YouTube Would Like To Help You Get Smarter This Summer

Educational videos are on the rise on YouTube, both in number of uploads and number of views.  YouTube says that since October 2009 there's been a jump of 77% in educational channels and a jump of 89% in total videos on the educational platform.  That's pretty impressive, actually.

So they're taking some time to create educational playlists of some of the best videos out there.  The playlists will be released weekly and posted to the YouTube blog as well as the official YouTube channel.

The first video of the series contains lessons on "the study of matter and its motion through space and time.”  You know… Einstein and stuff.  It's actually fantastic material:

This is good stuff here. These are lectures from professors employed by the likes of MIT, University of California Berkley, Stanford, and Northwestern.  It's a total of several hours of footage of physics lessons from some of the brightest educators in the country… all collected together and helpfully captioned.  All you have to do is sit back and learn.

It's kind of exciting to see the educational genre taking off so well on YouTube.  And while YouTube has pitched this blog post announcement at students—suggesting they might want to bone up to get ahead of the curve before fall classes start—I think adults are the ones driving the rise in educational videos.  They're at least helping.

And I can't talk about this without bringing up another topic we've been debating around here lately:  live streaming.  If YouTube gets into live streaming video, the growth of the educational genre will be exponential.  Imagine this kind of learning and knowledge from these kinds of genius minds… in a live setting… where you can ask questions and get direct answers… where you can collaborate and discuss with other students around the world.  And yes… this kind of thing already exists, technology-wise.  But not on YouTube.  Not on the largest video site in the world.

It just so happens that I loved physics in school, so this first playlist was right up my alley.  If you're of an educational mind and like learning new things, keep an eye on the YouTube blog for future compilations.  If you're a business or individual who is trying to decide on the right style of online video for you--and you have some measure of expertise and knowledge--I would strongly consider creating educational videos (lectures, lessons, etc.); the strong growth of that genre is something to take notice of and possibly take advantage of as well.