Tool+3+-+Tube

= YOU "TUBE" =

YouTube as we know it is a [|video-sharing] web platform on which users can upload, view and share videos in multiple formats for others to view. It utilises [|Adobe Flash Video] and [|HTML5] technology to display [|user-generated] video content. This includes movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, amateur [|video blogging] , short original videos and educational videos.  It was created in 2005 by three former [|PayPal] employees who subsequently sold the company to [|Google] for the tidy sum US$1.65 billion just 11 years later. Wikipedia states that (2011), most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by individuals, although media corporations including [|CBS], the [|BBC] , [|VEVO] , [|Hulu] , and other organizations offer some of their material via the site, as part of the YouTube partnership program. Unregistered users can watch videos, while registered users can upload an unlimited number of videos. Videos considered to contain offensive content are available only to registered users at least 18 years old.

So, most of the world's population have at least HEARD of **You Tube**. How many other 'tubes' are you aware of.....Before you proceed, take a guess below using this short poll by Survey Gizmo:

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On a search of the term "tube" in Google, over 50 items were found, all of which stream almost unlimited amounts of free video for an insatiable audience. Here's just a small sample:



So what are your thoughts on this? How do you think these tools can enhance **e-learning** for the student (and the academic), and encourage a continuous **e-learning** state?

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**How is it relevant?**

The main purpose of these video streaming sites is to publicly display a message in the form of a movie clip for either self promotion, advertising, preaching, education, entertainment, propaganda or just because they can! How then can it be relevant for ** e-learning ** ? The ease of broadcast makes this platform versatile and easily accessible to anyone with a broadband connection (Ulrich 2011). These tools set a new benchmark in interactivity and promote flexibility in course design, the ability to utilise a vast array of other people's experiences of a situation or event; and take the boredom out of our traditional resources set by appealing to our voyeuristic natures...Who would have thought?

In the literature surrounding the use of **Web 2.0** tools in the tertiary learning environment, the concept of the self paced and organised adult learner is a consistent theme (Blees, 2009; Ruey, 2009; Ulirich, 2011; Lai, 2011). The level of socialisation currently utilised on the Internet through such platforms as Facebook and Twitter only serve to reiterate the literature and support the idea that saturating our students with curriculum material in their very social arena by using the same tools, and linking them to Facebook and the like, (pardon the pun), constitutes a very real learning strategy which encourages **life long learning.**

There are so many useful and interesting tube tools to use in our teaching. Our role as educators is to help students filter through the rubbish to find the gold. While 'millenials' might arrive at university with a great deal of facility with Web 2.0 tools, they might not necessarily know howe to assess, critique and apply that information. That is our job to guide them.

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