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Spent 3 hours making a Khan Academy playlist for my 7th graders and YouTube random recommendations did it better in 10 minutes

I lined up 12 videos on fractions in a specific order and the kids still got confused, but then the algorithm just auto-played some guy named Mr. J and suddenly they got it. How do you even compete with that kind of engagement?
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2 Comments
sanchez.mary
Heard somewhere that kids pay more attention to random videos because they feel like they found them, not like they got assigned them. Maybe that's what happened with Mr. J, the algorithm felt like a discovery instead of homework. Sometimes you just gotta let the algorithm do the heavy lifting.
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charlie269
charlie26917h ago
Do you think it's more about the algorithm picking content that actually matches their weird niche interests, or is it literally just the feeling of stumbling onto something themselves that makes it stick? Like with Mr. J, was it the random creepypasta vibes that hooked them, or the fact that nobody told them to watch it?
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