What is the difference of being taught online by videos than reading a textbook and teaching yourself? — Zilian

Surely you can set some out?

What is the difference of being taught online by videos than reading a textbook and teaching yourself? And would one be better/more challenging than the other? — Zilian

That depends on how you learn best, and your attitude toward the information you receive.

Not everyone learns better the same way, and not everyone is challenged to think about the information they receive in the same way.

One person may find it difficult to retain information by reading it, for any number of reasons, but may find that a particular video enables them to absorb the same information more effectively.

Another person may find the video presenter, the language, editing or visual representation of the information distracts them from the information itself, is off-putting or otherwise counter-productive, but will read a certain book and relate to that format better.

Others may partially understand the book, but be unable to fully grasp the concept until it’s presented visually or in a slightly different way. A combination of the two formats might enable them to learn the material more comprehensively than one or other of the formats alone.

For both you're not really teaching yourself - you're comprehending information that is provided to you. The challenge of it only depends on the learning capacity of a person; some learn by picture and some by listening.

I don't see how this is hard.

Nice question.

Other than saying “it depends” I’d say that more technical demands (use of reasoning and math) a teacher is needed to help you through difficult problems you cannot solve, whereas in areas such ad history, parroting and repetition don’t really help you to explore different perspectives.

Some people are more suited to one than the other I expect? As for myself I’ve never been good with voices of authority so I always question teachers - which annoys them.

All learning requires the interest and commitment of the individual. If you can watch a video online for an hour it doesn’t mean you learn. If you write down what you’ve heard and then check again if you’re correct then you’re learning how to learn.

I’ve seen this with plenty of students regarding reading comprehension. Understanding the words is useless if you can’t reiterate them in your own language and expand from them to explore other options.

You can skip education and be a great philosopher, through observation and free help (wikipedia, google, books).

You, automatically, wouldn't know-how to communicate to academic standards (which are, in the modern era, low standards).

The minds given tool is sense, and with sense alone you can learn anything...