A big problem I’ve found with video lectures is the difficulty of looking things up afterwards. Text is much easier to refer back to, and it’s after-the-fact repetition that helps things stick with me (and, by my understanding, with most people). I do find a lot of video lectures much “clickier” than text, though. Explaining something five ways is stylistically and editorially frowned upon in text, but is much more common in lecture format, so it increases the odds of having the subject explained in a way that suits me.
(I also think the on-demand style of online video lectures makes it harder to remember them than if they were in a spaced, episodic format. By way of comparison, if I watch a box-set TV series in one marathon sitting, all the episodes will blur, and that will make it harder to remember exact sequences of events, or what occurred in proximity to what; if all the episodes are separated, they’ll feel more self-contained, and I’ll also have other surrounding events in my life to pin the memories on.)
My MOOC successes have been ones that introduced me to subjects for which I subsequently got hold of several books, or ones that supplemented parallel study in a similar area.
My MOOC successes have been ones that introduced me to subjects for which I subsequently got hold of several books, or ones that supplemented parallel study in a similar area.
Yep, this is what I end up doing. Works pretty well for me.
What do you class as “traditional methods”?
A big problem I’ve found with video lectures is the difficulty of looking things up afterwards. Text is much easier to refer back to, and it’s after-the-fact repetition that helps things stick with me (and, by my understanding, with most people). I do find a lot of video lectures much “clickier” than text, though. Explaining something five ways is stylistically and editorially frowned upon in text, but is much more common in lecture format, so it increases the odds of having the subject explained in a way that suits me.
(I also think the on-demand style of online video lectures makes it harder to remember them than if they were in a spaced, episodic format. By way of comparison, if I watch a box-set TV series in one marathon sitting, all the episodes will blur, and that will make it harder to remember exact sequences of events, or what occurred in proximity to what; if all the episodes are separated, they’ll feel more self-contained, and I’ll also have other surrounding events in my life to pin the memories on.)
My MOOC successes have been ones that introduced me to subjects for which I subsequently got hold of several books, or ones that supplemented parallel study in a similar area.
In the flesh teachers.
Yep, this is what I end up doing. Works pretty well for me.