Dr. Michele Ernst

A video biography is an interesting idea Mary and certainly putting it on YouTube is an option. However, you need to be careful about student privacy. There could be some students that are not comfortable having their video biography on YouTube. There is also the challenge of students having the equipment to create the video in the first place.

I am curious Mary, what are the reasons you would want to do a video biography?

M Somersall

I think that Mary was probably talking about Professor bios rather than bios of students on YouTube. If I'm wrong about this Mary, please correct me.

I think that YouTube works very well. I believe there is a feature on skype that allows for that as well. There are many ways to post videos now. An instructor can setup a personal site, which has a video bio they can use as part of their overall media package. This would probably be most often used by Professors who seek to market themselves to the world through a webpage.

Still, this is something that students can appreciate. It allows them to get a face to face idea of who their Professor is, what their Professor's mannerisms is, etc.

Dr. Michele Ernst

It is nice for a student to be able to put a face with the name. And you are right, there are many ways this can be done--YouTube is just one option.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the subject!

David Gordon

I think these are great and will eventually be standard in most online classes. The only problem is that some students still use dial up Internet access which makes viewing videos a little difficult.

Dr. Michele Ernst

Yes, that would slow things down a bit. But as technology changes, students will be able to access more tools like videos and the like.

Jenson Hagen

I like this idea. I've started taking multimedia courses. I should post a bio and then provide a link from the classroom.