I recently read this blog post written by a former student of mine. He is on staff at a church in Chicago, in charge of the church’s social media program. Apparently, we watch four billion YouTube videos a month. Let that stat sink in for a moment. Josh takes a few moments to ponder how churches can use YouTube in creative ways to increase their online audiences. He even used a personal example of an eyeglass store who sent him a 15 second personalized video clip to invite him to the store.
This all leads me to ask... How can we use YouTube to increase our audience at MVCA? If YouTube is getting bigger than Facebook, can we somehow put our content out there?
Right away I thought of two hindrances to doing this.
1. Our students (like all K-12) students are minors. What legal issues surround putting their faces and voices on video and online? Is there a waiver we need parents to sign? Could that be something we put in paperwork parents need to sign when enrolling students for the year?
2. What copyright issues would we run into? It would be tempting to post clips of our fine arts performances, but would we be breaking laws?
Let's look past those legal issues momentarily to see the benefits.
1. One goal of educational technology is for students to user higher level thinking skills, and creating content on YouTube can help achieve that objective. If our students can create excellent promotional videos, they can learn a life lesson that can be carried well beyond graduation.2. As a private school, we rely on enrollment to maintain our budget. We are constantly marketing ourselves. Here is an excellent and free method to do this.
3. Parents, grandparents, friends, and potential donors can view videos and see what's going on in our school. This positive press show our constituency what our students are learning and doing at our school.
Overall, I think that we can effectively utilize YouTube to promote our school and increase enrollment, funds, and good will. It is in our best interest to jump on the YouTube bandwagon.
How do you use YouTube in your school?
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