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Students turn to online videos to supplement readings, lectures.When University of Central Florida junior Nicole Nissim got stumped in trigonometry, she checked out what was showing on YouTube.
Nissim typically scours the video-sharing Web site for clips of bands and comedy skits. But this time she wasn't there to procrastinate on her homework. It turned out YouTube was also full of math videos. After watching a couple, the psychology major says, she finally understood trig equations and how to make graphs.
YouTube is perhaps best known for its cavalcade of homemade performances and TV clips, but many people like Nissim are turning to it for free tutoring in math, science, and other complicated subjects.
When University of Central Florida junior Nicole Nissim got stumped in trigonometry, she checked out what was showing on YouTube.
Nissim typically scours the video-sharing Web site for clips of bands and comedy skits. But this time she wasn't there to procrastinate on her homework. It turned out YouTube was also full of math videos. After watching a couple, the psychology major says, she finally understood trig equations and how to make graphs.
"I was able to watch them at my own pace and if I didn't get a concept, I could easily rewind it," Nissim says. "It was a lot clearer once I watched the video."
YouTube is perhaps best known for its cavalcade of homemade performances and TV clips, but many people like Nissim are turning to it for free tutoring in math, science, and other complicated subjects.
Math videos won't rival the millions of hits garnered by laughing babies, but a YouTube tutorial on calculus integrals has been watched almost 50,000 times in the past year. Others on angular velocity and harmonic motion have gotten more than 10,000 views each.
The videos are appealing for several reasons, says Kim Gregson, an Ithaca College professor of new media. Students come to the videos when they're ready to study and fully awake -- not always the case for 8 a.m. calculus classes. And they can watch the videos as many times as they need until they understand.
Nissim typically scours the video-sharing Web site for clips of bands and comedy skits. But this time she wasn't there to procrastinate on her homework. It turned out YouTube was also full of math videos. After watching a couple, the psychology major says, she finally understood trig equations and how to make graphs.
"I was able to watch them at my own pace and if I didn't get a concept, I could easily rewind it," Nissim says. "It was a lot clearer once I watched the video."
YouTube is perhaps best known for its cavalcade of homemade performances and TV clips, but many people like Nissim are turning to it for free tutoring in math, science, and other complicated subjects.
Math videos won't rival the millions of hits garnered by laughing babies, but a YouTube tutorial on calculus integrals has been watched almost 50,000 times in the past year. Others on angular velocity and harmonic motion have gotten more than 10,000 views each.
The videos are appealing for several reasons, says Kim Gregson, an Ithaca College professor of new media. Students come to the videos when they're ready to study and fully awake -- not always the case for 8 a.m. calculus classes. And they can watch the videos as many times as they need until they understand.
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Site of the Week
Free site measures students' information literacy skills
TRAILS-9, which stands for Tools for Real-Time Assessment of Information Literary Skills, uses multiple questions to assess the information literacy skills of students based on sixth- and ninth-grade standards. The free site, which is a project of the Institute of Library and Information Literacy Education, was developed to give library media specialists a tool to identify strengths and weaknesses of their students' information-seeking abilities.Enjoy your reading!
Source: eSchool News
Source: eSchool News
