EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
General => General Technical Chat => Topic started by: goldcoin on December 26, 2018, 06:42:54 pm
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Can you learn nowadays electronics from watching Youtube videos or are old fashion books still the way to go ?
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Video is extremely slow to convey information, useless to look something up quickly and books usually have a better organisation. So yes, Youtube sucks for learning something.
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I think it depends on what they are trying to show. On video you can demonstrate things and show videos and pictures that help explain something. It's no replacement for books though, and more importantly, actually doing things yourself. I.e. video can be a nice complement.
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Video is extremely slow to convey information, useless to look something up quickly and books usually have a better organisation. So yes, Youtube sucks for learning something.
Agreed, since almost all video tutorials are static "talking heads" that are too quick and easy to make. Much better that the creator takes a little more time and puts their thoughts down in a format that is convenient for the audience.
However, there are some subjects where the material is inherently moving, and these can be better as a video.
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Video is for storing entertainment, books are for storing knowledge.
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I prefer books by and large, but video can also be quite helpful at times - those that are well done (off the top of my head, those typically made by Shahriar and W2AEW for instance) can be engaging and excellent at conveying information. Other presenters can be frustratingly draggy and repetitive. Find what you like and use it to learn - both mediums have their places.
-Pat
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convenient for the audience
I would appreciate the audiobooks on electronics.
If someone has something to explain in a natural language, it means that they have to understand it much deeper than just digging integrals.
The same applies to listeners.
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I can't imagine audio books being very useful, you really need drawings and graphics to illustrate concepts, at least I do. Videos have their place, but for the most part I find old fashioned books and e-books to be superior for this sort of thing.
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There are some great technical tutorials on YouTube.
These days, books, e-books and videos are useful.
I can't wait to see 3-D stereoscopic physics tutorials when someone eventually does that.
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Try:
Khan Academy, CalcWorkshop (fee), MathBFF, NancyPI, KimKatShow
At CalcWorkshop, the series on "Limits" is free and worth the time if you are thinking about taking up Calculus.
Books are useful as an archival method but some of the video tutorials work quite well. In some ways, it is like just buying a book intending to learn the material by yourself as opposed to taking a class with an instructor using the same book. The moderated choice will always produce better results.
Sometimes it isn't about the material itself, it's about "where will I ever use this?". A real world application of some of the material is often quite useful.
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The Chemistry Tutor is pretty exhaustive and has a lot of very useful information. I also like Jason's tutorials on electronics. I usually start on learning a subject by watching YouTube and jump to an electronics book for a different perspective on the subject. There seems to be no "best way" for me. But this is definitely not a trivial question that you ask.
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Videos are Ok to show you something and give you some idea about it.
To really learn, you need the thorough explanations of a book, lots of exercises and experimentation.
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Unfortunately, unless you already know the subject, it is difficult to separate the "wheat from the chaff".
A lot of stuff on YouTube is poorly done by people who themselves, have a poor understanding of the subject.
There are many really good ones, but not as many as the poor to appalling ones.
I have a philosophic objection to the desire among younger people to be shown animated simulations of everything.
It depresses the imagination.
A person who learnt from books can look at a static diagram & in their mind, see the dynamic situation it is describing.
Those who have been spoon fed lack this ability.
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Cant also forget the insane number of manufacturer application notes, Most of them are very well flushed out as they focus down on a single issue.
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I have a philosophic objection to the desire among younger people to be shown animated simulations of everything.
It depresses the imagination.
I learned more in an hour with an analog computer than I did in an entire semester of Differential Equations. Seeing Damped Harmonic Motion and messing with the coefficients while observing the output on a scope is, to me, a much easier way to learn about DEs. Sure, it's not an analytic solution with the cosine and decaying exponential terms all written out but it is a lot more intuitive.
I like animations, I like observation, I really don't like dry textbooks.
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I have a philosophic objection to the desire among younger people to be shown animated simulations of everything.
It depresses the imagination.
I learned more in an hour with an analog computer than I did in an entire semester of Differential Equations. Seeing Damped Harmonic Motion and messing with the coefficients while observing the output on a scope is, to me, a much easier way to learn about DEs. Sure, it's not an analytic solution with the cosine and decaying exponential terms all written out but it is a lot more intuitive.
I like animations, I like observation, I really don't like dry textbooks.
That's a good case where the two complement and reinforce each other. Doubly so if you are the one twiddling the controls, since that can help get a feeling (literally!) for parameter sensitivity.
If you didn't have the theory under your belt, the traces and twiddling would be little more than blind fumbling.
If you are only watching someone else do the twiddling, I think you would only gain as much insight as you could from a few well chosen static graphs. The "well chosen" bit is necessary, and is something that almost all youtoob vids (especially from amateurs) don't get right.
However, if you want excellent videos which do offer more than static text, have a look at these soldering tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL926EC0F1F93C1837 (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL926EC0F1F93C1837) They are old, but produced when the medium was expensive - so they concentrated on quickly demonstrating the necessary points.
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There is also the issue of learning styles. There are 7 of them and people tend to learn best from one of those styles. What works for me, touching (kinesthetic), doesn't necessarily work for others.
https://www.learning-styles-online.com/overview/ (https://www.learning-styles-online.com/overview/)
Maybe well done videos work for some but they won't work for others. Same with books - some get it by reading, others don't.
Repeated problem solving really is the way to check your understanding so don't skip the homework.
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Repeated problem solving really is the way to check your understanding so don't skip the homework.
Yes, whatever your learning style.
Alternatively, you only realise how little you understand when you try to explain/teach it to someone else.
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There is also the issue of learning styles. There are 7 of them and people tend to learn best from one of those styles. What works for me, touching (kinesthetic), doesn't necessarily work for others.
https://www.learning-styles-online.com/overview/ (https://www.learning-styles-online.com/overview/)
Maybe well done videos work for some but they won't work for others. Same with books - some get it by reading, others don't.
Repeated problem solving really is the way to check your understanding so don't skip the homework.
The area of education suffers from a lot of misconceptions and myths. "Learning styles" are one of those myths.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-problem-with-learning-styles/ (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-problem-with-learning-styles/)
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/mar/12/no-evidence-to-back-idea-of-learning-styles (https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/mar/12/no-evidence-to-back-idea-of-learning-styles)
If i don't like or don't know to hear, to draw or to read, that is a valid reason for me to hear more, to draw more, and to read more.
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If i don't like or don't know to hear, to draw or to read, that is a valid reason for me to hear more, to draw more, and to read more.
That's obviously correct but you'll be about the only person on the planet doing something they don't like in preference to something they do.
Yes, I can grind through the equations for biasing a Class A amplifier but until I see the circuit in operation on a scope, it is all just a numbers exercise. In fact, unless your math is perfect, how do you know you didn't slip a digit? An observation is proof, the rest is just a pencil exercise. I went to school when slide rules were 'modern'. We slipped digits all the time! The HP 35 wasn't invented until I was a senior and I couldn't afford one anyway.
So, you solve m*y''+d*y'+s*y = 0,y(0) = -1, m is mass, d is damping coefficient, s is spring constant, do you automatically know what the system looks like? I do now but I didn't when I had to grind through it with a pencil and paper. Actually, it is a pretty trivial example. Maybe the Lotka–Volterra equations (predator-prey) are a bit more of a stretch since they are two cross-coupled differential equations. Great fun with an analog computer (or MATLAB), a real PITA with a pencil and paper. Try discussing Maxwell's Equations without a sketch - or, better yet, an animation.
One thing I know with certainty, engineers 'talk' with a sketch. They can't even begin a conversation without paper and pencil. Words don't convey meaning anywhere near as well as a sketch. Visual outweighs auditory...
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In fact, unless your math is perfect, how do you know you didn't slip a digit?
If a slipped digit is a possibility, then you are doing arithmetic, not mathematics.
An observation is proof, the rest is just a pencil exercise.
An observation on its own is merely an anecote.
If an observation supports a mathematical theory, then it is experimental evidence.
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I'm pretty green with all this, just to briefly describe my own perspective.
What I can say is that I really like watching videos on electronics stuff sometimes, i.e. when they're reasonably well done. But for me this is only good for picking up concepts and following along. I do learn lots of stuff this way, but only up to a point.
For me to actually learn electronics stuff, I learn it best from a book, doing practice problems and working through the math with a few different examples is necessary. Otherwise anything I pick up is pretty shallow and easy to forget too.
Hands-on experimenting with breadboard and swapping out component values and maybe different circuits to accomplish similar function is most valuable.
If I work through problems doing the math, then mock up and experiment with the physical circuit, then I actually learn it. Otherwise anything I pick up may not be a waste, but it doesn't have much depth at all and is easy to forget.
Just a personal take on it.
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Both approaches have value. Books are great for learning the facts about a subject, but in the absence of someone to show you, videos are great in learning how to apply that knowledge.
The various types of soldering, for instance, be it iron, hot air, reflow oven, etc. You can read all about the eutectic melting point of solders and the use of flux, but until you've actually seen a particular process done with your own eyes, you really can't grasp all the practical details.
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Video is extremely slow to convey information, useless to look something up quickly and books usually have a better organisation. So yes, Youtube sucks for learning something.
Or Youtube could teach you in certain way that resonates with you were a book cannot.
It's wrong to say either one sucks.
Just like it's wrong to say that xxxxxx texbook is the best, and yyyyyyy textbook sucks, not everyone learns in the same way. The same exact thing said or presented in a different way can make all the difference.
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I struggled in regular math classes, all that dry theoretical stuff mostly went in one ear and out the other. On the other hand I did very well in physics classes where math was involved. When I could see it doing something and relate to it, the math just made sense. I didn't even have to study, I just got it right away.
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I have a philosophic objection to the desire among younger people to be shown animated simulations of everything.
It depresses the imagination.
I learned more in an hour with an analog computer than I did in an entire semester of Differential Equations. Seeing Damped Harmonic Motion and messing with the coefficients while observing the output on a scope is, to me, a much easier way to learn about DEs. Sure, it's not an analytic solution with the cosine and decaying exponential terms all written out but it is a lot more intuitive.
I like animations, I like observation, I really don't like dry textbooks.
That's a good case where the two complement and reinforce each other. Doubly so if you are the one twiddling the controls, since that can help get a feeling (literally!) for parameter sensitivity.
If you didn't have the theory under your belt, the traces and twiddling would be little more than blind fumbling.
However, if you want excellent videos which do offer more than static text, have a look at these soldering tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL926EC0F1F93C1837 (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL926EC0F1F93C1837) They are old, but produced when the medium was expensive - so they concentrated on quickly demonstrating the necessary points.
I agree where books and YT can complement each other. In my case, I have some key books, AofE, Mimms notebooks (what I first bought), I tend towards textbooks despite being self-taught. I really like Malvino's text books. an older edition you can get for cheap on Amazon or eBay.
Books are more like a class, building upon each new concept learned..However, I really like YT, both for the entertainment and for insight, examples of how to do something, and specific issues, skills or projects.
Actually AofE overwhelms me, but it seems to be a required ritual to buy the 3rd edition..If am allowed to be considered and electronics enthusiast. :-/O
- my greatest difficulty, is I am very nonlinear. and electronics is very linear.
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Video is extremely slow to convey information, useless to look something up quickly and books usually have a better organisation. So yes, Youtube sucks for learning something.
Or Youtube could teach you in certain way that resonates with you were a book cannot.
It's wrong to say either one sucks.
Just like it's wrong to say that xxxxxx texbook is the best, and yyyyyyy textbook sucks, not everyone learns in the same way. The same exact thing said or presented in a different way can make all the difference.
I agree with Dave here. We have been trained to be so binary in our opinions. My friend's wife loves cooking, especially French cooking. She was so delighted when a five star chef invited over by a friend, complimented her that her cooking is at least as good as I four star restaurant.!!
Her great secret is, if she can find just one really good recipe in a book, then paying for the book is worth it. I agree.
Now YT..
I have to admit something here, and I know Dave you may not like this..on the bright side, Google now gives credit as an additional view count. I download batches of YT's into a folder I create for a specific topic. This way I can do a search, go to each video, download right away, go back to the search and find the next video that looks like a possibility. I tend to use the "over 20 minutes" filter.
Once downloaded, I can open the folder in VLC (VideoLan) and play then all at once. since it is now on my HDD, and by using VLC, I can drag instantly to skip or review. If I am looking for just a few points I think is in the particular video, I can speed up the video in 10% increments to double speed, then pause at one spot.
I have said this before. I love Martin's one hour plus YTs. I really miss him. I would take his videos and speed them up to where he was kind of dancing as he spoke..Dave, I do the same with you sometimes...try the video on the copier teardown, and the recent one on your moving clips video. I was rolling over laughing. :-DD.I really love you guys. :-+
A photo friend learned CS to design his custom web page. Another photo friend who gets into old classic processes, used YT to process cyanotypes. Many friends have learned to repair their laptops and computers. and a recording engineer told a singer to use YT on how to set up her own mini recording studio.
Regarding electronics. if it has nothing to offer. I speed through it, then delete it. If it has something, I save it into a folder with a specific title. if there is only one spot. I bookmark it.( writing the time stamp, and why into s word document.
This really works for me. final note: videos are visual, and so are books. if you are a very visual person, odds are you can remember about what page, or section, and where on that page the key piece of info. is :-+
with YT on the drive. I can book mark
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One final note. If you do choose to download those videos, make sure you give them a LIKE ! it matters
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Actually AofE overwhelms me, but it seems to be a required ritual to buy the 3rd edition..If am allowed to be considered and electronics enthusiast. :-/O
- my greatest difficulty, is I am very nonlinear. and electronics is very linear.
IMNSHO, TAoE is not suitable for a beginner to learn the basics, but it is ideal for someone with the basics under their belt who wants to have a good stab at creating something non-trivial that works.
Hell's teeth, as a professional electronic engineer starting in the 70s, I find it a tiny bit overwhelming - and wonderful. I have the first edition, skipped the second ecition because it was too like the first, and bought the third before publication date.
Regarding electronics. if [a video] has nothing to offer. I speed through it, then delete it
That still takes me far more time than speed-reading an article, and fails where the picture is largely static with accompanying speech explanations.
This really works for me. final note: videos are visual, and so are books. if you are a very visual person, odds are you can remember about what page, or section, and where on that page the key piece of info.
That's the technique I found for revising my handwritten coursework in preparation for exams. It presumes that the information previously passed through my mind on the way to the paper, is dense and there aren't too many pages, all of which might be a problem for modern course handouts.
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I struggled in regular math classes, all that dry theoretical stuff mostly went in one ear and out the other. On the other hand I did very well in physics classes where math was involved. When I could see it doing something and relate to it, the math just made sense. I didn't even have to study, I just got it right away.
That is exactly my experience! I love Physics, Math not so much.
I can use various search methods with a printed book and it is possible a topic is covered in several locations. This is not so easy with eBooks so I don't buy any textbooks in eBook format. Searching is essentially impossible with videos. These tend to be long, linear and boring. There's nothing like a 1 hour Calculus video to put me to sleep. Khan Academy videos tend to be shorter and there is inline testing to make sure you really got it. I'm a huge fan of KA.
I'm also a huge fan of Fundamentals Fridays and the Op Amp video is one of my favorites. There is no walking away from this video without a good understanding about op amps and how to analyze their operation. W2AEW has similar videos. His video on transistor amplifiers is excellent. Not just for the paper presentation but for the part where he demonstrates the results on a breadboard. His discussion of emitter degeneration is outstanding.
I'm beginning to think highly of the Digilent Real Analog series. The lab videos can be quite educational.
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That is exactly my experience! I love Physics, Math not so much.
I can use various search methods with a printed book and it is possible a topic is covered in several locations. This is not so easy with eBooks so I don't buy any textbooks in eBook format. Searching is essentially impossible with videos. These tend to be long, linear and boring. There's nothing like a 1 hour Calculus video to put me to sleep. Khan Academy videos tend to be shorter and there is inline testing to make sure you really got it. I'm a huge fan of KA.
I love the *idea* of math, but in practice a lot of symbols and equations might as well be some alien language, I just have a very difficult time visualizing it. Tie it into some real application where I can see it do something and suddenly it's crystal clear. It then has a purpose, something tangible, it's like that saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. Mathematical equations are words, a real life application is like a picture. Acceleration, mass, vectors, it's all very intuitive when I can see or touch it in front of me or relate it directly to some physical concept I'm already familiar with.
KA is quite good, I discovered it after realizing that I had forgotten how to do some rather basic math simply because I'd been relying on calculators so long that I hadn't done it on paper in years and years. I had to set it aside a few months ago when I started a new job but now that I'm reasonably up to speed with that I can afford to direct some focus on learning things that don't necessarily apply directly to my day job.
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Khan Academy videos tend to be shorter and there is inline testing to make sure you really got it. I'm a huge fan of KA.
Yes ! Love Kahn Acedemy too ! And similar channels which there are many now.
That's one BIG advantage of YouTube. I like going to real school classes too, but these videos are possibly just as good or better since you can rewind if needed.
Math is great as long as all of the variables are defined and I don't have to guess. Sometimes with a book I have go go digging for those definitions.
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Videos are nice if you know basics and foundations of electronics, but you wanna know how to build a certain project or want a general description of something. However, if you don't know the basics, then textbooks are the way to go with supplementation with some videos.
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I think videos are an interesting way to complement books and more formal learning, but should probably not be your sole source of learning. The big plus is that a lot of those videos (but not all, so you have to use some critical thinking) are made by people who have practical/professional experience, which is not always the case with conventional teaching. I think the closest to Youtube videos we had back when Internet was not what it is now (or even existed depending on how old you are) were all those electronics magazines. A lot of us have learned a lot from them, especially when we were younger and not yet studying electronics at school/uni.
It also depends on what your learning goal is. You may want to ponder whether you want to become a tinkerer or a professional.
Also, there actually are academic teaching videos, which are basically the same courses you'd get at university.
But again, I think books should not be overlooked. They usually give you more information in a more "compact" form, with more theoretical content. Videos have to have some entertaining traits to them to keep the viewers interested - that can make you waste a significant amount of time overall as a viewer. Especially when you're "binge watching", which is something rather common when we start watching videos.
Regarding the entertainment value of videos, just consider comparing EEVBlog and ElectroBoom videos for instance. Both channels are great, but there is a reason why ElectroBoom's channel gets many more subscribers and views, and not necessarily due to the content's quality (as subjective as it may be). Don't get me wrong, I like it, but it obviously tilts a lot more towards entertainment.
Relying on videos only may also give you the feeling that you know a lot whereas your accumulated knowledge is actually debatable and diffuse. Yet another point to consider is that watching videos (/movies) is known to be much more "passive" than reading, which tends to make you focus less and remind less. This is why taking notes while listening to spoken courses really helps. It gets you involved instead of staying passive. Of course nothing prevents you from taking notes while watching videos, which I think would also help.
As with many topics, the best approach is probably a mix of books, magazines and videos. Also don't overlook reading electronics magazines, especially the older ones. They will teach you more than you may think.
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I don’t think there’s one right answer. Both text and video exist in good and bad quality. Some people do better with text, others with video. And I think most people fall somewhere in between, appreciating text and video as having different strengths that complement each other.
If I have a lot of information to assimilate, I generally prefer reading, because I can read far faster than most videos (or lectures) go. But some things are just better visualized. (A perfect example of this is in this famous video on digital sampling: https://xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml . The part where he demonstrates phase shift, or rather that samples do not need to neatly align to waveforms, using the animated lollipop graph, visualizes that better than any text and static images could. The video page there has a link to the text version in their wiki, but the wiki seems to be malfunctioning today.)
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Youtube or books, not a choice both are part of the necessary materials used in learning.
I find that Books, Application notes, schematics, EEVblog, Youtube and hands on solving of real problems with working and broken equipment is the best for me...
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Or Youtube could teach you in certain way that resonates with you were a book cannot.
It's wrong to say either one sucks.
Just like it's wrong to say that xxxxxx texbook is the best, and yyyyyyy textbook sucks, not everyone learns in the same way. The same exact thing said or presented in a different way can make all the difference.
I think the opinion that video is slow or just for entertainment betrays the age of the average forum goer here. I've learnt as much if not more from video than from books. Both complement each other nicely and a well made video can definitely beat the pants off a chapter in a book. It all depends on how things are presented and your personal preferences and qualities.
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I think the opinion that video is slow or just for entertainment betrays the age of the average forum goer here.
... or maybe that forum users can speedread articles to find the useful bits much faster than people can speak.
A key technique nowadays is to quickly determine what to skip/ignore. Can't do that with video, especially youtube video.
I've learnt as much if not more from video than from books. Both complement each other nicely and a well made video can definitely beat the pants off a chapter in a book. It all depends on how things are presented and your personal preferences and qualities.
There are some things where the dynamics are important, e.g. seeing how solder should and shouldn't flow. Video wins there.
There are far too many videos of talking heads and static pictures: text+pictures wins there.
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... or maybe that forum users can speedread articles to find the useful bits much faster than people can speak.
A key technique nowadays is to quickly determine what to skip/ignore. Can't do that with video, especially youtube video.
There are some things where the dynamics are important, e.g. seeing how solder should and shouldn't flow. Video wins there.
There are far too many videos of talking heads and static pictures: text+pictures wins there.
You obviously need videos which take advantage of the medium. Video has an educational edge, as it can immediately experimentally show the theory that was just explained. Something like a drop-out voltage can be very concisely and effectively shown in just a handful of seconds of video. It's like a classroom where you get an explanation followed by a demonstration, minus the opportunity to ask direct questions. There's a reason classes don't just depend on written text. Skipping through videos is very possible. There are videos which pique my interest but are way too long to watch in full.
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If you have to ask a dumb question like that then I don't think engineering is your forte.
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a)
text communicates in one dimension and the reader must decode in to two or more dimensions (4th time)
a picture communicates in two dimensions and the reader must decode in to three or more dimensions
a video communicates in 3 dimensions and the read must decode in to four or more dimensions (time is the 3rd dimension)
b)
A picture tells a 1000 words but a video tells a million.
Just saying..
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That's a very simplistic way of looking at it though. In some cases a video can efficiently communicate a large amount of information. In other situations it is terribly inefficient. For example instructions for installing a bit of software or setting something up, I hate it when I go looking for something like that and all I can find are videos. I don't want a 30 minute video, I just want a list of instructions I can follow, it's much faster.
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That's a very simplistic way of looking at it though. In some cases a video can efficiently communicate a large amount of information. In other situations it is terribly inefficient. For example instructions for installing a bit of software or setting something up, I hate it when I go looking for something like that and all I can find are videos. I don't want a 30 minute video, I just want a list of instructions I can follow, it's much faster.
At the same time it can be terribly inefficient to describe where to find certain settings. Just showing it can be more effective.
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I still don't like videos like that, unless maybe it was something complex navigating a GUI, but if it's a GUI where I can't figure out where to go from a list of instructions then it's a worthless GUI. So many times I've come across a 40 minute video where a few paragraphs could have told me the same thing and required far less time and attention. I have difficulty focusing on more than one thing at a time so if I'm trying to do something while following a video I'm constantly having to pause the video or backtrack to see the part I just missed.