Is Youtube a New Educational Tool?

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Here's a question that many people (especially students and teachers) may find interesting; can Youtube be used as an educational tool? PBS Idea Channel produced an intriguing video on this subject. The video displays how Youtube can be used for an educational benefit, and how this addresses the two modern education problems of availability and engagement.

PBS Idea Channel is a Youtube channel that answers many of the Internet's questions, like whether or not Doctor Who is a religion, how Minecraft can be educational, and whether or not Google is considered knowledge. These videos are created and hosted by Mike Rugnetta. Rugnetta likes to play guitar and use computers. He is employed by PBS to create these educationally inspiring videos. A production company called Kornhaber Brown (a team of six people) help to produce these videos. Kornhaber Brown often produces advertisements for companies like Subway and American Express.

Figure 1. Mike Rugnetta hosting for PBS Idea Channel.



Rugnetta starts out the video by showing the audience that Youtube is not just for silly pet videos, and that it actually has some educational value. Youtube can be used to learn how to do "pretty much everything" (Rugnetta), like throat singing, banjo riffs, and how to properly iron clothes. I personally love learning things from Youtube. Two years ago, I decided to solve a Rubik's cube. After endless hours of frustration, I decided to look up instructions via Youtube. Now, not only can I solve a Rubik's cube, but I can solve one in less than five minutes. It's a great party trick to show friends (but I won't actually be bringing a Rubik's cube to a party).

Rugnetta claims that educational Youtube videos address two serious problems with modern education; availability and engagement. There are thousands of educational lectures posted on Youtube from professors all over the world. Now instead of paying an arm and a leg for tuition to attend MIT for electrical engineering lectures, many of these lectures are posted online for everyone to view. Now quality lectures are available to everyone with access to internet and a computer. Some teachers are creating accounts and posting their lessons online for students (and anyone, really) to view. One handy educational channel is Khan Academy, which provides educational help using Youtube videos and apps for your smartphone. I personally used Youtube to teach myself derivatives. After three class periods of not understanding exactly what a derivative was, I took it upon myself to find out. I discovered a great video explaining what a derivative was, how to find it, and what it means. Needless to say, I scored an A on my derivative test.

Figure 2. A screenshot of "Slow Motion Cat Flipping Physics"

 

Online videos obviously address the availability problem, but what about engagement? There are many educational Youtube videos that are for entertainment and education. One of my personal favorites is the science of why cats always land on their feet  (Figure 2. I found this through PBS Idea Channel). Most people would think a cat's tail is what allows the cat to land upright, even when dropped upside down. Actually, the cat uses the law of conservation of angular momentum to flip itself over. This is proven using physics, and the fact that Japanese Bobtail cats can land on their feet without a tail (Figure 3).

Figure 3. A Japanese Bobtail Cat

Even though Youtube can be used as an excellent educational aid, there is still one major problem; Youtube is distracting. After watching a video, at least twenty new video thumbnails pop up on the computer screen, begging to be clicked. As a matter of fact, when researching for this blog entry, I was distracted for nearly an hour by educational videos. In this time I found out about the Fibonacci sequence in nature, how to create Nepal's flag, how to draw fractals, why a cat lands on its feet, how to make a hexaflexagon (and I did end up making one), and why there are many different types of infinity. This can be a very time-consuming flaw that is a procrastinators worst nightmare. One option to combat this would be a filter to allow only educational video to be viewed (set up by teachers during a class). Also there could be a limit to how many videos one can watch in an hour. Furthermore, a section of Youtube could branch off (possibly called Youtube.edu) if internet education is going to be more than an aid. This is a new sensation, so these flaws will remain where they are for some time. In the end, Youtube may never be more than an educational aid with plenty of cat videos for all to see.