Using web videos as a recruiting tool

摘要

Currently, there are an enormous number of free videos relating to physics on the web. One can, for example, find websites that feature physics lectures, as well as videos of physics demonstrations and simulations. The latter two collections are often useful for teaching, particularly if they involve simulations of systems for which live demos are not possible, or footage of live demos that are difficult or expensive to carry out. As one measure of the prevalence of phys- ics videos on the popular site YouTube, a search for the keyword "physics" gave 14,300 hits—almost as many as a search on the keywords "Barack Obama" or "Lady Gaga," for whom one video had 160 million views. It is difficult to know how reliable the physics figure is, since many of the most widely viewed videos with this keyword actually have little to do with physics, and conversely many videos that appear using other physics-related search terms, such as "energy" or "astronomy," are perhaps not included in those 14,300. (The top-viewed physics video, "Large Hadron Rap," with nearly 6 million views, describes the physics being pursued at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN to the tune of an engaging rap song.) One useful resource for sorting through the videos most relevant to teaching is the monthly "YouTube Physics" column in The Physics Teacher, which highlights different videos each month. Our narrower focus here, however, will be on how web videos can serve as a recruiting tool, their value relative to other recruiting vehicles, how they can be made inexpensively, and some tips on getting the maximum visibility for your video.