This article risks being read as an "old man yells at cloud" post. But I am driven to write it to counter a lack of critical thinking about what YouTube means for education. Specifically, how that channel misleads learners and damages learning itself.
Before I itemise the problems with YouTube tutorials, I will provide some context.
The pedagogical context
I teach in a third-level environment, that is, I am a university lecturer. This gives me considerable responsibility for the learning of young people, a duty that I take seriously. University is not only a place where knowledge is imparted and critical thinking developed, it is where young people mature as adults, through social interactions and personal challenges. Awareness of this complex situation has shaped my teaching philosophy after years of reflexive practice.
That practice has included other quite different contexts. My first full-time teaching job was in the high-pressure world of corporate software training. That role took me to Toronto, New York, etc. to teach clients in condensed, mind-bendingly intense week-long courses. At one point I was the only person in the world qualified to teach an advanced database programming course. The money was decent but I burnt out, as expected. Living in hotels sucks.
But through my experience I learned that a good lecturer will present material visually, aurally, in text and diagrams, while providing hands-on activities in labs, all the while engaging learners as a community of interest.
I also spend a decent proportion of time writing here on my blog. Admittedly a blog can't do everything outlined above, but neither does it try to. I maintain this site to document my many interests. It's a "brain dump" so that I can free up more cortex for other things. Writing forces me to be structured and fill in the gaps in my knowledge.
Sometimes I've even made video tutorials for YouTube. Certainly I've watched a large number of tutorials myself, both for my own education and to understand how these are structured. This has led to some conclusions about the platform.
The problems with YouTube
I'm not trying to claim that you can't garner useful information or solve specific problems using YouTube. I know I have. My point is rather that YouTube inherently embeds structural problems that are antithetical to learning.
1. Videos overwhelmingly emphasise the presenter's ego. Often the entire video will consist of a talking head, as though facial features are the most important content to deliver. If that's all you have to show, consider being a model, but perhaps don't make a tutorial video.
2. Videos in the technical realm emphasise tools over technique. This bias is driven by a need to commodify. Often the maker of the tool might be a sponsor. But even if not, the underlying message is aspirational: Product X will save you from Problem Y. But very rarely are these problems and their potential solutions put into a meaningful context. Mostly because that takes a lot more work. The result is very much a promotional video that fails to supply context.
3. There's a lack of emphasis on workflow and organisational principles. I watch videos on photography, videography, post-production, audio synthesis and audio engineering, computer hardware, software coding, etc. What is important in all those fields is workflow management. Tools are secondary, but you wouldn't know that from YouTube. (This is the flipside of point 2.)
4. Misuse of the word "professional" to refer to gear. Again, driven by marketing. This is now so omnipresent that readers might find it hard to see that the problem. In short: a thing cannot be professional. A tool won't make you a pro. Being professional is a matter of ethics. It signifies that you are sworn to uphold certain principles and will deal with your clients and your public for their best interests, not your own. The denigration of this term by marketing is one of many sad impacts of rampant capitalism.
5. Lack of knowledge in the field presented as expert opinion. Every discipline takes thousands of hours to learn. But many videographers set off on YouTube while still young and relatively untutored. They might have discovered some amazing fact and think they are the first to do so. This lack of context leads to misleading claims.
6. Falsehoods are reinforced as YouTubers repeat, without analysis, the claims of others. The need to keep up with competitors trumps fact-checking. In many ways, the medium is like a giant rumour mill. The problem is that after hearing a statement ten times on YouTube, a learner will then assume it's true. You need a 32-bit recorder to get good sound. Narrow DOF makes your video more "cinematic". These are examples of such misinformation.
7. YouTubers lack awareness of their own situation as salespeople. One example is the disclaimer product reviewers repeat: "I received this product for free but no money changed hands, so I am unbiased." Such a statement indicates ignorance of unconscious bias and renders the speaker untrustworthy. (For this reason I have refused sponsorships when they've come knocking. Which, surprisingly, they have!)
A few root causes are evident: a cult of personality, the commodification of the platform, a focus on style over substance, a lack of barriers to entry. Because, yes, some barriers are good. That's why doctors and car mechanics are licensed. Nor would you ask someone on the street to pull a tooth. (Well, OK, maybe in India!)
Are these problems limited to YouTube, or are they also applicable to video instruction in general?
It's clear to me that the quest for likes and sponsorships warps what a learning environment should be: a communal place of mutual experience. There's nothing wrong with video instruction in and of itself, if such content is used within a larger context of multimodal teaching.
So, yes, the problem is YouTube. or, more precisely, the culture of commodification that YouTube has engendered.
Now, about that pesky cloud...
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