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INTERVIEW: YouTubing college tutor Gary Hayers
Since launching his YouTube channel in January 2017, college tutor Gary Hayers has gained almost 7,500 subscribers and an astonishing 850,000 views through uploading electrical demonstrations of testing and installation best practices.
GSH Electrical videos are aimed at students undertaking electrical qualifications Level 1, 2 and 3 diplomas for City and Guilds and EAL courses.
Gary even uses his videos in the workshop with his own students at Tresham College in Northamptonshire, to allow learners to follow his demonstration as they complete activities.
SPARKS Magazine: How did you get into the electrical industry?
Gary Hayers: I did my apprenticeship through what is now Western Power. I then went to work for Cranfield University doing maintenance and support for PHD students. I was building rigs they were using for experiments, which is where I got my taste for assisting people. That spurred me to progress into the teaching role which I now do at Tresham College. I was based in Wellingborough to start with for 15 years and have just moved campus to Corby. Matt has been doing it for about three years and he’s been doing some of the videos. Joe has just returned, he’s appeared in the last two or three videos and he’s been teaching for about eight years.
SPARKS: How did the YouTube channel come about?
GH: We are a fairly new team of three but I’ve been doing it a little while. I started it off but as it catches on you like your colleagues to enjoy the process as well. We do onsite filming with Matt when he’s out on the weekend doing electrical work and Joe is in the last two or three videos. The early ones are early YouTube videos from a bloke who had no idea! The later ones have better sound and better handling of what we have to do. Much respect to Ant and Dec who can do these things effortlessly – the rest of us weren’t born with the talent!
SPARKS: What made you want to do videos?
GH: My wife really. My kids both wanted a YouTube channel and I’m useless with technology. They wanted to do it, so I went and had a go. I had limited equipment, shot some videos for them (badly) and put them up for them. My wife said I needed a new obsession and said I should have my own channel – I laughed many times! I shot some horrific videos of myself and thought that was great. Slowly but surely, I started to take it more seriously from May last year. I had about 80 subscribers and once I took it mildly more seriously – bought a decent microphone, tripod and tried a little harder – it slowly got to 1,000 by October, 2,000 by Christmas and at the end of June, climbing towards 10,000. We get a lot of positive comments from people who have trained or are training, appreciating the time we take. You do get some wonderful comments. I also quite like helping new teachers out with material. Joe is doing a science and principles channel – he will do the maths, which is the one most people want. That’s the next phase.
SPARKS: How did the page attract so many viewers?
GH: I don’t know whether it’s because we are a little bit different or whether people are now aware they have to take ownership of their own learning. You can’t just rely on textbooks and the person standing in front of you; perhaps that’s driven them to it. We’d like to get to one million views before Christmas. We try and do product reviews as well – we have a good relationship with Crabtree, Click Scolmore and Marshall-Tufflex. We try and mildly keep up. The one thing no lecturer keeps up with is industry – they teach the syllabus and not necessarily what’s happening in the real world.
SPARKS: How do your own students react to your videos?
GH: The least likely person to watch it is one of your own students, believe it or not. I will often put up a video the week before the activity is carried out. You will get to the activity and the usual ones have more than likely watched and took on the info. What is very good is when they are stuck in the workshop to do testing or a certain technique, the amount of kids who put their headphones in, put their iPhone onto the shelf, hit play and then watch and pause. That’s worked brilliantly this year. We had a collection of videos and towards the end of the academic year they had to do one of the jobs purely by watching the videos. They understood how to terminate SY flex from scratch, install it and test it. From the outside in, they think we’ve done nothing all lesson, but actually its self-motivated learning: they have enough to do by watching the video, test it and then inviting you in to test it. That’s the highlight of the year for me, driving their own learning when they are not with you. They have the nous without being spoon-fed.
SPARKS: Do your students get involved in the videos?
GH: I’ve got about 17 videos where the students are the stars: they have to answer questions very quickly, like we do off-camera. I put one up on my Facebook page of a lad called Jay and an electrical contractor contacted the page and gave him an apprenticeship. The same day RS Components interviewed eight learners from Tresham College, three of whom were electrical students. They had two jobs available but created another job and took on all three. That was the same day Jay got his apprenticeship from the Facebook page, so we had a pretty good day that day!
Gary’s YouTube page can be found here.
