See it....learn it?

The recent rise of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as a means of scaling up numbers being able to attend university courses is embracing TV to try and engage learners more and improve take up/completion rates. 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23931078

The role of "edutainment" has been around for decades, and more recently in corporates and higher education, video has made up an increasing proportion of the "blend" of delivery tools. This was meant to increase engagement, presumably through entertaining the learner, with a view to having positive knock on effects on learning, application and business impact. And this happened at the same time as the historical province of TV/video as a square box in the living room was transformed into additional delivery channels through mobile devices and tablets, and with the design of smaller chunks of video to reflect the busy schedules of corporate learners and students.

But is appealing to the visual sense an effective, and indeed the most effective, way to learn? For example, does it make us think about something, and remember it, better?  I'd be keen to see what the research says about this (if anything) and I'll post some findings later. In the meantime, Tristan Gooley in his book "The Natural Explorer" which I am currently reading reminds us of Heidegger's words that "the fundamental event of the modern age is the conquest of the world as a picture". We watch TV, we look at websites, we take loads of photos. But what about the other senses? 

Smell, taste and touch don't often come into the equation for corporate learning for knowledge workers, unless you are a wine educator, or if we associate our colleagues' aftershave or well baked break time muffins with a learning experience! Possibly. But hearing, or auditory delivered learning such as lectures or podcasts, can often allow a concept or topic to be contextualised by the learner in their own minds without the provided context (distraction or clutter) of TV characters, props, thrills and spills.

But what about those boring compliance e learns and classroom sessions ? I could see them getting a shot in the arm from TV, but somehow I couldn't see the Coronation Street cast being credible enough to keep us on the edge of our seats when talking about the latest new accounting standard or tax act!