Bibliocycle

It is impossible not to have an opinion about YouTube.  Based on an unscientific survey of my colleagues, many intelligent, thoughtful educators have little regard for the enormously popular video-sharing site.  But if you haven’t looked at YouTube lately, you might want to revise your judgement.  Many top colleges and universities–including UCLA, Stanford, Dartmouth and many more–have created excellent educational videos and uploaded them to YouTube’s educational site–http://www.youtube.com/edu.

YouTube EDU functions as an aggregator of the YouTube channels of the participating institutions.  Content includes lectures on hundreds of topics, as well as speeches and special presentations.  For example, commencement addresses (including the one at Notre Dame by President Obama, and the one at Duke by Oprah Winfrey) are archived for free viewing.  If you haven’t been to YouTube lately, you are in for a pleasant surprise.  What began as a fairly frivolous vehicle for self-promotion has morphed into an important educational resource.