15 August 2019

Videos as Online Teaching Resources

You may find several articles talking about this topic, and many have much valuable information ...

But, since you are already here, it might not be a bad idea to continue reading!

When you are preparing the content for a lecture with a subject that you are experienced with, it might not be a bad idea to create the whole content right away! But for the other 99% of the times, you will need to search for content to enhance your knowledge, experience, or presentation material.

We may not need to discuss the importance of the online content as that will be just stating what you already know, so, let's just go into "where to get some of the content you may need", and some precautions that you should put in mind.

Two important sources of content are Books and Articles, both are mostly available in digital format, but we will not discuss them in this article.

Videos

Video content has become a huge resource for online learning. There is a huge amount of videos on different websites, but nothing is as big as YouTube (as per now). It is easy to search for the topics you are preparing for your lecture, then follow the links to the videos with related subjects.

If your internet connection is good enough, you may watch and download as many of the videos as you need to complete the missing points in your topics.

You may then use the videos, or parts of them, as part of your lecture. Do not forget to make sure that the video licence allows you to. If you decide to use a whole video or parts of videos, makes sure that the time the video will take does not occupy more than enough of your lecture! The audience (students, trainees, or public audience) are there to listen to you, not to the video, or else, it might have been a better idea to watch the video at home! (The tools for downloading and editing the videos are discussed in a different article). (You may visit my YouTube channel to explore different topics)

Most of the videos that have learning content will be short (5 to 15 min). Thus they will provide you with the information you are looking for in a relatively direct way. That directness will have its cost! In general, the video content will not explain much of the details needed for you or other learners to complete the picture. This may or may not be a bad thing, but, you have to be ready to complete the details using other resources or videos.



On the other hand, you have to be extremely aware of the amount of trash you will find in the videos


As a general advise,  

DO NOT use videos from YouTube to learn about a topic you have no idea about! If you are somewhat familiar with the topic, watching the videos may add some ideas or fill some gaps, but your prior knowledge of the topic will provide the filter that identifies videos that are of no value.

If you are new to the topics,

your learning through videos should not rely on YouTube or other public sources, you better rely on credible resources such as MOOCs or University websites. The resources on such websites are of higher credibility, nothing is perfect, and you may use them to learn about new topics with confidence in the content.

Some other easy-to-access valuable resources ...

that you will find online may be found on







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