Open access academics: Experiments with YouTube, the Science of Risk, and Professional Amateurism

abernard102@gmail.com 2012-10-19

Summary:

Use the link ti access the Risk Bites videos described in the following blog post: "YouTube intrigues me.  Having been dragged into the YouTube culture by my teenagers over the past two years, I’ve been fascinated by the shift from seemingly banal content to a sophisticated social medium. But what has really grabbed my attention is the growth of YouTube as a unique and powerful platform for informal education which is being driven not by the educational establishment, but by an emerging educational counterculture. Of course, as a fully paid up Prof in one of those educational establishments, this is a little embarrassing!  But at the same time it raises a really interesting question – is there a way of connecting institutional academics with an educational counterculture that is hungry for learning – but on its own terms?    It’s questions like this that led to the genesis of Risk Bites – a personal experiment in bridging formal institutionalized education with informal social education.  The first seeds of Risk Bites were planted at VidCon this year – the annual YouTube convention.  As I wrote back in June after sitting in a room full of rapt young people listening to a panel on science on YouTube: [1] There’s a hunger for science knowledge and insights amongst these folk; [2] The world is changing, and this new breed of community-grown science communicators are leaving more conventional approaches to science communication in the dust! [3] As a science community, if we want to engage and connect with people outside our field more effectively, we need to be actively partnering these YouTube science stars rather than waiting for them to come to us.  Yet by on large, the educational establishment is not reaching this audience.  Just as an example, I had a search around the various University of Michigan channels to find a widely viewed video with educational content.  One of the highest viewed videos was this one on the Higgs boson: At just over 19,000 views, this isn’t bad – this is significantly higher than many other UM education-oriented videos.  But compare it to Henry Reich’s video on the Higgs boson:  Over 900,000 views.  And nearly 11,000 likes (in contrast to the UM video’s 49 likes)  UM is by no means flagging in relation to other academic institutions here.  But it’s hard to deny that there is a large gap between the establishment and what people like Reich are achieving.  But what is to stop places like UM drawing on the vast experience of their faculty, and creating content as successful as Reich’s that sets out to engage and inform rather than 'educate'?  To explore this, I started to look at my own teaching material..."

Link:

http://2020science.org/2012/10/14/open-access-academics-experiments-with-youtube-the-science-of-risk-and-professional-amateurism/

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » abernard102@gmail.com

Tags:

oa.new oa.comment oa.crowd oa.oer oa.social_media oa.youtube oa.khan_academy oa.u.michigan oa.minute_physics oa.scishow oa.educations oa.risk_bites oa.courseware oa.video

Date tagged:

10/19/2012, 13:14

Date published:

10/19/2012, 09:14