But what about the cat videos?

Finding useful "mitosis" videos might not be YouTube's strength, but it is a marvelous resource for ancient film clips, long out of copyright, of early movie efforts by the Lumiere brothers and many others.

I agree with joehardy. Although the quality is not always first rate, YouTube has proved itself an invaluable resource to me in teaching film history. One can find examples of a vast array of major (and minor) early efforts of film pioneers including shorts, features, animation, newsreels, documentaries, etc. Students have ready access to the url links from my online syllabus allows them to revisit the clips whenever they can and as often as they choose. The students' appreciation of these early works gained by easy access and repeated viewings far exceeds the benefit of a screening limited to class meetings. At the same time, YouTube accessibility has not had a detrimental impact of the value of a large number of early cinema anthologies on DVD we hold on RESERVE for students.

I wonder how these researchers would rate a more curated collection of resources, like MERLOT's collection of "mitosis" related content.

This seems like a pretty shallow study, attending only to students looking for homework help, only in science (which sciences?). What about profs recommending useful and relevant YouTube videos and other web sources? Or having students report on the videos they found most helpful and showing them to the rest of the class? Or using YouTube clips as parts of lectures or class discussions (of couse this means profs would have to rummage around for themselves to find useful ones). Examples: for ethics, there are interviews with and lectures by John Rawls, Peter Singer . . . For economics, with Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, John Kenneth Galbraith . . .

Mitosis.... biology. Should have been pretty clear.

While the study probably makes this point anyway, I'm sure it's as much an argument for better search tools and search strategies than just a repudiation of YouTube's use per se. YouTube is vast and dense, so part of what needs to be taught in all disciplines are better search literacies, surely!

What the authors are indirectly concluding is that some of the top researchers in our most prestigious universities are lousy teachers.

The videos that I've watched to date are only the top researchers from Stanford, Berkeley, and MIT. I thought they had a lot to say although the were not always the most dynamic speakers. Some were pretty good.

What's lacking is the music and the graphics arts and the comedy found on Comedy Central. Take your pick.

Educational videos can be found easily on Youtube. The key is frame the search words correctly to find the educational videos.

The professors should consider revising their article to focus on keywords and how improper labeling of videos hamper a student's search.

But that would require research and isn't a shallow and popular topic like they've chosen.

If you try searching YouTube/EDU, you get actual lectures on mitosis. The first one is from Berkeley. I think that qualifies as good content.

http://www.youtube.com/edu?edu_search_query=mitosis&action_search=1

I agree with some others that while science may not be well presented, other fields of study are well presented. In the Instructional Design field there are many excellent videos.

I also disagree with one of the premises of their study. Mr. Bell writes "You're only going to look at the top 10, so the ranking algorithm is really important." I use what I believe is a better algorithm ... I use my brain. I seldom look at only the top 10 results in any search. I would hope that any serious research would involve looking at the quality of the material.

Hmmm...

NEWSFLASH: Two Biologist Search Popular Video Website; Can't Find Anything Worhtwhile!

I read this and thought to myslef,"Gee, they're complaining about getting 3,000+ hits. WHY didn't they work with a LIBRARIAN who could help them develop a better search strategy?"

Feeling merciful after the morning's first cup of coffee, I'm reflecting on the possibility that they did, perhaps, consult with the search experts and still got those results. In which case, the author really should have dug a bit deeper and revealed that.

As @nacrandell points out, the choices made in using a search are every bit as critical these days and librarians are the "domain experts" on this.

And Chron Editor? Please fix the typo!

Thank you Derek for the MERLOT reference. I agree that this seems to be a fluff article. I just went to www.TeacherTube.com and found tons of stuff on Mitosis http://www.teachertube.com/googleSearch.php?cx=012339422634307447803:h-vlw-wg9yy&cof=FORID:11&ie=UTF-8&q=mitosis&sa=Search

This is disappointing journalistic quality.

YouTube is quite valuable for teaching various subjects in the performing arts, particularly music. For a lengthier discussion of this topic, see my chapter in "Pop-Culture Pedagogy in the Music Classroom Teaching Tools from American Idol to YouTube."

Regarding the Chronicle's comment that the conference was sponsored by the Sloan Consortium "and two providers of educational software and resources" - in fact one of those sponsors was the MERLOT consortium with a collection of metadata of online teaching and learning materials (www.merlot.org). The consortium of 85,000 members and 25,000 materials is noted for its peer review processes that provide instructors with information about high quality learning materials, as opposed to Google's sometimes seemingly limitless hit lists that are devoid of information about quality or relevance.

In fact, "Mitosis" search in MERLOT yields 50 resources, some of them peer reviewed.

What a great discussion and thanks to The Chronicle for posting it. Indeed, YouTube has fun videos, many of them entertaining and inspirational. These sorts of things are good for getting students motivated in the classroom and, at times, include educational value. However, most users have a tendency to view the first few videos they encounter and these may not always have accurate content. It would help if YouTube videos were peer-reviewed for accuracy and educational value, so that folks using these materials can browse them for the “best of the best” that YouTube has to offer.

It really does depend on your search criteria.

I've found a number of useful YouTube videos for nursing. Some are student projects, some made by nursing professors, and some are high quality animations (samples by companies making videos for legal purposes, but great for the classroom).

Best of all, they're free. I'm typically unimpressed with the quality of videos we pay several hundred dollars for; not good bang for the buck.

Problem is not YouTube, it's their search engine. There is tons of great academic content on YouTube, if you have the luck or patience to find it.

This is why libraries spend big bucks to keep their material cataloged and in order. :)

I agree with many others above that the problem isn't YouTube, it's the way it was used. The switch has already been made by students, so we should be working on ways for them to use it more effectively, not worrying about whether there is worthwhile content there. The content is there - students are going to use it - so let's figure out how to help them use if effectively.

Now Jeff, you see what happens when you apply a facetious reference to cats in your headline? Admit it, this is a lol-article.

It is called "Information Literacy!" It appears the study addresses only students who are searching for information. We all know that a student searching for information on any topic will find everything from the latest most accurate information (many times more accurate and up to date than any text book) to the most bogus, off the wall, not even in the same universe information. That is why it is so important that these students know how to determine the validity and accuracy of the information they find.

What these gentlemen don't seem to mention (or at least this article does not lead us to believe was mentioned) is the use of YouTube as a teaching tool. If I am teaching a specific topic, I will research the topic on video sites, and yes, YouTube. But I don't stop on the front page unless one of those videos explains the topic exactly the way I want it to. I also preview the entire video to make sure of a few things:

1. The material is current, correct, and valid.
2. Some "funny guy" hasn't inserted a pornographic, insulting, or otherwise offensive clip behind what starts off looking like a perfectly legitimate.

It doesn't seem fair to attack a valuable, FREE resource, with such a superficial study. Educate the students on Information Literacy or, better still stop using the chalk board, push your abacus to the side, blow the dust off of that little electronic thingy on your desk and go find the correct information for your students and put it in a single place for them to find. (Try a FREE blog or even your school's LMS.)

Excellent comments from kkirkemp!!! YouTube DOES have some good materials and it sounds like kkirkemp ought to be a reviewer for educational materials on the Internet. I think this is what MERLOT (http://www.merlot.org) does and it would be great for others like kkirkemp to get involved.