Today, teaching has gone beyond the conventional way of sitting with hundreds of learners in an enclosed room. The industry now explores various methods suitable for both the scholars of age and their tutors.
Now to the question of the day; how well does YouTube help with virtual learning? Let’s discuss the merits and demerits to bring you up to speed on what to expect from the site.
Merits
1. Improved Schooling
YouTube is packed with hundreds of thousands of high-quality and resourceful educational content. With the video resource platform, scholars are no longer restrained to the four walls of a classroom. Anyone anywhere can improve their knowledge and skills on a subject, course, or practical with uploads from professors and tutors all over the globe.
2. Remote Access
As long as students have a strong internet connection, they can browse through days of unrestricted informational pieces. Teachers also do not have to worry about driving for hours just to lecture students for half the time of their trip. YouTube is proven to be the ideal tool for sharing and receiving censored and high-demand information remotely.
3. Cost-effective & Great on Savings
With YouTube, anyone with a reliable internet connection can save a fortune learning to become a high-valued professional. The video resource platform doesn’t charge a dime for streaming. All anyone (an education creator) needs is a Google account to make YouTube videos. Foreign students can learn and save without zero investment like tuition.
4. Stress Relief
Aside from videos on the school curriculum, scholars can also watch videos by entertainment creators for fun and chill. YouTube is a haven for undergraduates looking for an easy way to relieve themselves of stress. There are short-and-long watch-time videos, shows, games, and music to help relieve you from the daily stress of studying.
5. Talent Expression (Extracurricular Activities)
While the higher education sector supports talent expression through extracurricular activities, schools only assign limited hours to these things. Surprisingly, there are free YouTube channels on extracurricular activities like chess, sports, academic clubs, political activism, and so on. Students can sharpen their skills and learn to express their talents online.
Demerits
1. Individualism
The fact that students cannot connect with their tutors and other persons taking the class makes YouTube worth giving a second thought. Unlike other teamwork-building and communal distant studying platforms like Zoom and Google Duo, YouTube promotes individualism. Perhaps using YouTube in the classroom with a section for conversations afterward would solve this problem.
2. Questionable Quality
Since YouTube video creators do not go through some vetting process on the kind and quality of information they create, the quality can be questioned. The educational sector operates fully on policies that are regularly reviewed to maintain the standard across schools. YouTube lacks these qualities, which allow users to question the educational projects on the site.
3. Internet Access
Most scholars from under-developed countries struggle with having quality internet connections. This vital factor prevents the scholars from getting educational resources on YouTube. For others, surfing the web or accessing specific data on YouTube costs a lot since they have to spend a lot on internet tariff plans to get unrestricted streaming.
4. Vulgarity
Although the site has pretty strict guidelines against posting violent and explicit pieces, it isn’t the greatest place for non-vulgar content. If we have to vote for a site for remote learning, it’d have to be at the expense of exposing the scholars to irrelevant projects. To some extent, it’s considered a social site even when it isn’t created for such purposes.
About the Author
Bertha Graham is a professional blogger with extensive knowledge in educational report analysis. She works at papersowl.com, where she helps with research and scripts of popular educational resource platforms. Bertha reviews YouTube educational channels, which certifies her report on the merit and demerit of YouTube valid for consumption.