We need your opinion - what material is easier to learn how to program: videos or articles?

Question

Programming

For more than 5 years I have been teaching layout and programming in php at computer courses.
I never get tired of asking my listeners: "What is the most convenient way of presenting educational material for you?" - and the majority answers that it is most convenient to study by articles.
However, the latest trend in any distance learning is the use of video lessons. People stop reading - it's easier for them to watch.
I tried to observe how such training usually goes. For example, we have the task of teaching a person how to create some kind of php script, let it be the simplest forum engine.
If we use video material, a person watches a video where I create this forum engine from scratch in front of his eyes, along the way explaining everything that is needed, all the details and subtleties. I am attaching a link to the source code to the video. What does a newbie do? He watches the video, seems to understand everything, downloads the source, tries it - he gets the feeling that he understood everything, remembered it, and now he can do something similar. In 99%, a beginner will not even think of typing this code on the keyboard with his own hands, or at least rebuilding it for modification, etc. Typing the code after me in parallel - a beginner will also not be able to, and will not, especially looking at the video - this is insanity. As a result, the student loses his own experience, stepping on a rake, correcting mistakes, and thoughtfully studying the material.
Article submission optiondoes not contain full source code. In the article, I describe each step, comment, insert pieces of code - moreover, in such a way that they cannot simply be copied sequentially and stuffed into files to get a working application. You will still need to carefully understand the text, explanations and use pieces of code, inserting them according to the instructions.

Actually the question is: In your opinion, what format for presenting material is most in demand in our time? Video or Articles? Argue, please.
ps: once upon a time, most likely we all learned to program not from videos from YouTub, but from books, articles and code examples on the Internet. Now a lot has changed in the formats of learning on the Internet, people, unfortunately, stop reading) Maybe the future belongs to the video?

Answer 1

Obviously, a specialist who studied by articles has a competitive advantage over those who dabbled in podcasts.
First, they stupidly waste more time.
Secondly, after training, you will have to work - and look for answers to newly emerging questions. As the complexity of questions increases, the chance of finding a video lesson with a solution drops sharply. Then articles disappear too - you have to delve into discussions, mailing lists, standards. That is, read a lot.
Specialists who have not bothered to get into the habit of quickly reading and understanding what they read is wonderful. The more there will be, the higher the value of us, the readers;)

Answer 2

it’s easier and more reliable for me to learn from the author’s text / code, and not from an indistinct video, it’s not clear from whom

Answer 3

Better - this is a description along with a link to a timestamp in a video lesson with a predetermined playback interval:
Without videos - it becomes more difficult to understand, as more and more modern IDE interfaces (for example, Unity3d) provide for "assembly of the project" in the GUI by "mouse" using drag-n-drop manipulations. What is better to see in animation in order to correctly understand, repeat and remember.

Answer 4

I study like this:
1) I watch a video lesson first of all, as a rule, little is clear the first time, so I go to the second stage
2) I read articles, books and tutorials. Usually at this step I want to know all the subtleties and details.
3) Again I watch the same video tutorial, but with more confident knowledge, as a result - a complete understanding of everything that happens.
4) I fix the material with practice

Answer 5

Why not give videos without source codes? On laracasts, this is how the material is presented. As a result, you look at how something is being implemented, then you write by analogy yourself, well, you look at the documentation along the way in the next tab. In general, the main thing is not the method of presentation, but the motivation of the student, if I understand that I need this material, I will learn it at least from a video, at least from an article. If I don’t need this, then at least you invent telepathy - there will be no sense.

Answer 6

Depends on the type of information.
If we are talking about "pure" programming, then I am for articles, and with code examples that you can copy-paste and run yourself. If we are talking about js, then examples from sandboxes, for example, jsfiddle, are also valuable.
Video, on the other hand, is more suitable where physical manipulations with objects are needed (physical in the broad sense of the word, for example, pulling, dragging, opening, closing something on the screen with the mouse, ticking, etc.), setting up an IDE or CMS, which some graphics editor, such as Photoshop.
Sometimes, however, screenshots in the article are enough for visualization, but still, many of the actions described in words in the article often look confusing, such as "pull down and obliquely on the red corner, and then double-click, and then drag to the gray area of ​​the picture that appears from sidebar". Video makes things much clearer.

Answer 7

Video and article are two different kinds of information. From the point of view of physiology, the video should be perceived easier, since two channels are used - visual and auditory. The video is closest to normal face-to-face teaching.
From my experience, I can say that the quality of education depends on the teacher. A good teacher can write an understandable article, or maybe record a great video. The main problem with video courses is that they are of very low quality: "we write here, we get it." Good videos have a lot of explanations with increasing degrees of complexity. Good videos answer "how?" questions. and why?". Most videos answer the question "how?". Things are different with articles here, because here people try harder and in articles they answer the question "why" more often, since the text format is initially more formal.
Personally, in my practice, I come across the fact that most of the videos are made for noobs, and they chewed up the moments, "how to write a tag", and the analysis of
In general, the problem is the same - good specialists are worth their weight in gold. There are few of them, most often they are very modest and embarrassed to record video lectures.

Answer 8

You don't need to write code on the video if it's a tutorial video. And you do not need to give the opportunity to download the code written on the video.
You need to use the best sides of articles and videos. In articles, it is convenient to paint simple steps step by step, explaining what needs to be done. And on the video it is better to explain something complex or complex, which in printed form will be "multi-book". It is necessary to show something - the written code is taken and simple actions are taken to change it in accordance with the task. Something big needs to be done - fast playback or editing is used. As a result, the video will show the same thing that the student himself, who knows how to work, should do, and not work for him.

Answer 9

Probably, it is still desirable to streamline the terminology
Lesson - the process of communication between the teacher and students
Video lesson - just another structure of the classroom Video course
- appropriately designed educational material, for the study of which the presence of a teacher is not necessary.
An online training session can be built by combining a video lesson and a video course - this is a very fresh trend that the apologists for "clean video" promote in a confused whisper. Well, we were a little wrong...
A bit of experience from the period when boots had to be put on with a fresh mind :-)
Three pillars of learning: storytelling, demonstration, training
With a story and a demonstration in a video course, it's more or less normal
With training, when you need to consolidate the material, and for this you can quickly find the right part / section / fragment of the video course, there may be problems.
More voice questions.
1) Diction - no comments
2) Sound quality - no comments
3) Parasite words ... Well, they seem to confirm that nothing human is alien to the teacher, nevertheless ...
And most importantly: the text to listen to and the text to read must be different. "Listenable" text should take into account the phonetic structure of the sentence, for "readable" it is not important. It is very useful to watch at least a few issues of the "Time" program of stagnant times, I apologize for the tautology.
I agree with Saboteur that the "talking head" option is most beneficial for the teacher and least beneficial for the students
. But: modern technologies make it possible to combine the formats of video courses and articles and create normal educational material, which can consist of
- a sequence of frames / slides with normal navigation
- animated text blocks, callouts, cursors, shading/highlighting/increasing/reducing/colorizing parts of images
- video fragments
- intermediate control questions, based on the results of the answers to which you can organize a branching of the course
Audio in such educational material may be present if you can synchronize the sound and animations :-( .

Answer 10

The video is like an aperitif to stimulate the appetite. And then just text.
PS Personal experience, I do not impose this opinion on anyone.

Answer 11

Everything is simply banal.
A programmer writes programs, and one who is not able to read is even more unable to write.
Video programming courses create the same dummies as you, only more stupid and arrogant.

Answer 12

CS50 In Russian https://geektimes.ru/company/vertdider/blog/284526/