Having read the Newspaper today, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Nicole Nissim, a psychology major from the University of Central Florida tuned in to YouTube not to watch bands and comedy skits, but to watch Maths Videos to learn Tri equations!
What she said during the interview struck me, she said "I was able to watch them at my own pace and if I didn’t get a concept, I could easily rewind it. It was a lot clearer once I watched the video."
Now, YouTube is perhaps best known for its massive database of homemade performances and TV clips but people like Nicole are tuning in for free tutoring in maths, science and other complicated subjects.
Can you see the picture yet?
Take these two thoughts into mind, firstly, that Videos have always been a good teaching aid for students for the primary reasons that for many people, our brain learns visually, through images better than text alone. Many times because the images in the videos can be the exact results we wish to obtain, rather than through text alone. As a simple example, we can learn how to play the guitar much faster through images and sound through Videos rather than through reading a book filled only with words.
The Massive Potential
I predict that in the near future, the power of video sites such as Youtube’s ready made platform could be used as a widely available and popular source of providing information to those who would might have otherwise have little chances of obtaining.
Imagine what it can do for a village of illiterate children in a far away place where the nearest school is a 2 hour walk away and the quality of teaching is at best, average. But if they have access to the Internet and can educate themselves through freely available information and videos provided by the top educators in the World, they can have the same quality of education as more privileged children from Urban environments.
Many of these people are hungry for knowledge and are willing to make giant efforts to make the best of their education because it could mean the direct implication of the future welfare and status of their families. This is a factor many urban dwellers do not have, the factor of surviving and thriving.
What about the illiterate farmer who always have been looking for a way to improve the quality of his farmland but the methods he have access to are limited to the locals, who ironically, are using methods close to his and also second guessing what might work to make crops grow faster but the methods never proven.
What if another farmer far away from him has already spent 10 years perfecting a much better way of growing crops that can yield four times more harvest in half the time needed…imagine if he posts this video on the net and the former farmer found this precious piece of knowledge and decides to adapts it…this would have meant a massive change to his farming practices and the ability to provide for his family, even pushing his wealth and family status up in that he is able to provide them so much more.
Imagine again that he is willing to share this new found method to his fellow locals and they decided to follow suit as they have already seen the proven results and they want it too. The economy of the village of farmers, would have just quadrupled in half the time!
The beauty of this method of teaching through videos is that it does not matter if one cannot read, he only has to understand the spoken language and follow the actions through the videos to be able to learn. And even if they do not understand the language, they will be able to learn well if the actions are clearly presented.
Can you see the potential of the power of knowledge through Video Platforms such as YouTube skyrocketing now? Bypassing the problems of transport, availability, capital and even language…
