It depends on the subject. I need to read -preferably examples- to learn/evaluate a programming language, and, obvoisly, you'll look for videos in order to learn/evaluate a GUI.
Reading, unless it's something really suited to video. Programming is not, as far as I'm concerned: I can't scan things quickly, I can't grep, it's harder to skip around, and I can't cut and paste. I hate videos for anything having to do with programming.
I've just finished my first online course, in Python. I'm not new to programming but was completely new to Python.
I find the spoken word helps me with engagement, so listening to someone talk through something helped me to maintain focus.
In this case the Coursera course website allowed me to do listen to the whole lecture course at 1.5x speed - as part of the screen shows the work area with the code/slides at all times it was also easy to skip on once I'd grasped the point being made or when all I was doing was scanning over a new syntax and I felt I didn't need to listen (at higher speeds the software didn't make the audio clear enough). Similarly I could easily scan the video if I wanted to review something. The lectures followed a book, but I never used the book - in part because it was online rather than a proper book and bizarrely I don't really like reading long texts on a screen.
Before this I've only ever done formalised education using books. Though I've learnt to throw pots (on a pottery wheel) largely from watching YouTube videos.
My intent here is not to disagree but to add some complexion.
Definitely reading. Videos take too long to extract information from. This is especially true if it is a topic I'm somewhat familiar with. I can just skim while reading until I hit something I'm unfamiliar with or if I find I'm confused later I can just go back and reread. This is much more difficult to do with a video.
Every so often I'll encounter a video that is delivering content at the exact level that I need. But most of the times I'm skipping through it to get past the intro. I worry that im skipping something important, though.
It would be interesting to see some sort of summary (text?) that would help a viewer determine what subjects are being covered in different portions of the video without having to watch the whole thing. Or perhaps even markers that indicate shifts in topic, etc.
Yes. Random access and indexing are two areas where books kill videos.
Also, a fast reader can absorb information at a considerably higher rate than what you get from normal speech.
There have been experiments that indicate that it's possible to understand speech at significantly higher than normal rates (i.e., you can speed up the video and still get just about the same information from it). The "chipmunk" effect is a little distracting, but you get used to it.
I prefer to learn from short, focused articles, tutorials, book chapters or answers.
Nonetheless, I've learned a lot of interesting concepts from video lectures like "Software as a Service" by Armando Fox and David Patterson, and "Functional Programming Principles in Scala" by Martin Odersky. But when I need to apply those concepts I will look for written matterial, like "Engineering Software as a Service: An Agile Approach Using Cloud Computing" by Fox and Patterson (covering the subject matter of their video lectures), or "The Neophyte's Guide to Scala" by Daniel Westheide, explaining particular topics about how to write idiomatic code in Scala.
Books. Definitely. And printed books at that. You can't scan a video quickly for relevant content (I don't mean digitally scan, I mean look at quickly), and it's easier to flick through a book than an e-book/pdf.
Definitely reading. For programming stuff, you can't skip around videos, you can't copy/paste and you have to watch the author tabbing between windows, typing commands and waiting for things to happen (like compilation).
Reading. But videos are occasionally useful if there is something tricky with the user interface. I think I needed a video to help me link objects in Xcode the first time I used it.
Videos are good for stuff that involves hand manipulation (tying knots or dragging stuff around in a GUI). Text is good for stuff that involves mental manipulation.
Reading - especially reading concise articles on a focused problem domain, and on the other hand, reading actual code. I think over the years I've gotten a sense for recognizing good, readable code.
Reading. Much easier to adjust pace to match my understanding, and referring back to the material is far saner. Inevitably any time I learn from a video, I find myself scrolling the slider back and forth hunting for the key piece of info I want to rewatch.
Most of the time reading for the reasons others have stated(scannable, copy examples, etc). That said, there are times where I read something a number of times and the concept still doesn't click. In those instances a short video of just that specific concept is great. Short, hyper-specific screencasts are useful where exhaustive videos are not as much (to me).
I really hate it when I am searching for some quick info and I am forced to endure a 20 minute video out of which only 20 seconds were what I was looking for. At least with a written article you can skip through to the part you need.
depends. i mostly learn by doing. like cars/physical things, i get some tools out, and go to work. might take a while, but i always get there and usually learn a lot in the process.
same with computer stuff, although then there's a lot of looking at examples as well
Videos have several advantages for some kinds of tasks. Also less spam (eHow etc). For example, to learn how to shuffle a deck of cards, I would go directly to Youtube. Or how to clean a car. Or how to do a margarita. I would watch several videos about the subject and see what each guy does differently. Stuff that post on eHow would miss.
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[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 163 ms ] threadI find the spoken word helps me with engagement, so listening to someone talk through something helped me to maintain focus.
In this case the Coursera course website allowed me to do listen to the whole lecture course at 1.5x speed - as part of the screen shows the work area with the code/slides at all times it was also easy to skip on once I'd grasped the point being made or when all I was doing was scanning over a new syntax and I felt I didn't need to listen (at higher speeds the software didn't make the audio clear enough). Similarly I could easily scan the video if I wanted to review something. The lectures followed a book, but I never used the book - in part because it was online rather than a proper book and bizarrely I don't really like reading long texts on a screen.
Before this I've only ever done formalised education using books. Though I've learnt to throw pots (on a pottery wheel) largely from watching YouTube videos.
My intent here is not to disagree but to add some complexion.
Something like that I could see making sense. Still pictures might not give you as good an idea of what's going on as continuous video.
It would be interesting to see some sort of summary (text?) that would help a viewer determine what subjects are being covered in different portions of the video without having to watch the whole thing. Or perhaps even markers that indicate shifts in topic, etc.
Also, a fast reader can absorb information at a considerably higher rate than what you get from normal speech.
There have been experiments that indicate that it's possible to understand speech at significantly higher than normal rates (i.e., you can speed up the video and still get just about the same information from it). The "chipmunk" effect is a little distracting, but you get used to it.
Nonetheless, I've learned a lot of interesting concepts from video lectures like "Software as a Service" by Armando Fox and David Patterson, and "Functional Programming Principles in Scala" by Martin Odersky. But when I need to apply those concepts I will look for written matterial, like "Engineering Software as a Service: An Agile Approach Using Cloud Computing" by Fox and Patterson (covering the subject matter of their video lectures), or "The Neophyte's Guide to Scala" by Daniel Westheide, explaining particular topics about how to write idiomatic code in Scala.
same with computer stuff, although then there's a lot of looking at examples as well
example: http://railscasts.com/episodes/222-rack-in-rails-3
^ that's the kind of thing I'd whip out the plastic for any day of the week :)
This guy is showing how to write a game from scratch, by recording his screen and face for 2 hours per day. https://www.youtube.com/user/handmadeheroarchive
It would be very hard to to learn that amount of tricks and details from a text.