Video Casting Lectures, The Future of Academia?
Lately I have been spending more time than usual thinking about the future of education, not just in terms of how to use Web 2.0 tools in the classroom, but more broadly how the ubiquitous nature of knowledge and information is going to transform the institution of higher education. Now granted this is a large topic, and by no means do I have the time to write a post sufficiently addressing that issue, or even a post addressing one aspect of that question, but something I read on Smart Mobs got me to thinking.
A teacher at Woodland Park High School has turned the classic pedagogical structure around. Instead of having students come to class to listen to a lecture, and go home to do homework/problem sets, he records the lectures, students watch them at home, and they spend the class time working with the material in a hands-on way. So this idea coupled with a series of posts on edwired (a great blog you should add to your feed) about the future of the institution made me wonder is this the future? That is professors giving away content for free (lectures, ideas, the main substance) and than charging for the premium content of in class time. Perhaps. And, I am not sure this already doesn’t happen in some respects: MIT Open Course Ware, Yale Open Courses.
More later as I develop this . . . perhaps. In the meantime leave comments/thoughts.
July 14th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
I like this model– it’s interesting, at the very least. The efficacy would depend somewhat on the type of class and the teacher’s teaching style, of course, but when is that not true?
One thing that I think may make it a little less effective is the whole traditional model of “lecturing.” Lecturing was invented as a way to transmit knowledge to a large classroom from the front of the classroom, when students couldn’t get personal copies of important books.
The model of watching a lecture online, alone somewhere, is a very different experience. Have you watched many videocasts of lectures? The only thing more boring than sitting through a dull lecture is sitting through a dull lecture by yourself in a dark room while a man in a two-by-three square on your screen prattles on and on from behind a lectern.
On the other hand, who hasn’t been sucked in to watching people they don’t know on Youtube prattle on about something or another for ages? The closer camera work and conversational style work better for the medium. I think the most effective lecture-casting wouldn’t feel like a lecture at all– maybe more like a Youtube vlog interspersed with images and visual representations of data a la powerpoint– only avoiding the annoying habit of using powerpoint to throw your outline up on the board.
July 14th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
I’m sure that the more teachers work on this the easier it will become, but to put out a quality video/slideshow takes a lot of time. I know that the first slidecast I did on slideshare.net took a couple of hours for a 5 minute presentation. The tools are getting easier to use, like slideshare.net or authorstream.com, but I couldn’t imagine putting one out for each day I had class. I am planning to use authorstream.com to upload a weekly review audio slideshow that can be downloaded by students, but right now I’m not sure if that will end up being more efficient than just putting up slides. The silver lining is being able to re-use presentations from year to year, but I say that and end up re-doing them each year to try and make them better anyways.
July 14th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
I have been doing something like this for a couple of years. I teach a beginning multimedia course. There is a textbook, which is pretty well written and fairly easy to read. I have ‘pushed out’ the textbook based content using Moodle, and we spend the time in lab doing projects and discussing the practical applications of the content. Now, I can’t say that all students do well with this! A surprising number seem to think they can ignore the on-line activities and *only* come to class and complete the lab activities (and yes, I warn them often that this is not a smart move!). Hopefully, when more classes are taught in this way, it will be easier for them to manage the on-line and the face-to-face requirements.
July 14th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Lectures *are* boring. So, given the technology we have, why reproduce this old model?
Truth be told, nothing beats lecture notes. Nothing.
Ok, you can add some splish splash to your lecture notes, like animations, hyperlinks, posting boards, but in the end, the written word is king.
July 15th, 2008 at 1:22 am
Yes, we used to have a great technology for this, it was called the book. The idea was that students would read “the book” outside of class, and then come to class prepared to do some work with what they’ve read. The odd thing was that often students would come to class without having read “the book.” So teachers started giving “tests” to encourage students to read “the book” and to determine whether they had.
I wonder whatever happened to that idea? And why do we think students will, in their unsupervised, unstructured personal time be willing to sit still to watch a televised lecture with mediocre to poor production values, once the novelty wears off and three of their four professors are teaching this way, in the face of competition from professionally produced, high-budget standard television?
Then again, there was television, wasn’t there, which was to revolutionize education in precisely the same way?
It’s not that it can’t be done well—obviously it can. It just requires the same things that every other form of teaching requires: hard work, keen observation, careful reflection, passion for one’s subject, well-developed skills, and the ability to foster openness, curiosity, and willingness in close relationships with students. This is not dependent on any medium, nor is it the privileged province of any of them (or any combination). That’s not to dismiss these efforts—simply to put them in a larger context.
July 16th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Isn’t the norm in the humanities to give students pre-class reading assignments, then spend class time discussing the readings? This isn’t the norm in the sciences, which is why Eric Mazur, a physics professor at Harvard, has received attention for his approach to teaching introductory physics. He has his students read their textbook before class (to “transfer” the information, in his words) and then work through conceptually-oriented clicker questions during class (to help the students “assimilate” the information).
I’ve moved to this model in my own mathematics courses, and I find it very effective. It takes a while for some of the students to get used to it, since they’re used to showing up to class ready to take notes on my lectures. Instead, I ask them to actively work on math problems during class.
In mathematics, I might not put online a videocast of a lecture for students to watch before class. Instead, I might work a few math problems on my tablet PC and record my audio commentary as I work them. I would imagine that the pre-class reading / watching / listening assignment instructors use would depend on their discipline and the course at hand.
July 17th, 2008 at 1:45 am
Thinkwell pulled off this idea fairly well back in the late 90’s. Instead of print books, Thinkwell sold CD’s (and later DVD’s) with well-produced video lectures on them, and had some supplementary worksheets online, the idea being that students would watch and re-watch the lectures before coming to class and then spend the class time doing stuff. Some of their videos are now on YouTube.
J.D. Williams noted an important constraint — doing a well-done video presentation is EXTREMELY time- and resource-intensive. I put together a series of 12 introductory LaTeX tutorial videos last summer, and more than once I spent over 6 hours putting together a single, 12-minute video. It’s a LOT harder than it looks, even to get something rudimentary.
Also, let’s not forget the live, social context of the lecture. If you’re listening to a lecture and you have a question, you can raise your hand and get instant interaction. Not so much with video lectures.
Still, I think the medium is promising, and perhaps somebody will come along and create some software tools that simplify the process some.
July 22nd, 2008 at 7:43 pm
I actually do the opposite (when I can) in my teaching (university level - works best at the grad level). I often create an experience for the students to embody the lessons to be learned from the theoretical materials. Then they go home to read the theory, reflect on the experience, and respond via the class blog (or wiki, depending on the course design).
For me, the idea is not for them to “learn” the material, but rather incorporate the effects and lessons of the material that will allow them to contextualize future experiences, both in-school and out. The exercise itself is an embodied learning experience of developing theory from observation and experience - a more useful skill than is commonly thought.
July 29th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
I had a similar idea a few years ago, using a Windows Mobile Phone, streaming the lecture/lesson to a central server or a live web-cast.
Either way, if the lecture/lesson was boring, the video was boring too.
I think the need for interactivity outweighs the need for recording.