Weekly Topic How do you Prefer to Learn?

I'm finding it very interesting how many people vote for reading, but yet the largest body of tutorials are overwhelmingly videos.

 

It's a whole lot easier to make a video where someone just does something than it is to write a concise yet descriptive document which can be easily understood.

 

From offline documents.

 

Well, it's a lot easier to make videos when you make zero effort to script or edit the video.

I would most likely enjoy videos way more if they 1) showed the what the end result will be first and 2) edit out all the nonsense.

Seriously, how hard is it to cut out the part where you're fumbling with the video editor, saying "uh/um" ten times in a row, or when you're interrupted?

Apparently damn near impossible based on 99% of video tutorials out there.

EDIT: OH! And increase your damn font size!!! Wow, we're all VERY impressed that you have a 4k monitor and have the resolution cranked to 11. Too bad that means that the text is only visible now on ultra settings on youtube and set to full screen on a 4k monitor. Heaven forbid you use a laptop or tablet to view the video...

 

Someone demonstrating in an image is a sufficient tool for me to learn something.

 

This got me thinking. Previously I compared video tutorials to lectures at college. A lot of the video tutorials online really do suffer from having bad lecturers. A good lecturer is organized and focused, as well as being a solid public speaker. They need to be able to get the information across clearly. I am not saying they never misspeak or use an "umm" as they go, but the student doesn't feel like they're wasting time and the student is also not ripped out of the flow of learning by disruptions in the lecture.

Better editing would certainly help. More practice delivering the materials would certainly help. Having an organized plan instead of just "winging it" is certainly a must.

Too many of the videos I've seen online, both from amatures and semi-professionals, really suffer too much from the "bad lecturer" issue.

 

I like text/image tutorials much easier to go around in them, but if you do continue to make video tutorials please make them in the format of Space Shooter/Survival Shooter tutorials, break them down into chapters and small 5-15min videos tops, it is extremely hard and frustrating to watch 1-2-3 hours tutorials cant even finish them in one day properly and then when i have to scrub back through youtube videos it is very hard to find the exact topic/minute that i need.

Also please make tutorials where you explain what and why you do what you do, not just read from a script do this do that, put this here and we have a game, i really enjoyed Space/Survival shooter i learned a lot having all the explanation.
Always try to make it a simple explanation even if topic is/seems complex, it helps a lot thanks.

 

I've actually recently been watching Game Grind's tutorials (watched the 6 or 7 videos from about a year ago on making an inventory system in Unity 5) and they're pretty good. He does a good job of explaining why he does everything he does.

It probably helps that it's all relatively basic stuff as far as understanding how it works, but I think they're working rather well.

 

I am a kinesthetic learner and by far the most engaging way for me to learn a subject is by doing it. Thus, interactive tutorials are the most effective for me. The problem for me with video is that it is too passive. Additionally, documentation while incredibly useful can be quite daunting and overwhelming for a beginner such as myself. Most video tutorials that I have seen are more geared towards auditory and visual learners. I usually find myself struggling to retain the information once the video is over.

I haven't really found a interactive tutorial apart from this https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/38910 and the recent announcement from Unity about the new interactive tutorials they are creating https://blogs.unity3d.com/2017/09/07/get-started-in-unity-with-interactive-tutorials/ . For me, this is exactly the type of tutorial that I am looking for. Hoping for interactive tutorials for kinesthetic learners in the future.

 

Man this is tough because while I prefer written tutorials with images best, I subscribe to an awful lot of very high-quality video tutorial channels and I often use both in tandem. I've seen some great video tutorials (brackeys and dan moran's shader tutorials being standout examples) and I've wasted money on some pretty terrible books, and vice versa.

Usually my method is:
1. read and/or watch the tutorial fully, and understand and retain nothing
2. follow along step-by-step, pausing the video (if it is a video) as I go
3. attempt the thing on my own, struggle with it a bunch and make my own mistakes
4. read and/or watch the tutorial fully again, retaining a bunch more because now I'm paying special attention to the pain points I encountered in step 3 and the difficulty helped make a more solid impression in my brain

 

I'm one of the odd bunches of people that prefer video... I learn by visual representation of seeing the final product working, not an explanation, but an actual demo of it. That way I don't waste my time trying to implement something just to find out it's not what I want at the end, when if it's a video I can just go near the end and see the final result in action. Do I like it or not? If I don't I can just keep searching.

EDIT: Like for example - someone who's never heard of a Slerp before. Can you really put into words in lamens terms that explains exactly what it does? You can say Arc all you want, but explaining the "t" would be the most complicated part of it. It's one of them things you'd have to play around with or watch someone else play around with it to really understand what it is. - Well not really so much what it is, but how different things do different ways.

 

Well, this is going to sound like a generic answer...

It depends on the info being delivered, but generally I prefer text. Text is searchable, skimmable, accessed at your own pace, accessible in more places, doesn't require audio, and - for code stuff in particular - a much better experience if some of the content you're delivering is necessarily text (eg: code listings).

Video is good for primarily visual stuff, or for stuff where being animated helps get the message across.

Personally, I lean very much towards text over video. For learning stuff I often want to go over sections multiple times, slow down at particular sections, or go back afterwards and refer to things. That's all trivially easy in text, and somewhat painful in video. Ideally, for me, something is delivered primarily in text, with embedded videos for the parts where that makes sense. For instance, write down a series of steps, but then show a video of those steps being applied. Another example, if you're demonstrating how to make an animated effect then a video of the completed effect is far more effective than text or still images.

 

Well this is THE forum. It's not representative of the majority.

 

Depends on the medium I guess. I take video courses for Maya -- no way I could learn it just from reading. I'd die of boredom and frustration.

I generally think of tutorials as being for beginners. Beginners need to get a good general sense of how things are done and have the simple visual cues rather than reading a lot of unfamiliar phrases and terms and twisting their brain in a knot.

Advanced people can read the boring documentation and know what it means, and will usually be searching for something specific -- not a general "this is what can be done" type of deal.

 

I prefer video. The reason for this because when I watch the video I can easily see the end result and I know the process works.

For text, I can follow the tutorial but when something doesn't go right I am asking questions as to whether it's me that made a mistake or theres a problem with the tutorial itself.

I like to see things being done and I can follow along.

 

I honestly prefer text 90% of the time. I like to read the entire thing top to bottom before I even think about trying any of it. I read pretty quickly so even a long drawn out file goes by in a short time. The reason for this is I frequently know a good bit of what the tutorials trying to tell me and other parts are so close to common sense obvious that I instantly retain it. I find I can usually read the tutorial then do it from memory while only looking back at the text on occasion to reference the parts I was actually unfamiliar with. I have found this helps with remembering what I learned from it because instead of step by step doing what they say to do I actually have to think about what I am doing as I do it. Another thing I do is dig deeper on things I am not sure about. When I see something done and dont know why exactly it was done I will take time to look up that specific thing and figure out why. Sometimes the tutorials go extremely fast because I already know a good bit of the content and can just read the entire thing then do an example of my own and sometimes they take longer than it would to just step by step follow it because I'm doing extra research and trying slightly different variations on the concept so I can really get a handle on it. My biggest problem with video tutorials is a language barrier. Dont take that wrong I have no racism in me at all but I do have a problem understanding people who are non native english speakers since I don't actually speak to very many humans anyway.

 

..."I honestly prefer text 90% of the time" ..proceeds to post a wall of text not sure what the other 10% is, I just don't think it contains line breaks )

 

Sorry...It seemed like a paragraph to me. I didn't really see a change in train of thought that would warrant a new paragraph.

 

"Another thing I do is dig deeper..."

I typically break to a new paragraph after about 4 or 5 sentences, even if I'm continuing a single thought.

 

Though I read quite well I have never been a stellar author. I will heed this advice.

 

Reading is a great way to absorb knowledge! I feel that when I read something I absorb much more than I would when I watch something. They allow for you to go at your own pace as well. Though, I think that finding some mixture of text and visuals works best. It's always nice to see the end result or the desired result on top of the piece written.

 

I've had great success with Ben Tristem's video project based courses on Udemy, however I think Unity's text and image based tutorials are actually best because you can read faster than people can talk. If the text and image tutorials covered as wide an array of topics as the udemy courses I would probably not have bothered with video tutorials at all.

Though there is room for both of course

 

That's assuming that you're learning by doing a tutorial. I think that something a lot of people miss when making online learning materials is that tutorials are only one type of learning activity designed to address a part of overall learning needs. They're great for practical stuff, how to do a thing. They're not necessarily great for learning the theory behind a thing.

For example, if I'm teaching people about different types of data structures I'll have some time set aside for them to give different structures a go in different situations. That's the "tutorial" part. Separately, that'll be backed by some time spent on the theory of how each works and their pros and cons in different situations. There'll probably also be a little while spent on thought experiments/theory exercises where we discuss some different tasks and the approach learners might take for them based on what they now know, without writing code for it. Tutorials focus predominantly on the "how" of a thing, where it's often just as important to think about the "why" and "when".