Skip to main content

YouTube Channel

Hi fellow tutors!
Welcome to my blog.  During these strange and unusual times I thought it might be helpful to share with you what I have been doing with my students.  Online learning is very new to me, I have dabbled with VLEs (virtual learning environments) previously but now it's full online engagement all the way.

I'm a practical practitioner so want to make this as useful and hands on as possible.  Here's what I have been doing so far.

I created a YouTube channel to house all of the mini video lessons I had made.  Through time with students in classes I know that YouTube is accessed by a good 99% of them.  Not being a particularly public person and also to ensure good safe guarding I created a private channel.  This means that only my students can access videos I send out to them via shared links.  The students are able to like (or dislike!) videos and write comments should they wish. 

What I really like about my channel is the analytics.  It gives you, as the administrator, a break down of how many views your videos receive along with date data.  Even though I may not be hearing from some students I can see that videos are being watched.  Some students may have low or zero ICT skills and not yet (I have plans for this!) know how to reply to the messages they are receiving from me but it gives me comfort to log into my channel as see that the videos are being watched.  I have made phone calls to those students who I have not heard from at all and a large number of them said that they had been watching the videos and really liked to see or hear from me.  This boosted morale quite a bit!  It can be very challenging producing resources and attempting to deliver online and hearing nothing back.  Do remember your students may be home schooling, be the full time child care, lost their job and have financial worries or stress or even be mentally  feeling the effects of lockdown.  There are a whole host of reasons why you may not have heard from them, but that does not mean things aren't happening behind the scenes!

It was quite a tricky process setting the channel up but I managed by Googling things I was "challenged" with and now it's as easy as pie to share links of videos via email or text.  You can also make playlists (which I'm using as folders for levels at the moment) in order to organise your videos.  

Going forward I can envisage a course with a set of sessions all housed within YouTube playlists which I would hopefully be able to make and upload before September - that of course depends on a variety of factors and needs.  Have a go at creating your own channel and see what you think!




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Daily Game

Trying to engage students online is proving to be the hardest thing, don't you agree? So I've taken to having a daily game with my students.  My students are at Entry 2 and 3 but ideas can be adapted for lower or higher levels.  I'm lucky enough to be able to use Whatsapp groups with them via a work mobile (consent from students was first sought before setting up the groups and ground rules established, such as no texting after 4pm etc).  The fastest reply is the winner. If you don't have Whatsapp I'm sure this could be adapted to email or on a VLE.  Some key things to consider when playing. 1) Never underestimate an emoji! I use them as prizes and the winners get to decide the emoji prize for the next day.  Winners can also decide a question for the next day, this was a bit bumpy with my students as they struggled to think of questions, but it something I'm hoping to revisit in time. 2) Wording is key - create some excitement!  I used ready, steady, go.

A Sense of Community

A couple of weeks into lockdown I thought it might be a good idea to have a weekly newspaper which we could send out to students electronically.  The fantastic team that I work with made this happen for us. Each week we gather news related items, simplify the language which we collate in the weekly ESOL newspaper.  We use Google Docs which can then be sent out via a link through any medium such as text message etc (if you want to try this make sure you go to the advanced settings and make link accessible to all ).  Within the articles for the paper we embed links to videos and other entertaining things.  The tutors edit the newspaper but we encourage our students to write things to add into it too.  So far we've had book reviews and recipes, complete with photos.  It's been lovely and I hope also creates a sense of community and connection between students. We have created newspapers for the entry levels so far.  Sometimes I set a couple of comprehension questions to check