Some thoughts on math videos online

By now, most folks in the math teaching world have heard of Khan Academy. Other free video sites for math include Math TV and Brightstorm. I do refer students to these sites for review and reinforcement. In YouTube, these types of instructional math videos get a large number of views, and so they  obviously address a need out there.

However, I am not convinced that these types of videos actually illustrate concepts very well. There are now a wide variety of technologies that can illustrate math concepts and can be interactive. GeoGebra, graphing calculators, Microsoft Math, OCW applets in math (from  MIT), and lots of applets spread throughout the Internet do a great job of illustrating ideas that are hard to do with just chalk and talk (or their video counterparts). But a simple survey of YouTube videos describing their capabilities showed that they attracted far fewer viewers.

Is it just that students are used to wanting something reinforced the same way they've seen it in their lectures? Do they just want to get their (online) homework done? Are these types of resources used often enough in classrooms to illustrate ideas? 

I don't think any of these technologies takes away from basic skills. I think they make conceptual understanding easier  for many students - if they are guided along those lines. Not everyone can make abstract connections solely on the basis of processing symbolic notation. If one wishes to progress to higher level math or use math in other subjects, it is necessary to be able to think about math in addition to the skills, whether at the beginning algebra level or at the calculus level.And many of these technologies that have been around for a while now can make that task a little simpler.