General > General Technical Chat
Youtube "how to" videos are mostly useless
Nominal Animal:
--- Quote from: CatalinaWOW on March 18, 2024, 11:34:57 pm ---After saying all of that, I really do learn a lot from the videos. Sometimes a better way to use my tools. Sometimes a tool I didn't know I needed. How to reach the damned connector for an automotive sensor that is buried between the firewall and the engine. And many similar things.
--- End quote ---
"Tips and tricks" type of videos, as well as tutorials on how to effectively and safely use a tool, are indeed useful. (Clickspring, Joe Pie, Blondihacks, Keith Appleton, et cetera.)
There are also quite a few two-minute or shorter videos on how to open various laptops and tablets without damaging anything, and those are excellent, better than a text-with-pictures. In fact, the ones I like don't even need any audio, as the visual steps suffice.
Dave's jellybean component videos (or rather, their audio!) are similarly useful. Something you might learn from a more experienced coworker or adviser at a sequence of coffee breaks or one-on-one brainstorming sessions. Very useful.
So yes, there definitely are things best described using a video/audio; no question about that.
As I understood the topic of this thread, and how I answered, was on the statistical side: the proliferation of using videos to present advice in cases where a video is a poor format for it.
The worst negative examples I can think of are math tutorials. Presenting the needed steps with short sentences explaining what is done at each step and why allows each learner to proceed at their own pace, and concentrate on the detail they have most trouble with.
When I was at the university, I often annoyed other students by asking the lecturer why a specific solution approach was chosen. Annoyingly often the answer was a variation of "because it works", which meant that the lecture itself was useless to people like myself who assume that the mathematical proof of the method stands, and are only interested in applying the method to solve "real-world" problems. For example, I still have not found any description for choosing a solution method for partial differential equations other than "try each until one works". I know such a method works, because ask any mathematician, and they'll show you the working method in real time; I just haven't found one who can explain what they based their choice on (except "I've seen this form before"). Even Arfken-Weber-Harris ("Mathematical Methods for Physicists") scatters the solution methods all over, as if they were completely different things –– and of course, to a mathematician the methods are different, with the only connection being that they can be applied to the same general type of problem.
The mathematicians I've complained about this just give me the side eye, O.o, o.O, ???
They don't seem to understand at all what I'm complaining about.
Similarly, like I mentioned in my earlier post, I do believe some people get all they want from videos. I do not, and I do not trust that all who get what they want from videos alone, actually get an understanding sufficient to apply in the real world successfully.
I do get more than a bit frustrated when those people assert that because they believe they themselves do get sufficient understanding from videos, everyone must also, and that anyone complaining otherwise is just stuck in the old times and complaining out of contrariness.
tggzzz:
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on March 19, 2024, 08:09:16 am ---"Tips and tricks" type of videos, as well as tutorials on how to effectively and safely use a tool, are indeed useful. (Clickspring, Joe Pie, Blondihacks, Keith Appleton, et cetera.)
There are also quite a few two-minute or shorter videos on how to open various laptops and tablets without damaging anything, and those are excellent, better than a text-with-pictures. In fact, the ones I like don't even need any audio, as the visual steps suffice.
...
So yes, there definitely are things best described using a video/audio; no question about that.
--- End quote ---
Agreed and agreed, because "short" and "moving" and "text superfluous".
--- Quote ---The worst negative examples I can think of are math tutorials. Presenting the needed steps with short sentences explaining what is done at each step and why allows each learner to proceed at their own pace, and concentrate on the detail they have most trouble with.
When I was at the university, I often annoyed other students by asking the lecturer why a specific solution approach was chosen. Annoyingly often the answer was a variation of "because it works", which meant that the lecture itself was useless to people like myself who assume that the mathematical proof of the method stands, and are only interested in applying the method to solve "real-world" problems. For example, I still have not found any description for choosing a solution method for partial differential equations other than "try each until one works". I know such a method works, because ask any mathematician, and they'll show you the working method in real time; I just haven't found one who can explain what they based their choice on (except "I've seen this form before"). Even Arfken-Weber-Harris ("Mathematical Methods for Physicists") scatters the solution methods all over, as if they were completely different things –– and of course, to a mathematician the methods are different, with the only connection being that they can be applied to the same general type of problem.
--- End quote ---
Agreed. But don't forget the large books in the library containing mathematical functions/operations. Using them is a case of visual scanning and pattern matching until something suitable is found. Mathematicians were (are?) addicted to them.
Also don't forget something as basic as integer division is a process of successive iteration. Subtract repeatedly until you've gone too far, and then reverse, and repeat with the remainder. That is very obvious when you see how mechanical calculators operate. You have to crank the lever several times in one direction until a bell rings, then reverse one crank, shift left and repeat.
PDEs and to a lesser extent integration is also similar trial and error.
--- Quote ---I do get more than a bit frustrated when those people assert that because they believe they themselves do get sufficient understanding from videos, everyone must also, and that anyone complaining otherwise is just stuck in the old times and complaining out of contrariness.
--- End quote ---
That is, IMNSHO, a classic indicator of Dunning-Kruger syndrome. While it may be sufficient for monkey-see-monkey-do tasks, it will be insufficient for many novel innovative tasks.
Nominal Animal:
--- Quote from: tggzzz on March 19, 2024, 09:30:03 am ---
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on March 19, 2024, 08:09:16 am ---I do get more than a bit frustrated when those people assert that because they believe they themselves do get sufficient understanding from videos, everyone must also, and that anyone complaining otherwise is just stuck in the old times and complaining out of contrariness.
--- End quote ---
That is, IMNSHO, a classic indicator of Dunning-Kruger syndrome. While it may be sufficient for monkey-see-monkey-do tasks, it will be insufficient for many novel innovative tasks.
--- End quote ---
To be clear, I was not actually referring to anyone participating in this thread, any past thread here, or any personal messages sent to me!
I was remembering the few cases where I was tutoring or trying to help a teen, and reached for a book or suggested a chapter in a book, and they responded with something along the lines of "can't you find a video for me instead?" followed by a frustrating discussion about what is understanding, what is knowledge and application of understanding, and what is copying and learning by rote.
I only realized just now that that part could be read as if I was railing against anyone asking if I knew a good video on some subject; that's not the case at all. For example, RoGeorge recently asked me for advice on a good Python GUI tutorial book/article/blog/video in the Programming / Python thread, but I couldn't give any because I haven't seen any. (I ended up posting an example instead.) There is absolutely nothing wrong in considering multiple different sources, and even falling back to Youtube when nothing better can be found!
When tutoring teens in math and physics, the hardest part is getting them over the "I don't know how to do this!" / "I can't do this!" mindset.
(There is no "can" or "cannot", there is only "try and see what happens". Force and Magic can smell my butt. Take it one step at a time, no matter how unsurmountable the problem might look now.)
I believe this mindset is related to the quick and easy answers that proliferate on the internet, with actual understanding requiring effort that is not normally rewarded or required, leading to the superficiality and short-term objectives; with videos preferred over written text simply because they require minimal (cognitive) effort to pass the minimum requirements.
The meme version of my complaint is "I don't wanna read that, it's too long. Can't you make it a TikTok video instead?"
coppice:
If the how to video is how to fix something, they are usually quite valuable. They may not give you a complete way to do a good fix, but boy can they save you time figuring out where all the obscure fixings are, without poking around on the real product so much you break something.
tggzzz:
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on March 19, 2024, 10:44:09 am ---To be clear, I was not actually referring to anyone participating in this thread, any past thread here, or any personal messages sent to me!
--- End quote ---
I, at least, never thought you were :)
--- Quote ---When tutoring teens in math and physics, the hardest part is getting them over the "I don't know how to do this!" / "I can't do this!" mindset.
--- End quote ---
Yes, in that and other areas :( By that age they have learned to deploy passive-aggressive strategic incompetence whenever they don't want to do something!
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