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Why My MOOC Is Not Built on Video

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Re: Why My MOOC Is Not Built on Video

#61

Post by talkingquickly »

bramgg wrote: post #39
douche wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little surprised at the strong support this comment has driven. Haha, I usually use this account for opinions that I would think controversial.

I see this opinion voted to the top of Hacker News all the time. People seem to forget that watching something in video format is just so damn convenient, and requires little effort.

I think the counter view here is that video can be incredibly inconvenient depending on your exact use case. E.g. my scarcest resource is time and video is, for me at least, a very slow way of consuming content (compared to text). So if it's content that I need to consume quickly, video is a none starter.

If I'm browsing the web, I'm already reading textual content so reading is about as low effort as can be. Watching a video means "context switching", reading to watching, along with making sure I've got headphones on, pausing any music I'm listening to etc.

That's not to say the above is true for everyone, but for some people, watching a video is substantially less convenient and entails more effort than reading text.

Re: Why My MOOC Is Not Built on Video

#62

Post by xerophyte12932 »

neaanopri wrote: post #21
davidbanham wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My ideal alternative would be to remove lectures entirely and to have interactive labs where teachers and TAs help students complete assignments based on assigned readings. The instructor for the course would be responsible for overseeing the teaching assistants and preparing the course outline. The TAs would help guide the students in completing the assignments or mini projects. Then a couple of time a semester th…

I'm in a class that's doing it right now. There are problems. Often nobody knows what's going on. You can argue that confusion is good, but it's not fun and it feels wrong. You can argue that class should be challenging and active, but this method led to a minor student revolt. Discrimination and prejudice happen. Women are underrepresented (with respect to the ratio in the class) in the conversations that happen. We…

One of my teachers in College managed to pull it off splendidly. The course was Algorithms. I suspect the normal format for an Algorithms course is that the teacher would write an algorithm and explain how it works and its merits/demerits etc... in short, a lecture.

What our teacher did was: 1) Write a small piece of pseudocode on board and called it a "unit" 2) Present a problem to the class. 3) Ask students to come up with solutions that used the unit (or modified it a bit. 4) Allow Students to present their solutions to the rest of the class. 5) Allow the class as a whole to debate on competing algorithms. 6) (If applicable) Reveal the name of the algorithm the class has just derived. 7) Repeat

The teacher rarely ever lectured. He just presented problems and let the class figure a way out. Occasionally he would nudge us in a direction we weren't considering, but mostly he was there just to ensure things run smoothly and that's all.

On the whole, it worked out great. Before the class I knew most people had trouble designing algorithms. At the end, even the weaker students had a pretty good grasp on the subject because the format itself encouraged everyone to contribute and thus learn.

Re: Why My MOOC Is Not Built on Video

#63

Post by lelandbatey »

bramgg wrote: post #39
douche wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little surprised at the strong support this comment has driven. Haha, I usually use this account for opinions that I would think controversial.

I see this opinion voted to the top of Hacker News all the time. People seem to forget that watching something in video format is just so damn convenient, and requires little effort.

For me, evaluating the content and the usefulness of a video takes about the length of the video. That's a huge problem when searching for technical resources, since text can be scanned many times faster than a video.

So in the time it takes to watch a video, I could have scanned throough several documents online. Couple that with copy-able text and it seems apparent why one might avoid videos.

Re: Why My MOOC Is Not Built on Video

#64

Post by facepalm »

bramgg wrote: post #39
douche wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little surprised at the strong support this comment has driven. Haha, I usually use this account for opinions that I would think controversial.

I see this opinion voted to the top of Hacker News all the time. People seem to forget that watching something in video format is just so damn convenient, and requires little effort.

HN is text based, so it might have a bias towards people who like text.

Re: Why My MOOC Is Not Built on Video

#65

Post by mtrimpe »

bramgg wrote: post #39
douche wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little surprised at the strong support this comment has driven. Haha, I usually use this account for opinions that I would think controversial.

I see this opinion voted to the top of Hacker News all the time. People seem to forget that watching something in video format is just so damn convenient, and requires little effort.

I'm more surprised that we don't just create a written version of the lecture as well and synchronize it with the video.

It's especially surprising since having your MOOC captioned is already mandatory if you want to comply with accessibility laws.

Re: Why My MOOC Is Not Built on Video

#66

Post by mattlutze »

penprogg wrote: post #11

I agree with the author's sentiment 100%. As others have stated, the reason that video is worse than text for learning is because A. The rate at which you can read is faster than you can listen B. Video technology is often a hassle when you need to skip around. C. It's cheaper to write and revise text than video. D. Videos consume large amounts of data. But I'm going to add another point. E. Lecturers most often don'…

The one hang-up here is that you then need to participate synchronously with the course -- TAs can only be available for so many hours a week.

I looked at a course like you describe for this semester. It looked fantastic, but I live in Europe and it was taught on the East coast of the US; I would have had to wake up at 2am my time to participate.

Last year I took a course that was almost entirely written -- the professor felt more comfortable if his lectures were written out, so he did so. The videos added flavor, but >90% of the content was there directly in the lecture for me to refer back to.

Having many ways to learn available -- lecture, reading, question/response, group work -- maximizes the chances a student's particular strengths will be matched in the course.

Re: Why My MOOC Is Not Built on Video

#67

Post by ht_th »

bramgg wrote: post #39
douche wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little surprised at the strong support this comment has driven. Haha, I usually use this account for opinions that I would think controversial.

I see this opinion voted to the top of Hacker News all the time. People seem to forget that watching something in video format is just so damn convenient, and requires little effort.

Having grown up without a television, I never understood this 'convenience' because whenever I watch a video, I cannot do another thing. I never learned to work with a television in the background, and as a result, if I don't give a video my full and undivided attention, I don't remember almost nothing from it. On the other hand, when I was a kid, I got used to listen to (news) radio while reading or doing other stuff. I have no trouble following an audio program while doing some other cognitive intensive task.

Of course, with the popularisation of using videos for "all the things" lately, I don't feel at home at many a (popular) website any more. But that's another matter entirely, I suppose.

Re: Why My MOOC Is Not Built on Video

#68

Post by Symmetry »

bramgg wrote: post #39
douche wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little surprised at the strong support this comment has driven. Haha, I usually use this account for opinions that I would think controversial.

I see this opinion voted to the top of Hacker News all the time. People seem to forget that watching something in video format is just so damn convenient, and requires little effort.

Unfortunately I can't watch videos when I'm surrounded by other people unless it's something they're watching too. Which basically means I can't watch videos half the time I'm browsing the web.

Re: Why My MOOC Is Not Built on Video

#69

Post by metasean »

reacweb wrote: post #55
alashley wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watching a video does require little effort, but learning -- and subsequently retaining anything is where the real effort is required with technical subjects.

When you watch a video, you lose the freedom of the rate. People do not like to lose freedom.

This isn't completely true.

I frequently will download all the videos for an online course. Subsequently, when I watch them in VLC [1], I'll bump the playback to 1.25x - 1.75x.

Fwiw: for me, playback speed strongly correlates to how technical the topic is, less technical videos tends toward the 1.75x; while highly technical tends toward the 1.25x.

I'm also a big proponent of subtitles and transcripts.

[1]: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Re: Why My MOOC Is Not Built on Video

#70

Post by christudor »

facepalm wrote: post #64
bramgg wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this opinion voted to the top of Hacker News all the time. People seem to forget that watching something in video format is just so damn convenient, and requires little effort.

HN is text based, so it might have a bias towards people who like text.

Agreed. The community is probably biased towards people who are (1) a little bit smarter than average, and so relatively happy to go away and learn things by themselves, and (2) generally more interested in maths, technology and science, which lends itself a little bit more to just "working through the problem sheet" as opposed to, say, the arts and humanities.
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