DEL.ICIO.US, YOUTUBE, AND UNDERGRADUATE SEDIMENTOLOGY STUDENTS

Technology is changing the way students expect to learn, and online resources can be of great benefit to students; as an educator, the challenge is to provide useful resources effectively. Online bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us provide an easy way to assemble and categorize relevant web sites without directly modifying web sites. They are convenient to use for both the instructor and students. I have assembled http://del.icio.us/sedstrat One genuinely novel online resource consists of sites that allow posting of short videos. YouTube and other online video resources take more time to use effectively, but also provide genuinely novel ways to develop teaching resources. In my case, the main pedagogical goal of taping videos is to provide visual and global learners additional study tools. I considered taping entire lectures, but after watching parts of a few full length lectures available from iTunes, I realized that long lectures are essentially useless for most students. Rather, short synopses of key points would be more widely appreciated. Thus, while teaching the course, I made a dozen short video segments to highlight overarching ideas that I wanted the students to remember. My personal rules for making videos are: 1) They are for my students, even though anyone can watch them; 2) Only content matters (editing, appearance, and narration can all be rough); and 3) They must be short. The videos are used by students both soon after lecture and in studying for tests. The visual connection to lectures, particularly when used in combination with personal notes, trigger memories of the more detailed content delivered in person. At first, I posted the videos only on the course web site, but some students could not view them due to format issues. Thus, I posted them on YouTube which is platform independent. I also took advantage of the play list feature and include other videos of sediment transport, etc. from others. I do not yet know the impact of videos on student learning, but many students have expressed their appreciation for the videos, as have other YouTube members. http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=8FBE248BD5A69520