Introductions

Introductions

by Amy Severson -
Number of replies: 15

Hello, 

Many years ago, I worked at SFU, purchasing and booking videos for university instructors to use the classroom. I'm now at ACT - Autism Community Training, and we video some of our presentations so that we can put them online. 

These two very different experiences got me thinking about video - not the "how to record and edit", but the "why bother" half of the discussion. 

How do you currently use video in your teaching, or how have you seen it used? You might wish to dicuss your objectives, contraints and priorities. 

My answer: We're currently taping day-long events, which run a total of about 6 talking hours. We break that into four chunks that follow the actual talking time, broken up by coffee breaks and lunch. This makes it easier for our editor to identify where the breaks are and makes the editing cheaper. We host the videos in our instance of Moodle and charge our users a nominal fee to access the videos. We chose to record because our potential audience is all over BC, and attending face to face workshops isn't feasible. It's our beginning steps to making our training opportunities more accessible, but of course in a cost effective manner!  (www.actcommunity.net/videos)

 

Thanks for sharing, 

 

Amy

In reply to Amy Severson

Re: Introductions

by Barbara Dieu -

How do you currently use video in your teaching, or how have you seen it used? You might wish to dicuss your objectives, contraints and priorities. 

Hello,

I teach English as a Foreign Language to teenagers (middle/high school) at the Franco-Brazilian school in São Paulo. I have used video in my classes in different ways (intensive and extensive viewing, individual and collective production)

Intensive Viewing (short snippets - maximum 4 minutes) as

  • an ice-breaker leading to a theme I want to introduce or a basis for discussion on a theme  (The Meatrix for instance, for organic x processed food, Heroes - sts later work on their own hero story - see below
  • a trigger for questions to practise oral skills 
  • listening comprehension for at theme, vocabulary and grammar points I want to focus on (Creative Commons)
  •  (add them to Moodle for stds to check at home and save classroom time)
  • subtitling and translation exercises (use Universal Subtitles, Dotsub or YouTube)

Extensive Viewing (films)

  • to complement a book we have been reading (compare and contrast)
  • to analyse main themes and how they have been depicted (technique)
Recordings in class
 
Students used their own photo cameras, mobile phones or portable video recorders to make the film and Windows Movie Maker or i Movies to edit them. VoiceThread allows you to create an interactive production, uploading photos, film and sound. 
 
The editing (parents and kids complain) and evaluation of each production (the teacher complains) is somewhat time-consuming  but once the film is ready, all are very proud of it and forget how labout intensive this can be.
In reply to Barbara Dieu

Re: Introductions

by Amy Severson -

Hi Barbara, 

Oh, I lived in the state of Minas Gerais for a year in 1991/92, and I loved Brazil. I've been afraid to go back ever since, because I have such good memories. I remember in English class (I was an exchange student), the teacher would use popular songs to teach english. I was always roped in to try and explain idioms - such a challenge! I learned lots of vocabulary by watching dubbed episodes of Beverly Hills 90210 (the original). The story lines and vocabulary used was pretty simple, so it was a great learning opportunity for me. 

You make some interesting points about the length of video. I'm going to start a new thread about length of video, and I wonder if you'd comment there on how you decided on the meximum 4 minute clip. 

Thanks,

amy

In reply to Amy Severson

Re: Introductions

by Barbara Dieu -

The exchange programs are a fantastic way to get to know a little bit of the host country and culture. I was an exchange student in the US some eons ago :-)

I am glad you enjoyed your stay - you should plan another visit to a different city and state maybe.

In reply to Barbara Dieu

Re: Introductions

by Susanne Nyrop -

Video as a tool for understanding each other's viewpoint can be very powerful. Now that I'm no longer in a daily contact with students (of any age), I have the frequent pleasure of my three grandchildren as very individual learners. Boy age 12, with mild autism - and twin girls age 10 who take their time growing in slow mode, likewise in a special class context. I am often using video for more purposes, for example, one is recording what the others are working with, which is fun and often helped us solve or even prevent many a conflict of power play and jealousy. We never went any further with our small video chunks than just watch them a few times, no editing, publishing or grading (of course :-)

In reply to Susanne Nyrop

Re: Introductions

by Barbara Dieu -

Long time no hear ,Sus. Good to have news from you and read about the video activities you engage with your "very individual learners". It must be a joy and very revealing to be able to follow them this way. Alas, no grandchildren on this side of the world yet so I stick to my students for the time being :-)

In reply to Amy Severson

Re: Introductions

by Deirdre Bonnycastle -

Who Am I? I'm a faculty developer in the College of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan. I've been a teacher for 40 years this year.

How do you currently use video in your teaching?

I use video frequently to illustrate examples of good and bad medical teaching. Recently we have been using examples of student clinical performance to teach assessment.

I also occassionally use medical music videos at the beginning of a session to focus attention and bring humour to the session.

Several of my colleagues have started to use annotated video which has interesting implications.

Issues

One of my biggest frustrations is non-compatability between video players. If I ask participants to prewatch videos, I frequently recieve a message that it wouldn't play on their computer. I find myself forced to use U-Tube which is good and bad.

In reply to Deirdre Bonnycastle

Re: Introductions

by Amy Severson -

Hi Deirdre, 

Now, I may be showing my age, but when you say annotated videos, I think of "pop-up video" from Much Music in the 80's. They'd show the video, and every once in a while a text box would appear with some explanatory text - is that what your annotated video looks like (though perhaps without the irony - grin). Is that sort of what your videos are like? 

I understand that video is gaining a huge traction in Medicine - due to the kinesthetic learning needs? 

Cheers,

Amy

In reply to Amy Severson

Re: Introductions

by Deirdre Bonnycastle -

Yes pop up video is similar. Ours might include questions, comments, arrows to focus attention. I'm not involved but I understand the tool is quite simple.

Several medical disciplines such as radiology/patholgy are very visual while surgery is kinesthetic and psychiatry more auditory. Kinesthetic learning needs are best met with simulation.

In reply to Amy Severson

Who am I plus...

by Sylvia Riessner -

I'm currently a Distributed Learning instructor at Yukon College in Whitehorse, My undergraduate degree is from Simon Fraser but I bet it was way before you were there Amy. I did my Masters (EdTech) at UBC when I moved to the Yukon - it was great!

As a big part of my role is helping teachers to integrate technology in their teaching, we've all been learning together about easy and effective ways to use video in the classroom, online within an LMS or just on the web. I speak for myself and for other instructors as I generally have to help with any video editing, pedagogical and privacy issues, and finding a place to store and access any videos. I also develop video for my own teaching.

1.  We recording videoconferenced courses and store them on a content server. Most recordings are painful in terms of actual learning (my interpretation) but students say they want them and that they help with catching up missed classes. I'm not certain that they are every viewed in their entirety (sp?) but it makes the students feel less anxious. This is full room video, unedited and unrehearsed - raw.

2.  We use webcam video to embed some visuals of instructors within PowerPoint recordings which we use the Adobe Presenter plug-in to convert to shockwave flash and then serve from a content server access from web browsers.

3.  I use tools like Adobe Captivate and Articulate Engage to creating learning activities with a mixture of screen caps and webcam video and images to create online learning activities. A few of the instructors have worked on my computer to create some; licensing/cost issue constrains this development (plus time, interest, knowledge on part of instructors)

4. We do basic digital video camera recordings which I generally edit in Studio or Adobe Premiere. We have one instructor who is posting directly to Youtube and we're trying to find the time to post to iTunes as it creates videos that can be viewed easily on mobile devices.

That's it for now. Lots of other things we've tried that have floundered; we are also exploring video through iPad apps like Sharesomething or other and Open Content video editing/collaborative production but are not there yet (some on drupal; some open web-based tools)

I'm looking forward to finding out ways to do it better!

Sylvia

 

In reply to Sylvia Riessner

Re: Who am I plus...

by Amy Severson -

Sylvia, 

I feel your pain in terms of the raw, unpracticed, and unedited video. And yet. If it increases access to the material? It think it's a balance in terms of what is practical or feasible. 

I lived in Whitehorse for a year in 1997, and I have many fond memories of my time there (even the winter!)

 

Cheers,

Amy

In reply to Amy Severson

Re: Introductions

by Patric Lougheed -

Greetings all,

I am an Instructional Technologist at the University of Victoria and have been a web/multimedia developer for the last 12 years. I did a little teaching at Selkirk College on "Design Fundamentals in Multimedia" and professional practice at the Kootenay School of the Arts back in the late 90's.

How do you currently use video in your teaching, or how have you seen it used?

My primary function these days is instructing instructors on getting the most out of their Moodle use and leveraging rich media to engage and inform. I am interested in Cognitive Learning Theory and how multimedia can improve knowledge transfer. Most of my video use these days is designed more for training and skills building always trying to demonstrate why as well as how to use video.

The explosion of online video websites and tools (animoto, voicethreads, xtranormal) it has never been easier for a novice in video production to create and distribute well made and engaging content. The struggle is overcoming an individual’s fears of perceived complex technology use and encouraging creativity.

My little girl was recently diagnosed with high functioning Autism and I have seen how effective multimedia can be in teaching in unconventional ways. I am hoping to find more strategies of developing activities and resources that will help her get the most out of the challenges she faces in school.

I am happy to discuss anything multimedia, social media, Moodle related! I can be found on Twitter and Google+ easily enough as well.

In reply to Amy Severson

Re: Introductions

by Paddy Fahrni -

Hi all,
I work with a Vancouver settlement agency MOSAIC and have used video in English language classes for self-assessment/ peer-assessment - really great feedback and motivator for learners. Videos of a max time 7  minutes are moved from camera to classroom computer and shown on SmartBoard screen. They are dumped after the assessment, though learners sometimes take them home  for ???.  The department is starting to video models or demos of teaching peers (max time 15 minutes) which are posted on agency YouTube account. These are much shorter that Amy's event-sharing videos. This is a very efficient way to shre info - but huge files!  Further, because some of our courses are blended, teachers are beginning to develop inhouse materials videos, so we are now getting into the whole ball of wax re permissions and ownership, etc.

My favourite use of videos in teaching is collaborative video production projects for learner groups, as the process is so communicative. I see Barbara also uses video this way.

Deirdre uses videos to model medical procedures - and in language training, authentic communication model videos are great to show the non-verbal and socio-cultural aspects of language.

I'm still searching for the lowest tech, sufficient quality, free process to produce video !!!

Regards,
Patricia

In reply to Paddy Fahrni

Re: Introductions

by Nancy Nowlan -

Hello!

I teach at Capilano University in North Vancouver and have faculty pd responsibilities. I've just started my doctorate at SFU in education and will be focusing on faculty peer learning. I'd like to capture some of the experience instructors have and help with knowledge transfer as so many faculty are retiring and so much useful experience leaves with them ...

I'm interested in the use of annotated classroom/teacher video as a learning tool for new faculty. An experienced instructor could comment in a tracking sidebar on a video of their class as they taught - identifying the classroom activities, instructional choices, student challenges etc  as they occurred. I didn't think this tool existed yet as a simple app or software. From the comments by Deirdre and Sylvia above it sounds like it does? (as pop ups?) I'd love to find out more, or who I could talk to. As you can tell I am not a technology person but will be learning more as I get into the research.(I do have an Ipad to take video with now ...)

Re video and faculty pd: we will be running a number of sessions helping faculty make short instructional videos for their own classes during our spring pd sessions ... many faculty are interested in doing it - they need some time and the chance to get started with some help.

 

In reply to Amy Severson

Re: Introductions

by Emma Duke-Williams -

Who am I

I'm Emma, I'm a lecturer in Computing at Portsmouth University (South Coast of England). I'm particularly interested in computers to support learning; currently looking at 'web2.0' (or whatever you want to call them!) to support students in full time education - and also second life. 

How do I use video

Haven't used it that much recently; in the past, when we've had distance learners, we've used online video conferencing (Flashmeeting ) - for online chat sessions (mixed reactions; most prefer it to text based, but a few had connectivity issues, so couldn't use it through various firewalls etc; or they had very low bandwidth connections).
But, we've looked at it with oncampus students creating their own material, so they're doing the content creation.

Option choices: We have had some success getting short (2-3 minute) interviews with staff about the options they teach, to complement the written information about units (they also have the option to actually go and find the lecturer & talk, but not all do!). Students appear to value this (well, they tell us they do; we don't keep any stats on how many actually use it) 

Thinking about non-locally created video; we are also lucky in that our University is one of a group of UK universities who've got a TV archiving facility; so we can easily (& legally) get snippets (or whole programmes) from a variety of channels (most of the UK terrestrial ones) & share with students, so that's useful for both classroom & VLE use. (They're restricted to our students only)

Issues etc. 

Mostly time!