Thorough and Efficient Education - Video Lectures

Dr. Lodge McCammon:

"My lecture videos are always available to my students. They can re-watch them anywhere, anytime & as many times as they need in order to process the information. There is no need to ever repeat it live in the classroom. The average length of my video lectures is 15 minutes. If I show them during class, in periods 1 2 and 3, that would take a total of 45 minutes. 

There are 60 topics. That’s 2,700 minutes of lecture video viewing in the classroom. These videos save me from 9,900 minutes of exhausting repetition...but more importantly, they allow me to free up 9,900 minutes every semester that I can used to personalize instruction.

I use my lecture videos & these active learning strategies to provide a thorough & efficient education for all of my students."

Provide video feedback to students while you are walking them through their paper

Screencast-O-Matic

Screencasting, or capturing what you do on your computer or tablet in a video format while you narrate your actions, is one of the many benefits modern computer technology has provided to today’s educators.

There are numerous free screencasting tools available, and one of the longest standing mainstays is Screencast-O-Matic. You can use it as a web app, or download a version for your PC or Mac. The free version of the tool limits you to 15 minute videos and does not permit editing (but you can get editing and unlimited video length for a meager $15 a year! -- or talk to Pam about getting this for free for course-related use).

Screencasting can be used to do so many things! Here’s a few ideas for different ways you can use screencasting for teaching:

• Open a picture, or several pictures, and talk about them. Maybe you want to share the works of a favorite artist or photographer, or pictures of some geographic area, or something scientific.
• Open a document and discuss it – a section of an ebook, a paper, an article, whatever!
• Navigate a favorite web site and explain what’s available there – this could be a museum’s online site, a science site, a news resource, or one of so many other awesome online resources.
• The old classic … narrate over a Powerpoint slide deck you use to deliver a lesson in class.
• Show students how to solve a math problem (you can use a tool you draw on, like MS Paint or Educreations).

The ways you can use screencasting for teaching are truly unlimited!

Blended Learning vs Flipping Learning

    

 By Halina Ostańkowicz- Bazan (posted to Academia 4/7/16)

According to Horn and Staker, blended learning is:

“Any time a student learns, at least in part, at a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home and, at least in part, through online delivery with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace. The modalities along each student’s learning path within a course or subject are connected to provide an integrated learning experience.”

The most significant piece of the definition is the “element of student control” highlighting the flowing instructional models to enable improved student-centered learning, giving students greater than before control over the time, place, path, and/or the step of their learning tracks.

Blended learning offers a balanced approach, focused on redesigning instructional models first, then applying technology, not as the driver, but as the supporter, for high-quality learning experiences that allow a teacher to personalize and make the most of the learning.

The technology helps to supply instructors with data, expand student choices for educational resources and learning materials, and deliver opportunities for students to practice and to exhibit the high-character performance.

Broadly speaking, I am for blended learning, which means taking advantage of both traditional f2f techniques and possibilities presented by new technologies.

Flipped Classrooms generally provides pre-recorded material (video or audio) followed by classroom activities. Learners watch the video before or after the class, this happens outside F2F meetings. Thank’s to that classroom time can be used for interaction, such as Q@A sessions, discussions, exercises other learning activities.

This is the perfect way to “invert” doings in the class with activities outside the teaching space.

Flipping is not just about video and technology.

Moreover, technology does not replace good teaching. It enhances good teaching.

Flipping helps us to get the best use of class time. It is a methodology that permits the instructor to involve students intensely in the collaborative community and produce a shared problem-solving workshop.

My students very frequently have to find some info, largely online, and in class, they present materials on a specific subject. We use it as a foundation for deeper analysis and actions.

Sometimes, instead of giving lectures, I call for scholars to watch chosen PPT, videos or podcasts at home, so when we gather in the course of work, we are able to concentrate on the debate, as well as interpretation of the problem.

In my point of view, there are some significant ways to involve students during a lecture such as short demonstrations, surveyed by group debate as well as PPT lecture, followed by expounding, discussing and particularizing the material.

I am convinced that dialogue is necessary for my Polish History and Culture lectures. I take advantage of novel methods to build up active learning skills and to encourage students toward further learning, or else to mature students' thinking skills. For most of my learners, the techniques I use are fresh. They come to study in Poland from all the Globe and the majority of them are not used to blended learning as well as flipped classes.

They have to be talked into active learning and taking the responsibility of their own knowledge. My role as a teacher is to be a learning coach, mentor and a source of support as well as inspiration.

Flipping provides students opportunities such as; interactive questioning, mind exploration, answer “why this is important for me to recognize this?” and student-created content.

During my language classes, I also use flipped methods because I believe in learning by researching as well as having fun while studying.

Wolff, Lutz-Christian, and Jenny Chan. "Defining Flipped Classrooms. “Flipped Classrooms for Legal Education. Springer Singapore, 2016. 9-13.

http://www.inacol.org/news/what-is-blended-learning/

http://www.christenseninstitute.org/blended-learning/

Flipping Your Course

In its simplest terms, the flipped classroom is about viewing and/or listening to lectures during one’s own time which frees up face-to-face class time for experiential exercises, group discussion, and question and answer sessions.

It’s called “the flipped classroom.” While there is no one model, the core idea is to flip the common instructional approach.  With teacher-created videos and interactive lessons, instruction that used to occur in class is now accessed at home, in advance of class. Class becomes the place to work through problems, advance concepts, and engage in collaborative learning. Most importantly, all aspects of instruction can be rethought to best maximize the scarcest learning resource—time. Flipped classroom teachers almost universally agree that it’s not the instructional videos on their own, but how they are integrated into an overall approach, that makes the difference.

Many educational technology tools can be used in instruction; however, one fundamentally useful tool in teaching is the screencast. A screencast can provide learners a student-centered and engaging learning experience in both distance and traditional learning settings. Screencasts enable teachers to create a digital recording of any instructional activity performed on a computer screen, and they can be used as learning resources, learning tasks, and learning support.
The following article focuses on educational screencasts. The topics explored include an overview of screencasting, its benefits, the flipped classroom, screencast software, tools, planning, and teacher-created screencasts. 

Screencasting to Engage Learning, by Michael F. Ruffini, EDUCAUSE Review