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College Offers YouTube 101 Course

by Terrence O'Brien on September 14, 2007 at 03:32 PM

With classes like 'Philosophy and the Simpsons' and 'Star Trek and Religion' already being offered at various American colleges in exchange for actual credits toward graduation, a class based around YouTube was inevitable.

Alexandra Juhasz, a media studies professor at Pitzer College in Claremont, California found herself generally underwhelmed by the quality of videos on YouTube, but nevertheless felt that the phenomena deserved to be studied. So, for Pitzer's fall semester Juhasz designed a course she calls 'Learning from YouTube.' Though Professor Juhasz and her students meet in a physical class room, much of the class also takes place online at the companion 'Learning From YouTube' channel. Students control most of the content and are not only encouraged to comment on the videos but also post their own. The wider YouTube population is also strongly encouraged to participate.

The course is designed to examine culture using YouTube as a kind of microscope. Juhasz also hopes the class will expose and explore issues about the site, such as the role of "corporate-sponsored democratic media expression."

Now, if only someone would come up with a mandatory class for all college students to teach how not to design a MySpace page that makes you sorry you have eyes.

From Newsvine

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Tags: college, google, learning from youtube, LearningFromYoutube, pitzer, school, youtube

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