There are so many uses in education for sites like YouTube. Multimedia is taken for granted by today's students, not only as a medium for producing their own content, but also as a means for teachers to deliver content meant to enhance curriculum. Unfortunately, at least in my school district, video streaming sites are blocked, probably because of the amount of bandwith these sites consume. I know students have been frustrated producing projects that utilize video streaming sites, particularly the popular YouTube Video site, only to discover when they attempt to show their projects, that a key element of the project will not play because it has been blocked by district restrictions.
Libraries can take advantage of user-generated video that often adds to resources that are woefully underfunded. Furthermore, use of this kind of resource allows for up-to-the minute global collaboration. For the last couple years I have collaborated with our ESL teacher who uses the annual Iditarod race as a springboard for teaching a host of subjects including math, science, geography, language arts and political science. In the past, the students would use the Internet to access daily reports of the progress of the competition. However, with the use of YouTube, et. al., students are treated to a first-hand, close to real time, perspective of what it means to run this grueling race. I've embedded a video from YouTube presenting a musher's birds-eye view of this Alaskan tradition.
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