouTube by implementing YouTube.EDU manages to focus educational
content.
- Digitally identified. There are more than one billion identified users, who can register
their account directly on the page, can register their account directly on the page or
through their gmail account.
 - Free of arbitration. The evaluation of the videos is in charge of the community of
users, who can mark "Like" or "Dislike", comment, simply reproduce, not reproduce
the video, save it in favorites, leave it in the history of reproductions or insert it in
another site. The statistics of each video are available in the lower right button. In
addition, YouTube warns about the copyright of the music used, identifies and
announces the authors (in the lower corner outside the video window).

Differentiation axis: media distinction

The tool combines several basic and complex media characteristics. Basic such as its
symbolic, formal, flexible and reinforcing manipulation. In addition, it is dynamic, allowing
the change of perceptual (speed, quality, mode and display on screen) and cognitive (transfer
options and insertion in other media) parameters.
The complex measurements are related to the management of the account and the channel,
since the conceptual and procedural aspects must be articulated to achieve the management of
libraries and subscriptions, manipulations that form transferable cognitive skills for the
management of other tools. The tool makes it possible to search and select different videos,
sources of information that can have repercussions in making, repairing, perfecting and
improvising mental constructions; that is, YouTube can be an amplifier of intellectual
possibilities. In other words, YouTube can be an amplifier of intellectual possibilities, and
even live broadcasting (video improvised on the spot or casting), sharing and writing
comments on it, almost at the same time, can be a way to improve the quality of the video
speed than thinking, it means a different type of metal process than the one we had lived in
previous generations, a modification in the way in which the
previous generations, a modification in the human way of thinking of a qualitative order.

Categorization axis: Temporal type of communication and type of digital tool.

The communication that occurs on YouTube is asynchronous (not in real time). According to
the classification by communicative purpose (Quirós, 2009), it is typified as transmissive and
interactive; and in terms of educational purposes, to share resources and form social networks
(SCOPEO, 2009).
Linking axis: Research on its educational intervention
Studies on the use of YouTube in the classroom consider that video is a powerful medium to
mobilize a broad spectrum of content, from scientific knowledge to human emotions through
drama (Snelson & Elison-Bowers, 2009), the studies are shown in two thematic strands
(Berk, 2009; Bonk, 2008): those focused on teaching activities and those dedicated to the
study of student learning.
The planned intervention of the YouTube tool allows teachers to create their own virtual
library of videos to form a learning community around the contents selected by the teacher.
And the student can create his own virtual library, with videos selected by him or with
productions of his own authorship; a library that allows the student to watch videos of his
interest again, share them with others and form a section with his own productions that serve
as evidence of his progress and professional evolution.

Axis of exemplification: Examples of the educational use of YouTube.

Intervention focused on teaching.
Some authors (Berk, 2009; Burke & Snyder, 2008, Duffy, 2008; Snelson & Bowers, 2009;
Bonk, 2008) are of the opinion that YouTube can help the teacher to:
- Illustrate concepts through short videos from channels such as Discovery and
National Geographic, or through the selection of the crucial part of a movie; for
example, the scene from the movie Agora (2009) when Hypatia discovers the
elliptical motion of the Earth, or from social marketing videos (Dove Campaign for
Self-Esteem, to name a few).
- Present alternatives to a point of view through talks found on TED or La Ciudad de
las Ideas channels.
- Show the application of a content in the real world. For example, Veritasium is a
science and engineering video channel that offers experiments, expert interviews,
demonstrations and discussions with the public about a scientific application.
- Facilitate collective discussions and analysis of content. For example, the BBC
channel features stories such as Smart drugs drugs that supposedly enhance cognitive
abilities, or the film Limitless, the story of a writer who consumes an experimental
drug that allows him to use 100 percent of his brain. Students' reflections on watching
the video can be written at the bottom as comments and they can also feed back the
comments by clicking on the reply link.
- Follow a procedure, as can be done with the help of Khan Academy tutorials.
 - Exaggerate a point of view. For example, in the movie The Big Fish, the main
character realizes that his father had not lied, but had actually exaggerated the events
of his life.
- Motivate or inspire. A large number of inspirational movies can be found on
YouTube: In Pursuit of Happiness, Finding Forrester, Discovering Neverland, The
Freedom Writers, Behind the Blackboard, At the Front of the Classroom, The Magic
Behind the Words, Gladiator, Balboa and many more.
- Offer a humorous break or back-to-school cue in a surprise or planned way; for
example, the 2M Media channel contains cute shorts.
- Create a virtual library of your own videos for the teacher's work. Through a YouTube
account or channel, the site offers the opportunity to be used as a virtual library, with
selected videos to share with students. It allows to organize them individually, mark
them as favorites or group them in playlists. In such a way that the teacher can access
them whenever needed. This saves time spent searching and selecting them. In
addition, the channel saves a history of watched videos, which makes it easier to
locate them, in case the videos have not been marked and saved in the channel.

The videos can be projected in class, at the beginning, middle or end of the class; or they can
be left as homework before or after the content is covered (Bonk, 2008). Another option is to
use mobile devices to watch the video and work on a group reflection. The video of interest
can be shared via email or other social media such as Facebook; or its URL link or embed
code can be inserted into a virtual educational environment.
Learning-centered intervention:
Among other authors, Curtis J. Bonk (2009) proposes that YouTube is a useful tool for
shaping the
skills of search, selection and exposure of content.
Search, selection and exposition of a topic to be covered. When the teacher poses to the
students the search for two or three videos related to the topic in question, they establish
search criteria and ask the students to produce a running list of selected videos, which they
share with the students in the class to comment on the videos reflectively. As a whole, it is
considered to increase interest and understanding of a topic covered in class, compared to
solving a traditional quiz. In addition, it promotes the formation of a student's digital and
visual literacy, an important skill in our current culture.
In contrast, the free search of videos can be unproductive. It is important to add a learning
assessment tool, such as a rubric. This will provide the student with criteria to self-evaluate
and give feedback on their performance in order to improve their results (Chenail, 2008).
The search, selection and exhibition of videos should be accompanied by the presence of the
teacher, involved in the process through guiding comments. To cite a practice, students can be
asked to share the selected videos in their Gmail profile and the teacher will comment on
whether the selection was correct or not for the search or if they should continue with it.

It should be noted that the selection criteria between teachers and students may be far from
coinciding. A study about directed searches by Mayoral, Tello & González (2010) documents
that when teachers and students searched for the same topic, the videos selected by the
students as interesting did not coincide with those selected by the teacher. Therefore, the
teacher should be flexible and open to a range of different appreciations.
Students were asked to bring or search YouTube for a video related to DNA, teacher chose a
video 7:45 minutes (Table 3), which has a scientific explanation of DNA theory. Students
brought different versions and some of them chose the same videos, but none of them
selected the alternative that the teacher had chosen (Mayoral, Tello, & Gonzalez, 2010).
The same study shows results on video preferences in preschool, elementary, middle school,
high school and college. In elementary school, children preferred videos about science
projects, songs and cartoons. In secondary school, students were involved in the search and
selection of videos to be shown in class; their favorite videos were music, documentaries and
movies (trailers). In high school, the best experience was with karaoke videos in the language
class. Students explored the possibility of practicing not only listening and reading skills on
the spot, but also vocabulary, contractions and intonation. And in college, the inclination is
toward finding and selecting videos related to the culture of other countries.
Exhibit a short video of one's own authorship. This activity allows students to experience
alternative means of communication to text, to convey information and knowledge, as part of
an element of assessment in place of the traditional essay or other evidence of performance.
Productions can be varied, interviews with a relevant character, a short documentary on a
particular issue (What is my school like?), simulation of situation or characters (a passage
from history or a roll play), a procedure (the making of an artifact or performance of a
procedure), a choreography or sports activity. The recordings are facilitated by the use of cell
phones and digital cameras, and the teaching and self-learning of software for sound and
video editing complements this activity. Student productions can be posted on YouTube and
then shared in order to generate a reflective and spontaneous dialogue among students.
YouTube is effective as a platform for sharing student-created videos and behind-the-scenes
footage, creating a learning community around short videos produced by the students
themselves. In the same way as the activities mentioned above, the use of a rubric will be
vital to guide this learning activity, as well as the accompaniment of the teacher, who can take
advantage of the interactive nature of the tool to accompany the delivery of the requested
video to students at different times: production, editing and post-production (Burke & Snyde,
2008; Snelson & Bowers, 2009).

CONCLUSIONS
YouTube is one of the most attended resources by the general public. Its educational concept
is inscribed in the YouTube.Edu page which, although with very good educational intentions,
does not succeed in disrupting the behavioral trends of the public: more interested in music
and entertainment than in education. But it hosts Khan Academy, the Web's most sought-after
academic initiative, which represents a hope for bringing the public into a world full of
possibilities for learning any subject, anywhere, through watching video tutorials. The future
of YouTube. EDU in education will become favorable as it incorporates more educational
quality videos and less entertainment, marketing and sports videos.
YouTube presents all the communicative attributes that describe the theory constructed for
CMC. It has a complex media particularity; it is typified and classified as an asynchronous,
primarily broadcast, secondarily interactive tool for sharing videos and creating communities
around shared resources.
Educational studies on YouTube describe its usefulness in content management and the
creation of learning communities, as well as in the training of students' skills for the search,
selection, storage and evaluation of content authored by themselves or others. Thus, YouTube
presents itself as a space of opportunity to develop research on the impact of CMC in the
teaching and learning processes.