YouTube

YouTube is an internet media site created to reproduce any kind of video clips; personally I do not spent much time looking for critical information in this media, but sometimes I have used it for specific purposes because I think that it can be used for useful information and also for entertainment.

In my country, I taught the Occupational Safety course and Process Improvement course for the Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Program. Both of these courses require visual aids to explain some concepts, give examples and improve the students’ understanding. In the case of Occupational Health, I have used many videos from YouTube to show to students different risks associated with labor, to show them how systems like sprinklers or fume detectors work and finally to show them natural and technological disasters that occurred around the world as part of the emergency preparedness module. This would not have been possible without YouTube’s help.  

In the second case, in the Process Improvement subject, students are in their third semester and they are beginning to understand how industrial systems work and how products are made; for this reason I have used YouTube video clips to allow them to compare industrial processes in developed countries and industrial process in our country. 

In my experience, YouTube has been a very useful free tool to give examples in classes and discuss them with the students. Nonetheless, you have to be careful about the information found because like other Internet media, anybody can put any video there including some that are only “trash”. 

However, sometimes I have used YouTube as part of my entertainment. For instance, when I need to send songs or lyrics to my friends or simply when I want to watch some of the movies I prefer, for example, it has been very useful to find old movies like Modern Times or Indiana Jones that are difficult to obtain in current stores.

In reference to what kind of film clips I have reviewed, the majority has been related with occupational safety, labor diseases, emergencies and also, song videos, belly dance choreographies and old movies.