As more and more of our society is transplanted online, the efficacy of this move and resulting consequences need to be examined. Online education, specifically, has received a massive boon in recent years due to the constantly increasing amount of textbooks, literature, online courses, educational blogs, podcasts, and educational videos. At least 5.5 million students were estimated to have taken at least one online course in the fall of 2012. (IHE) A homeschooler could theoretically progress from kindergarten through college without ever leaving their house, with much of their learning coming from instructional videos from third party sources and their professors. Two large third-party sources of such videos are companies such PBS posting videos on the ever-prolific Youtube and a non-profit educational organization called Khan Academy.
While both organizations use online videos as their medium, they are fairly different. PBS publishes about 1 video every other week under an account called Braincraft. Braincraft focuses the topic of their videos to, well, the brain. They cover a wide range of topics, ranging from the Psychology Behind Accents to Telepathy. They use illustrations, speakers/announcers, doodles, and colorful animations to convey their information. Khan Academy, on the other hand, is a bit more formal. It almost exclusively covers core school topics such as Organic Chemistry, Biology, and Physics. Its videos are generally just a black screen that the speaker draws on while discussing the topic. This is much more reminiscent of an actual lecture in class where the teacher writes on the blackboard while instructing. Both seem to target those under the age of 25: Braincraft through its chosen distributor (Youtube) and informal instruction techniques, and Khan Academy though their adherence to topics largely studied at the instructional level by youth and young adults.
The ability of online instruction to actually instruct is a hot topic in the education sector today. While there are many proponents for it, there are many people adamantly against online instruction–or recent forms of technology as a medium for any sort of meaningful public discourse in general. One such dissident is Neil Postman. Although it’s not specifically about online videos, Postman’s point is very relevant to this discussion. In his book “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” he argues that the medium of discourse itself shapes the content. He uses Indian smoke signals as an example, asserting that concepts such as calculus or philosophy don’t exist in the medium of smoke signaling because it’s not possible to convey the full meaning through it. He argues when the media uses commercials, attractive young speakers, and theme music through mediums such as television (or the internet), it is presenting all information as entertainment. This would explain why we have had less and less conventionally unattractive presidents in recent years, or the rise of the “news of the day”—a concept that didn’t exist before modern technology enabled it to, and essentially makes things that don’t affect you at all important by making irrelevance relevant. The mediums of television (or the internet) seem to definitely be shaping the content and quality of our public discourse.
In the context of this argument, I would argue that Khan Academy does a better job at being an efficient and quality educational source than organizations on Youtube such as Braincraft. By keeping the topics constrained to what most students encounter in school, Khan Academy doesn’t contribute to the phenomena of making irrelevance relevant—whereas the viability of telepathy may not be something all students need to study in school. In addition, Khan Academy limits the use of animations, cartoons, or really anything other than drawing onto the electronic version of a blackboard. This drastically lowers the “entertainment” factor of the videos and keeps them focused on being educational. Finally, Khan Academy generally doesn’t show the speakers on their videos, while Braincraft is narrated by a young, attractive woman who is frequently shown on the cover of the videos or during the video itself. This also lowers distractions in the videos and makes Khan Academy’s videos more effective at educationally conveying information.
While both organizations are non-profits, it would appear that it is much more important to PBS that they attain high numbers of page views on their videos. Khan Academy seems to be more focused on strictly being an educational source, as shown by its abstinence from making its videos conventionally entertaining. Thus, I would much prefer to use Khan Academy if I actually need to know something for school.
Relevant links:
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/06/03/us-releases-data-distance-education-enrollments
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt_t6FwNsqr3WWoL6dFqG9w
