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Studying your UGC ABCs…
- 19 Sep 07, 05:17 PM
in Southern California, is offering a class called Learning from YouTube.
The class consists of students watching videos and discussing them. As part of the course, they must also leave comments on videos as well as record and upload films of their own.
The idea of a class on YouTube may generate a few snorts of derision at the moment. But the world is changing and fast. When I was at school, multimedia meant each of us taking turns to read a chapter of a book out to the rest of the class. Today, everyone is a director, a scriptwriter an editor and a critic.
How long will it be before studying user generated content websites becomes an integrated part of Media Studies? Or studying the way people interact on social networking websites makes it onto a sociology syllabus?
The worry, of course, is how inclusive these courses will be when the very subject material excludes user groups. YouTube is not completely accessible. Visually impaired people cannot register to upload videos and comment on others, because the security images – called CAPTCHAs - used to confirm that a user is human, are invisible to screen reader software.
And then of course, there is the content. Videos without subtitles, or audio will exclude users with hearing or visual impairments respectively. You can already .
Media Studies is a hugely popular subject for study for kids from all walks of life. In coming up with new ways to engage kids in education, it is vital that we work to keep these courses and materials open to everyone.
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