8 Important Reasons Why YouTube Should Be Part Of Your eLearning Course

8 Important Reasons Why YouTube Should Be Part Of Your eLearning Course
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Summary: YouTube is not only the kingdom of digital entertainment but it can also be a great environment for learning. In this article, I'll share 8 important reasons why you should use YouTube in eLearning and I'll explain how making it part of your eLearning course can truly benefit your eLearning audience.

Why YouTube Should Be Part Of Your eLearning Course  

You know already that eLearning videos can be a very powerful learning tool, as they add a dynamic element to your eLearning courses, improve knowledge transfer, demonstrate complex procedures, and help explain difficult topics. They can also be particularly entertaining and re-watched as many times as your learners wish. This is why the video-sharing website YouTube can provide unlimited opportunities to enhance your eLearning course by not only using the countless videos you can find there, but also creating your own to help your audience achieve their learning goals and objectives. The only thing you should pay attention to is ensuring that the videos you are using are aligned with your expected learning outcomes and are appropriate for your eLearning audience. In this article, I'll share 8 reasons why you should use YouTube in eLearning, so that you can make sure that including it in your eLearning course can truly enhance your audience’s eLearning experience.

  1. It is really easy to integrate.
    Adding YouTube videos to your eLearning course is an easy task, due to the variety of authoring tools and learning management systems out there. You can use YouTube videos to introduce a topic, explain an online activity, motivate your learners, or simply extend the information conveyed by your eLearning course.
  2. It can be used to create an eLearning community.
    As you have probably seen for yourself, everyone has a voice in YouTube. Using it as a social learning platform offers you the opportunity to build a strong eLearning community where everyone can comment, contribute, and share their opinions and ideas.
  3. It generates and promotes online discussion.
    eLearning videos are particularly effective facilitators for analysis. After viewing a YouTube video, you can encourage online discussion by asking your learners to add their personal insights: What did they like about the video? Was there anything they didn’t understand? How did the eLearning video relate to their personal experiences and feelings? You can also ask them to share other YouTube video references to extend online discussions, as video enhanced eLearning courses increase interest and engagement levels by presenting different perspectives.
  4. It is ideal for mobile learning.
    Uploading eLearning content to YouTube makes it available throughout the YouTube network, which means that your learners can access it and view it on the go via their smartphones and tablets, devices used in mobile learning. It doesn’t matter how small the screen is; you can use YouTube as a platform for not only searching online video resources, but also sharing presentations, and inviting your learners to take an active part through their commenting.
  5. It allows for microlearning.
    How about short, effective instructional videos on YouTube? Using videos for microlearning ensures that complex procedures and demonstrations of specific skills are delivered in small quantities, which enhances knowledge retention. Furthermore, because YouTube is available on all devices and allows your learners to watch longer eLearning videos in short segments, your audience can watch the videos whenever they like and take their own time to absorb the information being offered.
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  6. It encourages the development of note-taking skills.
    Note-taking skills are important both for students and employees, as the ability to analyze information and focus on important points helps dealing with the information overload of the modern world. Using YouTube videos as part of your eLearning course encourages your audience to develop their note-taking skills by viewing, rewinding, and replaying the YouTube video material until they have fully grasped its essence and key points. You can even create online assignments based on this, for instance by asking your learners to describe in a few words what they have just seen on a video in a specific time frame.
  7. It enhances comprehension of complex concepts.
    Certain subjects can be difficult to explain; using YouTube as a virtual library to support your eLearning content by providing your learners with access to its videos allows you to better illustrate complex concepts, procedures, and ideas. Videos are ideal for demonstrating steps and, especially in corporate training, walking your audience through a process via a video clip can be truly effective. Visual contexts help learners to easily acquire and retain knowledge, as well as develop specific skill sets, as demonstration is the most effective way to get a message across.
  8. It allows learners to make their own YouTube videos.
    Finally, asking your learners to be involved in a video production, as part of an online group assignment, will help them not only ensure that they can use the important information they have learned, but also develop and enhance their visual literacy and creativity. Consider providing them with clear guidelines to know exactly what is expected of them, as well as the necessary tools and resources. You can also use their YouTube videos to encourage feedback exchange among your learners, which promotes discussion and boosts knowledge retention.

Now that you know why you should use YouTube in eLearning and make it part of your learning course, you may be interested in learning how to create your own high quality eLearning videos to post on YouTube. Read the article Producing High Quality eLearning Videos: The Ultimate Guide and learn all the tips and tricks you need to know from each stage of eLearning video production, in order to successfully deliver one of the most powerful communication media to your audience.