Thoughts on eHow....

This was the first website I was introduced to in the class: http://www.ehow.com I searched for some topics that I was interested in and … so without further ado, I will move on to the discussion. :)

I have never used the website 'eHow' and so I took the opportunity to really check it out. I read some of the articles and watched a few of the videos. The first two I watched were as follows:

“Learning to Drive a Car” by Casey Atkinson – length of 1.01 minutes

“How to Change a Fuel Filter” by Richard Goms – length of 3:39 minutes

I choose these few to start with because I have been interested in learning to do a few things with my car and so I thought this might be an opportunity. I watched the videos and for the most part didn't feel like they were helpful. I felt like if I already knew most of the information, then I could learn something, but if I knew very little then I felt like I watched something, but didn't really feel like I learned anything. I realized after looking at my car that his instructions wouldn't really work for my brand of vehicle. So I wondered if the articles might be more helpful, and so I looked at a few of them. They were as follows:

“Want to Display Your Favorite Knives? Do it in Style on a DIY Rustic Wall Rack” by Tim and Mary Vidra

“How to Make Healthy Cat Food” by Sunny Griffis

“How to Give CPR” by an eHow contributor

For the most part, I felt the same way about the articles. I have been a BLS instructor for over a decade and didn't find anything factually incorrect, but I also didn't feel like I would have learned much from it. I guess that when I looked at the articles and the videos I had so many questions and I couldn't get them answered. I found that a little ironic because I like online classes for their flexibility, but I also recognize that I prefer the give and take of the real classroom and being able to look at the person I am speaking to and to ask questions when I have them. I did make the cat food and found that very easy and it was appreciated by my crew, but as someone who cooks a lot and understands that process more... I think that I pretty much just used the recipe and just 'did it'.

I am not sure whether the time I spent on the videos was worthwhile in any sense other than the curiosity I was able to use and to decide whether the site would be useful or not. I don't think I will actively use it again unless I need to for an assignment but I don't consider my time wasted trying to make that decision. I do not think I will recommend it to anyone because I think that many other people would have the same problems that I had with the information; either too little information or the inability to have things explained in a different way and questions answered. At least for me, I do not think this site would help me learn much that I didn't already have some decent knowledge in. I asked my ex-husband to watch a few and he felt like he could learn a few things so I think that maybe the ways that I learn are not compatible with many of the ways that the sites uses to teach. Just my thoughts.

For any of you guys who have used this site… what were your thoughts?