- 15/03/2017
- Category: Commentaries
Students might be able to relate to the fact that there are undeniably difficult subjects which would require the gray area to bend over backward to grasp them, yet they might not have the time to do so. One of the examples of rather challenging course would be philosophy. Many people do not get the privilege of long hours of diving into philosophy books written by a particular thinker just to understand a certain topic while attending a couple of different classes in a week at the same time. While we must admit, things written by philosophers starting from Plato to Foucault require high concentration and dedication just to make sense of. In regard of what’s previously stated, YouTube channel such as School of Life, simplifies the study of philosophy in various segments of thinkers. A video of theirs gained 2.000.000+ views when they summarize some of Nietzsche books and his main thoughts in a 6-minute video.[i] The video is fresh and light in comparison to Nietzsche’s actual books which obviously take more than 6 minutes to understand. At the same time the video also leaves room for the viewers to critically question the subject as they become more aware of the concept in line with their curiosity of learning. Therefore, this commentary would highlight how educators have revolutionized ways of knowledge sharing, in a more entertaining way as they use YouTube as the approach.
Even though education is not on the top searching list in comparison to popular cultures and entertainment, many have chosen to use YouTube to educate the larger audience in various forms and ways. As we all know, YouTube is one of Google’s subsidiaries, a widely-used website which could reach out to hundreds of millions of viewers.[ii] YouTube has indeed solidified its position as strong influencer in the society nowadays. Top universities, such as Stanford, have also extended their educational activities on YouTube. Stanford’s YouTube channel is ranked 67th in the top 100 YouTube education channel. The channel itself has been active since 2011 and has 602,461 subscribers until today.[iii] Representing the institution’s values of inclusivity and research, Stanford does not only share its university’ activities for company profiling and promotional purposes only, but it also uploads lectures and speeches held by famous professors or guest speakers. Some of its most popular uploads include the video “Steve Job’s 2005 Stanford Commencement Address” with 26.000.000+ views, and the video “Stanford’s Professor Andrei Linde’s celebrates Physics breakthrough” with 2.900.000+ views.[iv] People could easily access and enjoy these lectures for free. Aside from academic institutions, one of the biggest educational channels on YouTube was created by science enthusiast who started out as Internet personalities, Hank Green and John Green. The Green brothers launched CrashCourse as they moved from their personal entertainment channel known as the VlogBrothers to the new channel as they see the success of their education segment “Hank and John explain things.” CrashCourse’s intention was the creators’ vision of giving high-quality educational videos available to everyone. The team claimed that their videos had been used in high school to college level classes ranging from the study of humanities to sciences as they wanted to create a fast-paced format, changing the traditional textbook approach, and enhance the learning experience.[v] CrashCourse is now the third most subscribed education channel on YouTube with 5,657,908 subscribers with hundreds of videos explaining many things, starting from the complexity of quantum physics to fun content such as pop culture term, “Netflix and Chill.”[vi]
Unlike the existing materials of academic institutions such as Stanford, we might want to see how these ‘short-course’ channels become popular as their existence to embark on a voluntary action to educate people. Channels such as Big Think 101, School of Life, and Crash Course became popular mainly because their capability of processing a large amount of complex raw knowledge into understandable, light, and visually pleasing contents. In fact, most people are seeking for the generality and simplified explanation to understand these complicated concepts thus the reason why they choose YouTube ‘crash courses’. Amidst positive winds and supports on them, there are still some backlashes directed at these channels. Some viewers express their disagreements on the comment section regarding the lack of details and accuracy in these videos, or perhaps how the producers attached their personal views or stance within the explanation instead of remaining neutral. Regarding the infiltrating views or ideological stance, YouTube guideline provides limitations, as whenever they see harmful, harsh, or threatening contents, they could put community flag to restrict the video from showing.[vii] Therefore as long as none of the personal views or stances are seen as dangerous for younger viewers, there won’t be any problem for the uploaders and viewers.
Many classes, as mentioned above, starting from high school to college level, were introduced to these videos and had found it as a necessary reinforcement to the studying process. Lecturers and teachers all over the world have integrated this new learning system to accompany the reading syllabus or to spark discussion within class. These videos are proven to be effective to capture the attention of the students, and they could also access these videos on their personal accounts as it evokes learning and curiosities. Finding new ways of teaching and learning have become more challenging as the wave of entertainment grows bigger it affected how nowadays students pay attention to school subjects. Studies found nowadays students could hardly concentrate without intense stimulations given by the educators.[viii] It is interesting to see how dedicated educators innovate ways of learning by incorporating popular social media platform to gain the attention of younger masses and transformed knowledge into enjoyable content. And aside from the formal educational institution users, these videos could easily be distributed and used by everyone with all kind of backgrounds. Due to the simplicity of the content itself, it gives lots of people chances to understand complex term without having to attend any classes.
[i] YouTube. (2014). PHILOSOPHY – Nietzsche. [online] Available at: https://youtu.be/wHWbZmg2hzU [Accessed 11 Mar. 2017].
[ii] Statistic Brain. (2016). STATS | YouTube Company Statistics – Statistic Brain. [online] Available at: http://www.statisticbrain.com/youtube-statistics/ [Accessed 14 Mar. 2017].
[iii] Vidstatsx.com. (2016). YouTube Top 100 Most Subscribed Education Channels List – Top by Subscribers. [online] Available at: https://vidstatsx.com/youtube-top-100-most-subscribed-education-channels [Accessed 11 Mar. 2017].
[iv] YouTube. (2008). Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address – Popular Upload. [online] Available at: https://youtu.be/UF8uR6Z6KLc [Accessed 11 Mar. 2017].
[v] Thecrashcourse.com. (2016). Crash Course – About Us. [online] Available at: http://thecrashcourse.com/about [Accessed 11 Mar. 2017].
[vi] Vidstatsx.com. (2016). YouTube Top 100 Most Subscribed Education Channels List – Top by Subscribers. [online] Available at: https://vidstatsx.com/youtube-top-100-most-subscribed-education-channels [Accessed 11 Mar. 2017].
[vii] Youtube.com. (n.d.). Community Guidelines – YouTube. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/yt/policyandsafety/communityguidelines.html [Accessed 11 Mar. 2017].
[viii] Hill, A. (2010). Why teenagers can’t concentrate: too much grey matter. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/may/31/why-teenagers-cant-concentrate-brains [Accessed 11 Mar. 2017].
