YouTube plays a major role in today’s learning environment by providing access to excellent and free online educational videos. Educators, students, and parents all over the world share a unanimous vote on how online videos are beneficial as both teaching and learning tools. YouTube videos can not only be adapted for online education, but also for other sorts of educational systems. They have the advantage of presenting the most complex concepts and subjects in an interesting way which enhances students’ understanding. As students all over the world were asked to attend lessons from home during the recent global lockdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic, educational and eLearning-related YouTube channels have seen a significant increase in the number of their viewers and subscribers.
The appeal for learning via online videos has gone higher since the pandemic. The situation is a win-win for both YouTubers and students. Think about it, with approximately 2 billion active users on YouTube, 500 hours of video content are being uploaded on the website every minute, making YouTube the largest video-sharing platform there is. What makes YouTube a fantastic resource for education is that the process of learning and retention is significantly enriched by engaging students in memorable and effective video content.
We all have been there, the tedious unending hours of being forced to sit tight in a classroom, reading from a giant soulless textbook with no sense of appeal, whatsoever. This is a common example of an educational system that fails to recognize learners are more likely to pay attention when they’re engaged in visually stimulating activities. Anyway, in-person classes aside, let’s take a look at the benefits of using YouTube as a source of online education:
YouTube reduces the cost of online education: Whether you’re a learner or an educator, YouTube can help you to reduce your online education costs. If you’re an educator, you don’t need an expensive camera or professional crew to create educational videos. Keep in mind that it’s not a Hollywood production! You could easily record your videos just by using your smartphone. Once the videos are ready, upload them on your YouTube channel for free. All of the YouTube videos are freely available to students at all times and locations. Therefore, YouTube videos can significantly lower the overall cost of online education and learners need not worry about the matter of money.
YouTube Offers a Wide Range of Educational Resources As an educator, if you choose not to use YouTube videos in the course of your online class, you could always provide the students with links to relevant visual learning sources. This can even motivate your students to go on and search for more related YouTube videos in an attempt to self-study. These videos specifically come in handy for teaching and understanding difficult concepts of a subject. Furthermore, in time, they will have a positive effect on the improvement of the learners’ listening and punctuation skills. So educators could let YouTube videos mainly take on the excruciating process of explaining complex concepts and topics, while they themselves focus more on students’ learning abilities.
Mobile and Microlearning: Microlearning is an educational strategy that breaks complex topics down into short-form, stand-alone units of study that can be viewed as many times as necessary, whenever and wherever the learner feels the need. This also hugely benefits learners with short attention spans. Therefore, it is best to wrap up the educational videos in 10 minutes or less to avoid boring the learners. Students can view these videos on all portable devices such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops without having to worry about the quality of the videos or the misrepresentation of the material. This way students could make the most of the day by watching YouTube videos in various environments depending on the situation.
Facilitating the admissions and other processes Video content is an excellent choice to assist distance students with the admission process for online courses. Students would be far more convenient if educational institutes create short, detailed videos on what students need to do for course enrolment and admission and save students from having to take an unnecessary trip to visit the institute or ask around in circles. These videos could contain information surrounding the courses or campus area as well in an attempt to create an image of what awaits the students. However, you can turn YouTube into your classroom and give students access to live stream videos of classes to save the trouble of having to enroll in the class and being physically present in the campus altogether.
Summary
In a nutshell, using Youtube for educational purposes comes with countless perks both for the instructor and the student. Being cost-effective, saving you time, providing you with endless resources to learn from, and helping students choose the kind of content they wish to watch are only several of its numerous advantages. Apart from that, it saves you the trouble of the admission and enrollment process. After all, who wouldn’t want a huge network of teachers and a source of online educational videos in their pocket, watching whenever and wherever they want?
