Recommendations and experiences on online learning tools
"Every individual is different and talented, what you need are passion and curiosity".
---Neso Academy
Currently, Coursespaces and Connex are the most commonly used online learning tool for me. As LMSes, they can be modeled as:
Enrollment: Closed Amount: Blended Time: Asynchronous Platform: Provider-offered pathway: Centralized
As a computer science student, I need to use a variety of programming languages, such as Java, Python, C, C#, C++, SQL and more, and also theoretical knowledges. As my working memory is limited, it is hard for me to master all of them. Sometimes, I would get stuck in some syntax errors, forget the use of some functions and even have no idea of how to start my work! Instead of seating in front of my laptop, trying to find the solution by myself and waste the whole afternoon, I find that some videos in YouTube will help me a lot most of the times.
YouTube, as one of the largest video websites in the world, has hundreds of thousands of videos and a large number of users and video authors which make YouTube a perfect platform for Online Learning. There are more and more users searching educational videos in YouTube, and more and more authors making videos to share with or teach others the knowledge they mastered. If we model YouTube as an informal educational platform, it will be:
Enrollment: Open Amount: Online Timing: Asynchronous Platform: DIY Pathway: Centralized
There are two different channel I studied with. The first one is Brackeys. This channel provides top-quality game development tutorials on everything from Unity and programming to game design. The tutor upload videos every Sunday. The videos cover most of the topics about game development. The tutor make every video with a attractive title, colorful cover so that users will be easily appealed to click on it. In each video, it provides a brief introduction on the topic and set up a task for the learners to do. After that, the tutor will show the solution of the task step by step and explain the details of each step while showing them. These videos have efficient structures and detailed explanations. What’s more, the tutors always teach in a humorous way with interesting graphics, to enable learners to study in a relaxed environment. From those videos, I learned how to develop simple games on Unity(a popular game developing application). When I started doing my own project, I still usually checked the videos about the specific problems I met in work. By the way, the videos are all free to watch on YouTube, but you can also donate the tutor if you want to.
Figure1: Brackeys, Game Dev Tutorials
And the other one of the channels is Neso Academy. This channel provides help mainly on subjects, such as engineering, mathematics and Computer Science. Most of their topics are about the theoretical knowledges rather than practical skills(compare to the Brackeys). In these videos, they provide a bunch of text contents and rarely graphics, Since the main part of the videos is to explain some incomprehensible theories. Instead of some regular explanation of the theories, the tutors also provide examples to help us to consolidate what we have just learned. It is a good channel to learn with, but because of the type of topics, the videos are also not that attractive, some of them even makes learners have no motivations to watch. And Neso is also a free channel and they are on a mission to provide free education.
Figure2: Neso Academy
Comparing these two channels, I find that even they have similar structure of the tutorial videos, since the differences in the way they teach, the beautification of the interface and the ratio of image to text, the experiences of learning is way different.
In fact, YouTube has more educational channels like those ones I talked above. If you need any help on your study of you want to learn anything online, try to search in YouTube!
Links to the channels:
- Brackeys, Game Dev Tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/user/Brackeys
- Neso Academy: https://www.youtube.com/user/nesoacademy/featured