YouTube has long been the home of pop music videos and keyboarding cats. But the pandemic has created a new class of potential viral stars waiting in the wings, ready to explain organic chemistry or decode algebra.

Justin Bieber probably isn’t too worried. But online video lessons are growing exponentially as K–12 student learning goes online, and there is no doubt that a few teachers will rise to the top to help more students learn. That’s a rapid divergence from how education has evolved in the past.

Change has traditionally come slowly and deliberately in the K–12 education world. When new concepts or technologies have been introduced, they’re typically embraced by a small fraction of early adopters. Then, over the course of several years, the best ideas are generally accepted by a majority of teachers and administrators. Only then do national education leaders typically follow suit.

For example, the concept of asynchronous learning — the idea that students can learn the same material at different times or locations — began in the late 1800s with correspondence courses but grew in prominence with the dawn of home computing in the 1980s. Only after technologies like smartphone videos and instant messaging became simple and easy to use did asynchronous learning become more mainstream.