complicated simplicity

As we all struggle in the endless cycle of grades and exams, an American university seems to have offered the dream come true course: college credit for watching YouTube! Now, this is how to get a GPA of 4 man… Not mugging for Anatomy, Calculus, Quantum Theory. Imagine, just watching YouTube videos for your college credits! HURRAY! All students are saved now.

California college offers class about YouTube

CLAREMONT - HERE is a dream come true for Internet addicts: college credit for watching YouTube.

Pitzer College in California began offering this fall what may be the first-ever course about the popular video-sharing site.

About 35 students meet in a classroom but work mostly online, where they view YouTube content and post their comments. YouTube watchers from around the world are encouraged to comment.

Class lessons are taped and posted. Students are encouraged to post videos. One class member posted a 1:36min video of himself juggling.

Alexandra Juhasz, a media studies professor, said she was ‘underwhelmed’ by the content on YouTube but set up the course, ‘Learning from YouTube’, to explore the site’s role.

She said she hopes the course will raise serious issues about YouTube, such as the role of ‘corporate-sponsored democratic media expression’, according to her Sept 4 posting.

‘I would like (the students) to be more self-aware consumers and producers within the media culture that they’ve inherited,’ she told the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin. — AP

Source: Straits Times Interactive 14 Sept