Using the internet to learn new things is a commonplace practice. But what’s the cutting edge of the internet-education, DIY phenomenon? Cooking, building a car, hacking electronics? How about delivering a baby. Marc Stephens, a naval engineer from Redruth, Cornwall spent a mere 30 minutes watching YouTube videos on the birth process, and was able to successfully use this knowledge to help deliver his premature child.
The Guardian reports:
Feeling nervous about the imminent birth of his child Marc Stephens had a look at childbirth videos on his home computer.
Four hours later his wife, Jo, went into labour three weeks earlier than [...]

“Together we know everything” is a tag line of Moontoast, a new online video education service. This online marketplace of human knowledge is similar to The School of Everything in that it brings together teachers and people looking to learn a new skill.  Moontoast uses face to face live video chatting as its communication medium, so the learning experience can be more intimate and interactive. To get started teaching it’s as simple as making a profile and setting your rate. And although it’s fairly new there are a lot of interesting subjects already being offered on the site including: guitar [...]

Richard Buckland is a computer science lecturer at the University of NSW who has pioneered the use of YouTube videos as learning aids at Australian universities. Seeing a need for more challenging computing classes in high schools, Buckland is now offering a class for high school students based almost entirely on the recordings of his first-year computing lectures.
High school students who want to learn more about computing and mathematics can take this advanced, first-year university level class for free. While studying the video lectures at home, participants will only have to come to the university one night a week for [...]