As you have seen, I like YouTube video’s, There are a lot of great video’s out there and YouTube had a strict policy about content.  Well, some of these video’s would be useful and powerful in the classroom for either getting the attention of students, or allowing them to even create their own content. 

As an example, SethAdamSmith created a YouTube video for a BYU class a couple of years ago.  It turned out so well, that now he has over a hundred (116 at the time I wrote this) great uplifting video’s on YouTube.  To me, this is joining the internet conversation, as Elder Ballard encouraged us to do.  This is not allowing others to define who we are online, but allowing others to feel the Spirit so they can decide for themselves based on real information.  Here are a just a couple of his video’s!

As a side note, I read another article this morning posted by Michael Wesch from Kansas State University.  He posted notes from a presentation he just did about why we should use YouTube in the classroom.  Although focused on the school system, I think it would be useful for church teachers looking to use YouTube videos in the classroom as well.  Topics he covers:

• Legality of using YouTube video’s
• Why we use them
• Tips for finding good video’s
• Ways to Download them locally
• Tools for Remixing them
• Ways to incorporate them into our teaching

So, what do you think?  I know we obviously need to be careful about any content we bring into the classroom, but we have used outside books, and comics for years, why not the media of today as well?