Discussion: Humans are naturally vision-forward, analogous to how dogs focus on smell. Over history we created letters, numbers and symbols as short-hand at least partially because it takes us too long to draw pictures to communicate. Now that AI can create ‘meaningful’ images and video on the fly, and that the tools for creation and consumption of instant video storytelling are quite literally in every person’s hands, is the whole dynamic of human communication shifting? Recall that videos can now be dynamically segmented, searched and indexed, as well as annotated interactively by comments and tweets, in both synchronous and asynchronous modes.
523 Inspiration: Video Primary is about how image and video are increasingly the “language” of mobile existence. Videos are rich, expressive and accessible, and especially valuable for learning.
This frontier spoke to me because I started creating course videos a few years ago and remembered how laborious the process was. Video editing was quite a learning curve on top of learning how to produce videos. Recently, I just got a new feature on my Articulate software with AI video assistant. I just entered a few prompts and a video was created for me on the fly for. This was transformative. While it’s not perfect, it is certainly is on the right track for generating usable videos. I believe this is shifting human communication.
Nichole, Jahnvi and Bradley bring up good questions around text and literacy. Although, it’s now becoming easier to produce videos, I do believe that text has its value in learning. Rather than replacing text, videos should act as a bridge. For deep concepts, text will still provide the learner a chance to digest the material with foundational explanations. I believe text and literacy still has its value and a good balance will provide the learner more than one way to digest the learning.
Yes, I believe the dynamic of human communication is shifting—and it’s a return to something deeply human rather than a departure from it. We are naturally vision-forward creatures, and letters, numbers, and symbols were always a compromise: efficient shorthand born of necessity because drawing pictures was too slow and costly to produce or reproduce. Now that AI can generate meaningful images and video on the fly, and that the tools for creating and consuming instant video storytelling live in every person’s hands, that compromise is dissolving. Video is no longer a heavyweight medium reserved for studios and specialists; it is becoming conversational, spontaneous, and fluid—the new vernacular. What makes this genuinely transformative is that video is now dynamically segmentable, searchable, indexable, and interactively annotatable through comments and posts, in both synchronous and asynchronous modes. I see this as the closing of a long historical loop—we spent millennia teaching ourselves to think in text, and we are now teaching technology to speak in images, so that we can once again communicate the way our eyes and minds were always built to: visually, instantly, and with context intact.
The media environment that our students are growing up in is heavily focused on short-form video. Over the last few years we have seen many social media platforms pivot in this direction due to the increased engagement (and ad revenue) that it brings, and it is has become harder and harder to entice our students to engage with text-based media. Should we as educators fight against this shift and remain steadfast in our collective belief that text should be the default modality used in schools? Or should we adjust with the times and pivot to video? If so, what does that look like? Would a shift like this lead to better educational outcomes for our students, or would we be simply looking to reduce friction? These are the types of juicy questions that make me interested in this topic.
This really resonates with my own experience teaching Math and Science to Grades 3–5 in a CBSE school. I used to see teachers pull up YouTube videos (channels like Dr. Binocs or Peekaboo Kidz) whenever a science concept needed a visual — and kids would light up in a way a textbook diagram never got. But I also noticed the same thing Nichole mentioned: once video became the default, some students started struggling more with word problems in math, not because they didn’t understand the math, but because they couldn’t unpack what the question was actually asking. So I don’t think video is replacing text-based learning so much as it’s exposing a gap we already had — kids are strong visual learners now, but reading comprehension needs to be taught alongside video, not assumed to develop on its own. I’d call this frontier compelling, but only if we’re deliberate about pairing it with literacy support rather than letting video carry the whole load.
The current generation of learners increasingly prefers visual and short-form content, influenced in part by their heavy exposure to social media. While video can be an engaging and effective way to support learning, this creates challenges in my current work, particularly in mathematics. Some educators we’ve met have shared that one of the difficulties students face today is not necessarily a lack of mathematical knowledge, but difficulty understanding the language and literacy behind what a question is asking. Does relying too heavily on visual and video-based learning could unintentionally weaken students’ reading comprehension skills. Although some concepts are better explained through video, others are more effectively communicated through words, creating an important challenge for educators and developers: how do we meet learners’ preference for visual content while still developing the literacy skills they need to learn effectively?