Blog #17  five star reviews

October 24, 2014



Matthew holds few interests in life. At the age of 12.5 he enjoys martial arts, video games, YouTube sensations, friends, filmmaking, watching football, making weapons out of sticks, and eating. He is awed by powerful people, good or bad, and their influences on the masses. He is into good vs. evil. He would love to create a YouTube channel that can speak out to the greater world. Not a lot to draw from when you want to encourage a new educational skills based on interests. He, however, found a new path. A loophole, if you will, in the parents plan to not allow random comments to go up online. He brought me an idea. His proposal:  To watch kid videos on YouTube and write reviews about them. He will give his reviews with the following criteria: age it is most appropriate for, if it has accurate information, how artistic the graphics are, the length of time and whether it’s too long or short for certain age groups. He wanted to start with the Civil War (I guess our little field trip a couple weeks ago really did spark some lasting impressions). His needs of being connected to a social media site, and technology based learning desires are met. My desire to encourage articulate and complete writing skills are met. Not to mention the bigger lesson of seeing things thoroughly from both sides of an issue or video will be new skills. We collaborated ideas, and agreed his reviews need to be precise in both compliments and criticism, backing them with supporting evidence. He has to review it from the eyes of a child, and the eyes of a parent or teacher. He has to be fair. He has to review facts. He has to work, but he loves the idea. The perfect blend of learning within interests, and acquiring new skills. I investigated a bit into how I was going to get these reviews out, and found a facebook page--Unschoolers YouTube Learners. An entire page dedicated to uploading YouTube videos that may be interesting to unschoolers/homeschoolers of all ages. What a great resource. This is where will be posting videos and Matthew’s reviews.