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There are all sort of wonderful educational videos on youtube, but it's like leading a horse to water. The hard part is now getting them to drink. That said, I

by kiba 5y ago

There are all sort of wonderful educational videos on youtube, but it's like leading a horse to water. The hard part is now getting them to drink. That said, I do credit part of my education to Youtube University. I learned more about virology in details that I never thought about before. Still, I haven't yet complete the virology lectures.

bluGill 5y ago
But is what you learned correct? Anyone can claim to be an expert and put together a lecture. That doesn't mean what they are teaching is correct.
- scrollaway 5y ago
  What you are saying applies to current school systems too. So many of my teachers were full of shit...
- snek_case 5y ago
  There are many lectures and conference talks from university professors who are at the top of their field on YouTube. You might be able to find better content than what's available in your local university class. For example, Robert Sapolsky's lecture series on Human Behavioral Biology at Stanford: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNnIGh9g6fA&list=PL848F2368C90DDC3D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNnIGh9g6fA&list=PL848F2368C... Stanford and MIT both have lots of lectures on YouTube.
  - bluGill 5y ago
    Oh I know, but there are also a lot of people making claims to expertise they don't have and spreading lies. Some of them are real experts in other fields and so have respect there.
    - FlyMoreRockets 5y ago
      It's generally pretty easy to spot the fakes if you have a basic understanding of the field and are just researching for specific details. Frankly, for the stuff I typically look for, there are surprisingly few fakes to be found. This may change with YT deprecating the down-vote arrow.
    - snek_case 5y ago
      I would say critical thinking, learning to distinguish good information from bad is a valuable life skill that is only getting more valuable with time. Something we should try to teach people about from a young age.
lkbm 5y ago
I don't think YouTube replaces school for most people, but it makes it possible for someone who wants to learn something to do that much more more easily than before. School forces kids to learn a little bit about a wide-ish swath of subjects. Youtube enables them to go deeper on whatever it is they're interested in. Finding and signing up for a class or lessons is a big, expensive hurdle, and then you might discover you hate the subject or the teacher. If you can quickly and easily dip into a dozen subjects and try videos from hundreds of creators, you can rapidly try and reject things until you find one that strikes you and stick with it. The Internet in general does this, but YouTube is a big part of it, especially things where visuals are useful—woodworking is a good example, but there are so so many things to learn if you can jut find a subject and a teacher that catches your interest.

by kiba 5y ago

bluGill 5y ago

But is what you learned correct? Anyone can claim to be an expert and put together a lecture. That doesn't mean what they are teaching is correct.

scrollaway 5y ago
What you are saying applies to current school systems too. So many of my teachers were full of shit...
snek_case 5y ago
There are many lectures and conference talks from university professors who are at the top of their field on YouTube. You might be able to find better content than what's available in your local university class. For example, Robert Sapolsky's lecture series on Human Behavioral Biology at Stanford: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNnIGh9g6fA&list=PL848F2368C90DDC3D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNnIGh9g6fA&list=PL848F2368C... Stanford and MIT both have lots of lectures on YouTube.
- bluGill 5y ago
  Oh I know, but there are also a lot of people making claims to expertise they don't have and spreading lies. Some of them are real experts in other fields and so have respect there.
  - FlyMoreRockets 5y ago
    It's generally pretty easy to spot the fakes if you have a basic understanding of the field and are just researching for specific details. Frankly, for the stuff I typically look for, there are surprisingly few fakes to be found. This may change with YT deprecating the down-vote arrow.
  - snek_case 5y ago
    I would say critical thinking, learning to distinguish good information from bad is a valuable life skill that is only getting more valuable with time. Something we should try to teach people about from a young age.

lkbm 5y ago

I don't think YouTube replaces school for most people, but it makes it possible for someone who wants to learn something to do that much more more easily than before. School forces kids to learn a little bit about a wide-ish swath of subjects. Youtube enables them to go deeper on whatever it is they're interested in. Finding and signing up for a class or lessons is a big, expensive hurdle, and then you might discover you hate the subject or the teacher. If you can quickly and easily dip into a dozen subjects and try videos from hundreds of creators, you can rapidly try and reject things until you find one that strikes you and stick with it. The Internet in general does this, but YouTube is a big part of it, especially things where visuals are useful—woodworking is a good example, but there are so so many things to learn if you can jut find a subject and a teacher that catches your interest.