Utilizing YouTube videos released under a Creative Commons license to create study materials

[becky82]

Some YouTube videos are released under a Creative Commons license, which means we can turn them into Chinese study materials without violating copyright.  In this way, I turned this YouTube video about coffee into a kind of Chinese textbook chapter.  (I'd guess a late-HSK4 or early-HSK5 student could, with a bit of effort, understand this entire video.)

 

What are your thoughts on this?

 

I'm just experimenting with this idea (and I'm not sure if I'll have time to keep doing this---it is quite time consuming).  However, I feel like there's something to be said about (a) utilizing YouTube videos released under a Creative Commons license to make study materials [it comes with a recording; and we don't have to worry as much about "do Chinese people really say this?"]; (b) helping students study using non-"dumbed down" native content; (c) the freedom to choose topics of interest to non-Chinese people; and (d) the ability to dig deeper than current textbooks (more input!).

coffee_YouTube.pdf

[Moshen]

Hi Becky,

On a quick glance this PDF is visually overloaded with three different colors in the font. I suggest you reduce that to just two, with a main color for the text and one other color or treatment that highlights which words get a gloss in the sidebar.

Chinese Zero to Hero provides PDF keys to many Youtube videos much like this in its supplementary materials for HSK 4 or 5 onward.  I am not sure whether you can get access to them without signing up for their courses, but I found their translation aid/commentary system easy to use.  Maybe someone else can provide a public link, if that exists.

P.S. One problem, if you intend to use such Youtube materials as a basis for a course you charge money for, is that you will have no control over whether or not the Youtube videos will remain online.  People pull free materials off the web all the time for all kinds of reasons and you could suddenly end up with course materials having been sabotaged.  And those who paid for such a course would not be happy about that.  If you're creating free materials people tend to be more forgiving.

 

[suMMit]

On 7/5/2022 at 3:57 PM, Moshen said:

On a quick glance this PDF is visually overloaded with three different colors in the font.

Yes, I get that the brown colored words are for the ones you provided definitions for. But why the red and blue?

 

The video is pretty cool, but I have to say, the music while he was talking tilted me.

 

Anyway, it looks like you put a lot of work into this and it's well done. 

[becky82]

Thanks!

 

On 7/5/2022 at 4:43 PM, suMMit said:

Yes, I get that the brown colored words are for the ones you provided definitions for. But why the red and blue?

 

It's word segmentation: separate words alternate between two colors.  Maybe I need to pick a more subtle color scheme (alternative attached [I also made some minor bug fixes]), or I could just get rid of it (it takes time to implement).

 

On 7/5/2022 at 3:57 PM, Moshen said:

Chinese Zero to Hero provides PDF keys to many Youtube videos much like this in its supplementary materials for HSK 4 or 5 onward.  I am not sure whether you can get access to them without signing up for their courses, but I found their translation aid/commentary system easy to use.  Maybe someone else can provide a public link, if that exists.

 

Actually I paid for this service when I was studying the HSK5.  Theirs look like this:

 

 

I forgot that this even exists; I didn't use this particular utility since it seemed... automatically generated.  (I found other aspects of Chinese Zero to Hero highly useful.)  There's simply too much English on the page for me: I took one look and thought "not for me".  Also, I like big, readable Chinese characters---why strain your eyes?

 

On 7/5/2022 at 3:57 PM, Moshen said:

P.S. One problem, if you intend to use such Youtube materials as a basis for a course you charge money for, is that you will have no control over whether or not the Youtube videos will remain online.  People pull free materials off the web all the time for all kinds of reasons and you could suddenly end up with course materials having been sabotaged.  And those who paid for such a course would not be happy about that.  If you're creating free materials people tend to be more forgiving.

 

I haven't really thought it through yet.  Since these videos are under a Creative Commons license, as long as I give attribution, I can upload them wherever I like.  The creators have agreed to this.

 

Indeed, it would be free materials.  I like helping people, and I feel the world would be a better place if more people simply just helped others (which is why I'm drawn to Creative Commons work).  Besides, under the Creative Commons license, I'd be required to give them away for free.

 

I could probably add a few more things, like HSK statistics, and a word count.

 

If people are like "hey wow, that's really helpful---I'd love to have many more of these to help me study", I'd consider making more (I also benefit from making them).  But if people are kind of "meh", I'll probably not bother.

 

coffee_YouTube.pdf

[Moshen]

Quote

under the Creative Commons license

 

From what I understand, there are different kinds or levels of Creative Commons licenses.  Some allow commercial use and some do not.  More at https://creativecommons.org/get-cc-savvy/breaking-cc-licenses/.  (I'm adding that for the benefit of anyone following this thread who gets ideas they may want to implement.)

[Jan Finster]

On 7/5/2022 at 11:16 AM, becky82 said:

If people are like "hey wow, that's really helpful---I'd love to have many more of these to help me study", I'd consider making more (I also benefit from making them).  But if people are kind of "meh", I'll probably not bother.

 

Unless it helps you study, I would not bother.

There are tons of free transcripts or transcripts you get for being a patreon member by dozens of Chinese Youtubers.  

 

I overall feel there is way too much out there.... I bought the Chinese-Zero-to-Hero pack 2 years ago and have not even looked at it yet...

[suMMit]

On 7/5/2022 at 7:22 PM, Jan Finster said:

I overall feel there is way too much out there....

Truer words have not been spoken. I have so many resources that sometimes I don't even know what to work on.

[becky82]

Haha!  I know that feeling.  Okay, that pretty much decides it: if I end up making such things, I'll just do it for me.  I should be re-preparing for the HSK6 anyway.