Avoiding Video as a Visual Gimmick in Courses
By Amy Pate
Manager, IPDS
Thunderbird,
The Garvin School of International Management
Many times, as we begin to develop courses with our Thunderbird professors,
it is easy to seek out the latest and greatest features from technology to give
to our online students. The competitive spirit is high. Faculty want their content
to be flashier, more exciting, and more entertaining than their colleagues'.
My passion and involvement with technology also makes me want our students to
have the latest technology gizmos and the latest "wingding" that invigorates
online classes. Put those together, and you have a powerful new online course,
right?.... Wrong!
It is really important in the age of information technology "leaps"
to take a step back and be sure that you aren't creating "visual gimmicks"
with your video-video-recorded content that looks great, but d'esn't add value
to your course.
Adult online learners have one common goal: learn the information as efficiently
as possible. They don't want to waste their time reviewing video that is put
into an online course simply to add a "multimedia" aspect, or "liven
up" dull content.
Before doing any video, think about:
1. What are the original objectives of the course, and is the video an important
aspect of it? D'es it add value?
2. Can the material be found in other traditional sources? D'es it have to be
a video? Remember, it's not about highlighting the professor's knowledge of
the subject or their great presentation style-it's about helping the student
understand it.
3. Can the content be easily covered and understood in a 10-15-minute video
clip? Online learners will lose interest in a video over 15 minutes, and with
anything under 5 minutes, the students would rather read a handout.
4. Are there graphics that can be added to the video to clarify the content?
Professionally designed and animated flowcharts, graphs, and tables can help
students easily identify content as it is being discussed by the professor.
5. Can materials be added to supplement the video? Handouts, transcripts, additional
links, and readings all encourage students to go beyond what they watch in the
video and seek to know more, thereby internalizing the knowledge.
At Thunderbird, we use the above guidelines for our video capture work. We
also embrace the "inquiry-based method" of teaching. This method encourages
students to look at a variety of materials and resources in order to collect
information on a subject. The students then work through discussion groups to
internalize that information into useful work-related applications.
The system we use for video capture is Tegrity. It allows faculty to record
24/7 and has a number of "flashy" features. However, we discourage
professors from thinking of this as a way to do a traditional 90-minute lecture.
Instead, we encourage our professors to think and plan before recording. We
give suggestions about how to use some of the features, like writing on slides
to draw the students' attention to a key point. Tegrity also has a "hot
spot" feature that allows students to interact with the video.
Faculty
can ask a question in the middle of a recording, and the recording will pause
until the student selects the correct answer. We encourage professors to integrate
this feature with their regular PowerPoint slides whenever possible to keep
the students from falling into "passive" viewers. We encourage the
faculty to ask questions during the recording, and pause for a second to allow
the students to think through the answer or pose questions at the end of a session
that encourages students to discuss the topic further in discussion groups.
We give professors suggestions on how to create shorter video clips that are
more effective than the "lecture." These suggestions include:
· Work a problem in the software application
· Draw on a white board and explain a process
· Summarize a difficult concept
· Discuss a specific point from a case, and provide some directed in-depth
questions and issues for students to discuss or think about
· Summarize the key points from a case, and then give some suggestions
for finding additional information
Those of us who are a bit older than the current generation of students often
fall into the common belief that these "kids" grew up on computers,
MTV, and video games. To capture their attention, we have to always look for
that latest video gimmick. I believe that to keep their attention, we need to
go back to the traditional instructional design development: what d'es the audience
need to learn, and what is the most effective and direct way to do it? It may
include the latest video fad, but it might also just be making the content meaningful
to them.
Amy Pate can be reached via email at
[email protected]
