Why YouTube for Schools could be a game changer
Today’s teachers have to be more than narration machines; they have to entertain their pupils in order to educate them. So the launch of YouTube for Schools may well make the video site a valuable and free teaching aid and not just a distraction in class rooms.
This excellent TED Talk is one of over 400,000 videos available on YouTube for Schools. The presentation by Gabe Zichermann is on how video games can make kids smarter. It’s a great video, but aside from praising games he makes the point that children live in a world full of stimulation and traditional teaching finds it hard to compete – kids want more and they want it faster.
YouTube for Schools is a trimmed down version of the ‘proper’ website and designed to allow teachers access a tailored collection of educational videos organised by the level of their students and subjects.
We know YouTube is popular with young people, but it’s not all about sneezing panders and talking dogs. Previous research of ours has shown that for many school children YouTube is their preferred search engine for homework as they seek out video on their subjects over written articles. For example base jumping Norwegians might not seem educational but can act as a platform to introduce kids to forces.
Research we carried out for the 2011 Children’s Media Conference found that 46 per cent of boys watch online videos at home and of the children who consume online video 66 per cent do so through YouTube. However, YouTube is often seen by schools as a distraction and by parents as unsafe, so is often blocked along with Facebook and gaming sites.
YouTube for Schools will that children learning about the heart can hear from Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor who had a stroke herself; and those being taught statistics can get extra help from the Khan Academy.
YouTube for Schools is YouTube’s most affective avenue into education, but could it also help its parent site lose some of its credibility? We find that children are often attracted to the sites anarchy and layout – it could be the case that seeing the service as a tool for school might result in children being put off.
For a full run down of what YouTube for Schools is all about we suggest you read this article from Digital Trends. Or alternatively, and rather suitably, watch this YouTube video.
What do you think about this new YouTube product? Is it the future of teaching or nothing new?
What do children want tablets for?
Every month we conduct exclusive research for Toy News – the leading publication for anyone working in the toy industry.
In December we found out what children really thought of tablet computers and what they use them for. Is it all about Apple or do child-focused tablets like the LeapPad and InnoTab have a place in the market?
Apple awareness starts young, between the ages of six and ten 79 per cent of children are aware of the iPad. Leapfrog’s LeapPad and VTech’s Innotab scored an impressive 59 per cent for awareness, not bad for such new products. Despite the high level of iPad awareness only 19 per cent of the children surveyed have access to one.
If you want to find out how children use the tablets and which score highest reading and playing games, read the full report online at Toy News.
Image courtesy of flickingerbradMore than half of children own a toy based on a virtual world
Children’s virtual worlds – like Moshi Monsters and Club Penguin – aren’t just popular online; they’re also proving a big hit as toys with new research showing over half of UK children own a toy based on a virtual world with some as popular as Dr Who.
Dubit recently studied the popularity of toys based on online worlds, looking at Disney’s Club Penguin, Mind Candy’s Moshi Monsters, as well as Build-a-BearVille, Poptropica and Webkinz.
The study of 500 kids showed that an amazing 55 per cent of children owned a toy from at least one of these games. The most popular was Disney’s Club Penguin, with 32 per cent of children owning a branded toy from the online world. Club Penguin, which has 150 million registered users (globally) launched in 2005 and has spawned a series of books and video games. Each toy is connected to the virtual world as they’re packaged with a code that allows items to be unlocked in the virtual world.
Moshi Monsters, whose plush toys and Mini Moshling Treehouse are expected to be among the most popular toys for Christmas this year, was a close second. The study showed that even before Christmas a quarter of UK children already own a Moshi Monster or a Moshling (a Moshi pet). Since launching in 2008 Moshi Monsters has gone on to accumulate 50m registered users, with one in three British children believed to be a member. Even with the publishing industry struggling The Moshi Magazine, launched in February, has accumulated the largest circulation of any UK children’s magazine.
As a comparison with toys related to kid’s TV shows, the research shows that just as many children own Club Penguin toys as they do toys based on Dr Who. Furthermore, Moshi Monster toys are more popular (25%) than toys based on the cartoon Ben 10 (20%), and only marginally less than popular than Spongebob Square Pants (29 per cent).*
Interestingly, toys from virtual worlds are gender-neutral, with equal popularity across boys and girls.
73 per cent of the children questioned had played at least one of these online games, with half having played Club Penguin and 47 per cent stating that they’d played Moshi Monsters.
Dubit’s head of research, Peter Robinson, commented: “Children are spending more time playing in virtual worlds and now those worlds are becoming part of their offline playtime.
“Today’s kids are platform agnostic and don’t care where their favourite stories and characters come from. It used to be the case that books or TV shows launched characters and toys, but now online entertainment is proving just as important.”
*Research into children’s TV shows was carried out in October for Toy News.
