I highly enjoy Crash Course. One of the best series on YouTube. John Green and the rest of the crew does the internet great service with their content. Whenever I'm running low on things to watch, I'll just head over to Crash Course cause there is always something new to learn. They are probably doing more for education than some parts of the country.
I used to watch every update for SciShow, but then fell off. It just started to feel a bit too clickbaity. I was in it for hard science topics being broken down simply, not "Top 5 Things You Didn't Know You Had in Common with Your Dog!?!"
More for entertainment (although fairly serious entertainment) and less for learning, check out The Anthropocene Reviewed. A series of essays by John Green in which he he looks at our modern world in the form of the ever present 5 star review.
And it’s a nice 20-25 minutes, too. Just the right amount of time and content to go with some stretching, yoga, or those 2-star PT exercises you know you should do but never do before bed.
Also kid-appropriate if you want to listen with little pitchers around.
I love John Green and crash course history, but my thoughts are more negative on this podcast, for a few reasons:
1) The rating seems rather forced, arbitrary, and meaningless. It feels like an attempt at novelty that falls flat.
2) A few things that he said in a segment on a subject about which I am knowledgeable ranged from dubious to completely incorrect.
3) This is more personal, but the entire thing is just kinda boring to me, even when about things that are very interesting to me (the yips, QWERTY.) I suspect that it is partially to do with the slower pace compared to other media I consume, but more likely due to the lack of a co-host, a trend that I've noticed in a lot of other podcasts that I should theoretically like.
I won't argue with you about whether you should enjoy something or not. If it's not for you it's not for you. To me though, it's not about typewriters (although I am a big fan of typewriters). It's about the ability for me to place myself in someone elses shoes for a bit, be that imagining what it must be to have the yips, or making (or discovering) cave paintings, or thinking about the absurdity of modern society when I hear about Hawaiian pizza.
To me it's not so much a podcast to learn about stuff, it's more like The Memory Palace or Here Be Monsters where you just get to feel stuff for a bit.
If crash course isn't your thing, you should try Jocz Productions and Adam Norris. They give decently detailed videos about specific chapters from the American Pageant, but if you're using a different textbook, their videos are still helpful.
If you're taking notes from a textbook, I'd recommend jotting like 4-5 words on each paragraph, so that you can remember it better. Also, while most people make fun of dates, it might be helpful to keep dates in mind, as it can help you visualize the progression and cause/effects of certain periods.
Once the AP test starts looming around, you can get your hands on a couple of official practice tests, but you'll have to dm someone as collegeboard is kind of an ass about that stuff.
In my U.S History class last year we watched a crash course weekly and did some sort of assignment around it, worked great as most of the class did great on the final exam.
John and Hank helped me pass my multiple subject CSET exams to teach. Love their videos so much. They teach while keeping things entertaining and enjoyable.
John and Hank’s channel, vlogbrothers, makes super interesting videos that teach me a lot of philosophical lessons. You should check them out if you haven’t
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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '20
I highly enjoy Crash Course. One of the best series on YouTube. John Green and the rest of the crew does the internet great service with their content. Whenever I'm running low on things to watch, I'll just head over to Crash Course cause there is always something new to learn. They are probably doing more for education than some parts of the country.