Although grammarian Lucy Earl, from ‘English with Lucy,’ comedian Humza Arshad, and SORTEDfood chef Ben Ebbrell work in radically different fields, these three YouTubers have one unifying goal: to educate their viewers.
Earl’s channel is a series of tutorials on common grammar mistakes and handy tips to help you master intimidating English pronouns and adverbials. Humza Arshad, on the other hand, started off in 2010 with his homemade series 'Diary of a Bad Man'.
As he gained popularity, he became increasingly committed to spreading learnings through his videos. “I want to use my influence to educate,” he says. “As a Muslim Pakistani living in London, I try to spread a positive message, to prevent young people from being radicalised, for example.” And with ‘SORTEDfood,’ Ben Ebbrell and his team attack the hot topic of food and nutrition, with the goal of teaching people to cook properly for themselves.
All three, who spoke at WIRED's Next Generation conference for teenagers, fall in line with YouTube’s recent efforts to promote educational content. Last month, the company announced plans to spend $20 million (£15.4 million) on what it identifies as “high quality learning content.” In the light of Ofcom’s latest report on media use by children, this should come as good news: among 12 to 15-year-olds, the survey found that YouTube was the most popular content provider among the 14 others choices, which included ITV, Netflix and the BBC. What’s more – young people also said YouTube was the content brand they would go to first for all types of content they identified as important.
Something that some YouTubers are well aware of. For Ebbrell, whose cooking channel has over two million subscribers, influence comes with the responsibility to educate. “In the world of food particularly, there are a number of topics that need addressing,” he says. “The WHO can release a 200-page report on the future of food, but most people won’t read it. We can bridge that disconnect by making it entertaining and inspiring.”
What Ebbrell is referring to is a form of learning that has been extensively studied and identified by the National Science Foundation as “informal learning” – that is, learning and engagement that happens outside of schools and formal academic settings. Informal learning, according to a research paper published in CITE Journal, differs from formal education in that it is based on the learner’s personal interests and is prompted by their own willingness to learn. It happens in an “after-school” space, where the relationship to knowledge completely changes.
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Carey Jewitt, from the Institute of Education at UCL, explains that digital technologies are particularly adapted to informal learning. “In the informal space, the learner has the freedom to explore, and technology offers crucial tools to do so,” she says. “Social media, for instance, is designed so that users come to it with their own set of interest. It creates another gate to learning, and one that is more free.”
The space of school, she continues, is associated with constrained learning, whereas informal spaces frame learning in a more attractive way. And that is why attractiveness, of all things, is the Holy Grail of YouTubers wishing to appeal to knowledge-thirsty viewers. Andrew Burn, professor of media education at UCL, agrees that YouTube’s aura as a provider of playful popular culture is key in motivating users to acquire knowledge through its content. “YouTube has a culture of pleasurable content,” he says. “It is an easy and engaging way to learn.”
Another major perk of using digital tools such as YouTube for learning is accessibility: with over one billion users, which accounts for a third of the Internet, a YouTube video has the potential to reach people in the way that traditional teaching can’t. Earl, for instance, says that on average each of her grammar videos is translated into 18 different languages. “And it is free to access,” she says. “People don’t have to pay us any money to educate themselves.”
For all its benefits, however, can informal learning through digital platforms like YouTube ever come to be valued equally to the academic experience? Burn addresses this issue as the potential “hijacking” of education, and one which we should be careful with. He is not the only one to show concern: Cate Burlington’s study on informal learning through YouTube for the University of Newfoundland reaches similar conclusions. She argues that, unlike material found in textbooks or explained by a teacher, YouTube videos don’t go through an editorial process – so it is left to the viewer to evaluate the accuracy of information found online.
YouTube is trying to tackle this issue: in the raft of educative measures it announced last month, one included setting up a fund for creators making educational videos. To apply for the fund, creators will have to prove their expertise in a particular subject but aren't necessarily required to show academic or teaching credentials.
And the educational potential of YouTube is far from being dismissed by teachers. Burn does recommend caution, but he is also intrigued by the ways that new and traditional platforms can work together: “It will be interesting to look at ways to create traffic between the formal curriculum and the ‘outside of school’ curriculum,” he says. The digital revolution has not yet made university irrelevant, or so it seems.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
