Turn a YouTube Video into a Lesson

YouTube is where a huge amount of real learning happens, and where most of it is forgotten a week later. This guide turns a video you just watched into material you'll still know next month.

The short version

1. Copy the YouTube link
2. Open the Create page and paste it
3. Interact pulls the video's content and generates an interactive lesson
4. Review the generated interactives, edit or delete any that miss, and keep the rest
5. The material joins your review queue like everything else

That's it. From link to lesson typically takes under a minute.

What works best

The generator works from what's said in the video, so it shines on talky, information-dense content: lectures, tutorials, explainers, conference talks, documentary-style essays. If a human could take useful notes from it, Interact can build a lesson from it.

Music videos, vlogs, and mostly-visual content give it much less to work with.

Fetch first, generate later

Not ready to commit? You can fetch a video's content without generating interactives, look it over, and generate from it when you're ready. This is handy for triaging a pile of saved links.

Make it part of your curriculum

Instead of pasting links one at a time, save videos as resources on a subject as you find them. Your watch-later list becomes part of your curriculum, and each video is one tap away from becoming a lesson. See Subjects & Curriculum.

Tips

• Generate right after watching. The lesson will land on material while it's still fresh, which makes the first review much stronger.
• For long videos, expect the lesson to cover the main throughline rather than every detail. Add hand-written cards for specifics you personally care about.
• Add your own cards for the parts that made you pause the video. Those moments are your best signal of what's worth keeping.