Yesterday my roommate introduced me to a video on YouTube called Brainiac Alkali Metals. It is a video of a British fellow, from UK Sky One series Brainiac, using Alkali Metals and water to make experimental explosions. My roommates dad, who is a highly respected chemistry professor here at Brigham Young University (BYU), is using this video in his class today. If you search for “braniacs” on YouTube, you will find a number of their videos, all of which are really entertaining. You will also notice how many times each video has been viewed, this one on Alkali Metals has been viewed 38,000 times in 3 months! All you would need is a group discussion after viewing this video, and a quiz to jog your memory, then you would never forget the things taught about alkali metals in this video.

I just keep thinking that between, Wikipedia, Project Gutenberg, online news sources, YouTube, and a growing multitude of other fantastic educational sources online; we have all the keys needed to learn just about anything we want these days. From private schools, to home schooling, to the public school system, to our current advanced education system, there is an incredible need for better, less expensive (in tuition for private schools, but in the absurdly high taxes for public schools, and grants for college), educational recourses in this country. The business world is quickly latching onto the principles of the internet; but, now with this plethora of great online educational recourses in this world, how might we optimize education, give parents the time they desperately need with their children, and create a more competitive educational system?

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