What we need to learn about vlogging
Every teacher should be vlogging. It’s a key way that we can reach students on their own turf. Why aren’t there more of us doing it?
There are numerous new media stars being created every day. We affectionately refer to them as influencers. What they all seem to have in common is that they are disrupting new media streams with a combination of originality and creativity.
The rise of new media influencers is not surprising given the growth of YouTube over the last decade. The platform reaches more 18–49 year olds than any cable network in the United States. Currently, Americans are watching on average more than 1 billion hours of YouTube per day. As of 2017, there are 180.1 million Americans using YouTube. Most importantly, there is no barrier to entry for creators, and we can all be creators.
What sets new media stars apart is that they are successful at creating cutting edge content that makes an impact. Essentially, they are creating and re-creating their own digital personas.
I like to think of this as digital twinning. I realize that the original use of the term digital twin refers to a virtual representation of a product. A product’s digital twin can be used in product design, development, optimization and for the servicing of the original product. This is what makes IoT so popular with tech companies. They are able to release one iteration after another because of the data feedback loop.
Thanks to the data that we can collect and analyze from our digital likenesses, we are becoming something of products ourselves. This is especially true of influencers. Now, this is not such a bad thing. It’s actually a great thing. Our twins (the digital version of you) can potentially be in millions of places at one time because of this. Of course, we have to build an epic audience first to do this, but anything is possible when there is an audience of one billion people just one upload away. One billion is the number of YouTube viewers worldwide.
We can all be new media stars. This is how I’m getting started…
Why it’s important for teachers to develop digital twins…
Over the past few decades we’ve come to realize that the inclusion model is superior for student social-emotional development. Inclusion builds emotional intelligence. It creates a more diverse learning environment that benefits all participants intrinsically.
For all the benefits of inclusion there are also many challenges. For starters, teachers struggle to connect with individual learners in inclusive settings because of the growing number of responsibilities that come with it. The new student populations have higher levels of anxiety, and if left unattended certain behaviors can adversely affect the learning climate. At the same time teachers today have a growing number of accountability measures imposed on them.
So, it’s crystal clear, we need to be in more places at one time. Creating a digital twin does just this for you.
The best way to build your twin is to meet students on their turf… YouTube
A few years ago the average time spent on mobile surpassed time spent on desktops. One of the contributing factors to this was the growth of social media use. Today, 70% of YouTube traffic is mobile. It’s not just millennials and centennials using social media though. It’s all of us. So, leveraging social media so that we can have a larger impact on our students lives is critical.
The fact that mobile has overtaken desktop as the top digital access point is an important one. This shift occurred back around 2014. In 2016, 65% of digital media traffic was mobile. Mobile is the “their turf”, as is vlogging, and as is YouTube.
Rachel Thompson wrote an article, Instagram ranked worst for young people’s mental health in Mashable in May. She reported the survey results of the Royal Society of Public Health (RSPH) and the Young Health Movement (YHM) which they published in the report, #StatusOfMind”. Among the top five social media platforms, only YouTube was found to have a positive impact. Instagram ranked worst for mental health, Snapchat was ranked the second most harmful, followed by Facebook.”
The statistics that I have shared provide evidence that YouTube is having the most positive impact on young learners. It is also being consumed the most. So, why are we afraid to use this medium?
Last year, GQ awarded Casey Neistat, a world-class YouTuber, the GQ Man of the Year for the category New Media Star. The clip below is from a vlog post that Neistat made after accepting the award. In his awards ceremony speech he explains how he learned from his son that kids don’t watch TV anymore. What are they watching? Where are their influences coming from them? You guessed it…YouTube!
“This is why we need to hit that little upload button!” The simple act of sharing videos with an audience is perhaps the most important thing we can do to reach learners beyond classroom walls. 92% of mobile users are sharing some form of video content. Why not make it more meaningful by creating a vlog? Teachers are trained to create appropriate social-emotional learning opportunities anyways. We must leverage this on every medium possible.
Thanks for reading and watching. I hope you will subscribe to my YouTube channel and follow me as I try to reach learners in new ways. I also hope you choose to take the same action.
