Is Youtube being used to its full potential?

2020 has been a difficult year for most of us.

We all had to resort to the Internet to carry out all the daily tasks, whether it is grocery shopping, office work, classes or staying active.

We all struggled together and maybe that’s why we have had the best advancements in technology during this year.

This may sound a little strange but do you remember even considering online classes as a mode for full-fledged learning, because I don’t.

I recently graduated and I still never thought that online learning can revolutionalize the whole education sector.

This doesn’t mean that I’ve never used online platforms like Youtube or Unacademy to study.

Just like any other student, I’ve done it too!

But on one hand, we’ll be going to school/college as usual, and on the other hand we’ll be homeschooled.

Now, you tell me if that’s not a big enough difference to contemplate.

With the advent of platforms like zoom and google meet, online learning is here to stay.

Since we are talking about hassle free learning, think about the one platform which has been with us for a very long time.

The one which we all use to consume content but are still ignorant of it’s full potential.

Any guesses?

What else could it be if not Youtube?

Youtube is an old friend, our forever partner in crime.

Whether it’s watching Tanmay Bhatt’s commentary on the popular ‘rasode mein kaun tha’ or Chloe Ting’s workout videos with a bowl full of maggi.

Apart from entertainment, Youtube is also our saviour when it comes to late night study sessions.

What is a better place for doubt solving than youtube? Tell me, I’ll wait.

So why is it that when we need to prepare for our school/college exams or any other competitive exam, we fly towards money making coaching classes like Byju’s and Whitehat jr.?

What do they have that Youtube doesn’t?

I understand that the biggest problem with Youtube has to be the “not so filtered” search results.

We usually get only the highest viewed videos on the top which is not a good criteria for credibility.

Recently I came across a very different online learning platform called ‘Beyond Exams’.

It is nothing like your typical learning applications.

Beyond Exams is an attempt of Precisely and Maslow Initiative at ensuring quality education for all through Internet technologies.

But the question arises, what is so different about this platform?

When you enter their website you’ll see a pretty neat homepage which includes a search engine and a login option, simple enough for any age group to operate it easily.

When you search for any educational topic, all videos in the search results are youtube videos and this is what makes the site unique.

They have embedded Youtube into their website and the catch here is that the videos you get in the result section are not at all based on the number of views, infact, they have smartly used a personalised approach towards the videos by ranking them on the basis of their quality/relevance.

So I thought about this innovative way of learning and I stated all the pros and cons of Beyond Exams which I would like to share with you all!

Starting with the pros:

1. It’s free of cost.
2. Efficient and effective learning.
3. A great way of exploring Youtube’s potential to the fullest.
4. The quality of the content is amazing because of Youtube channels like Unacademy, Khan Academy, Magoosh and numerous other channels who work hard to create content for students.
5. It is everything good sans the binging *wink wink*.
6. It’s not a common concept but interesting enough to keep you hooked.

Coming to the cons:

1. It isn’t offline.

As you all can see, the one con I mentioned is enough for you to miss the entire school/college vibe.

But think about it like this, you’ll be paying somewhere around 60–80k per year excluding the travel expenses and hostel too incase you life far away.

But because of Beyond Exams the cost comes down to zero, sounds too good to be true, right?

Maybe its time to trust innovation more than our habits.

It was fun writing this blog post, let me know in the comment section below if there is any topic that you think I should write about!