Trends from SITT 2020 | Part 3 of 5: Video
Lillian Jones, guest blogger for The Wheel, is the author of this series. Lillian is a doctoral student in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, studying Hispanic linguistics and second language acquisition. Her research interests include educational technologies, computer-mediated communication, computer assisted language learning, and pedagogical applications of messaging apps and social media. In her free time, Lillian enjoys traveling, running, playing soccer, practicing yoga, cooking, writing, learning languages, laughing, drinking coffee, and tasting Old World red wines.
This entry is Part 3 of the 2020 Summer Institute on Teaching and Technology five-part blog series, which includes write-ups on (1) Equity & Accessibility, (2) Community & Connection, (3) Video, (4) Multimodal, Multitasking, and (5) Breakout Rooms.
Part 3. Video Ubiquitous in the lives of today’s students, instructional videos are used to enhance course material in both virtual and face-to-face classrooms. Meeting the need to recreate real-life experiences online, faculty are taking advantage of the many video resources available.
Yes, creating educational videos can take a lot of time. Fortunately, UC Davis faculty do not need to reinvent the wheel or spend endless hours mastering a new tech tool each time they seek to create engaging content for their courses. The good news is that instructional video can serve a variety of academic disciplines, and many intuitive tools can help instructors or students to create their own videos.
Pedagogically, educational video offers learners opportunities to engage with helpful multimodal resources and to practice necessary learning and creative skills. Leveraging video for learning purposes allows students to act as the creator, as well as the audience. Firstly, the task of creating a video involves writing (for example, a script), applying revisions based on feedback, and speaking (retelling a story or concept). Secondly, the student-viewer consumes content, by listening to the speakers and reading what is on the screen. These types of engagement and multimodality (audio and visual) reach various learner types, create a space for students to increase their competence with course content, and help them develop digital literacy skills. Live videos also allow for students to receive synchronous feedback on oral assignments, while pre-recorded video (visual and audio) can provide instructor feedback for later review.
2020 Summer Institute on Teaching and Technology participants used Zoom to discuss best practices with Zoom. How meta! UC Davis faculty and the Academic Technology Services team showcased video by presenting asynchronous material such as pre-recorded faculty talks & interviews, as well as synchronous events in the live webinars, daily debriefs, and special edition Faculty Forum. SITT participants explored a storyboard of discussions, breakout rooms, presentations, and casual chats, arriving as starring actors in a live documentary in which they shared strategies for using video in a remote learning environment. We share a few below.
The discussions carried out via video and about video during the 2020 Summer Institute on Teaching and Technology sparked optimism about opportunities for human-centric and content-centric engagement, especially when we cannot gather physically in the same space.
If Gen-Z really is a video-first generation, and prefers mobile video as a means to stay connected, then communicating course content via this mode represents an opportunity for all faculty.
Post event resources:
This entry is Part 3 of the 2020 Summer Institute on Teaching and Technology five-part blog series, which includes write-ups on (1) Equity & Accessibility, (2) Community & Connection, (3) Video, (4) Multimodal, Multitasking, and (5) Breakout Rooms.
Part 3. Video Ubiquitous in the lives of today’s students, instructional videos are used to enhance course material in both virtual and face-to-face classrooms. Meeting the need to recreate real-life experiences online, faculty are taking advantage of the many video resources available.
Yes, creating educational videos can take a lot of time. Fortunately, UC Davis faculty do not need to reinvent the wheel or spend endless hours mastering a new tech tool each time they seek to create engaging content for their courses. The good news is that instructional video can serve a variety of academic disciplines, and many intuitive tools can help instructors or students to create their own videos.
Pedagogically, educational video offers learners opportunities to engage with helpful multimodal resources and to practice necessary learning and creative skills. Leveraging video for learning purposes allows students to act as the creator, as well as the audience. Firstly, the task of creating a video involves writing (for example, a script), applying revisions based on feedback, and speaking (retelling a story or concept). Secondly, the student-viewer consumes content, by listening to the speakers and reading what is on the screen. These types of engagement and multimodality (audio and visual) reach various learner types, create a space for students to increase their competence with course content, and help them develop digital literacy skills. Live videos also allow for students to receive synchronous feedback on oral assignments, while pre-recorded video (visual and audio) can provide instructor feedback for later review.
2020 Summer Institute on Teaching and Technology participants used Zoom to discuss best practices with Zoom. How meta! UC Davis faculty and the Academic Technology Services team showcased video by presenting asynchronous material such as pre-recorded faculty talks & interviews, as well as synchronous events in the live webinars, daily debriefs, and special edition Faculty Forum. SITT participants explored a storyboard of discussions, breakout rooms, presentations, and casual chats, arriving as starring actors in a live documentary in which they shared strategies for using video in a remote learning environment. We share a few below.
- AggieVideo (Kaltura): AggieVideo is a UC Davis platform which allows faculty to upload, manage, edit and share various types of content, such as video and audio to be used for educational purposes. AggieVideo supports faculty in three main ways: video creation, the storage of faculty-created video resources, and a repository of hundreds of already-made videos. AggieVideo provides unlimited storage and hosting and a UC Davis-affiliated support team to help faculty as needed.
*Pro tip - if you need a permanent place to store your Zoom recordings of your lectures before they expire after 100 days and are deleted, simply download the video file from Zoom, upload it to AggieVideo, and know that the video links will be waiting for your use during your entire time at UC Davis. Learn more about how to save a Zoom Cloud recording to AggieVideo and embed it into Canvas.
- UC Davis Canvas offers built-in ways for faculty to create brief recorded video feedback, even though accessibility concerns usually send us towards AggieVideo as a more responsible option. Our LMS also supports embedding videos from AggieVideo or YouTube.
*Pro tip - when integrating YouTube videos into Canvas (and any course materials), note relevant copyright concerns.
*Fun fact - AggieVideo and YouTube video player features include control over the playback speed in order to watch the content more slowly (or, alternatively, more quickly).
- PlayPosit is a platform which provides an easy way for students and instructors to create interactive educational videos, and it smoothly integrates with Canvas. For example, faculty can quiz students with assessments that interrupt videos, allowing class participants to gauge their understanding of presented content. Check out this help document for information on getting started with PlayPosit, a university-supported service for faculty.
- Animal Science: In his pre-recorded interview,“Pedagogical Variance Across Courses: Feedback from Student Engagement, Learning, and Surveys”, Dr. Allen Pettey, UC Davis Professor of Teaching in Animal Science, shared a plethora of innovative strategies employed to simulate hands-on interactions required by the field. For example, for his remotely-taught sheep and beef cattle management class, Pettey used a commercially available website with hundreds of videos of animals. To simulate an interactive lab experience, members of the class would discuss the videos and ask each other questions.
- Evolution and Ecology: In “Building a Sense of Community: Field Activities at a Distance”, Assistant Professor of Teaching in the Department of Evolution and Ecology, Dr. Laci Gerhart-Barley, shared results from requiring educational video-based homework assignments, largely supported by iBiology, HHMI Biointeractive, and the YouTube channel Bozeman Science. This collection of resources augmented the online-only lessons, allowing Gerhart-Barley to draw from a diverse library of science-related video content, including scientists talking about research, the community of science, and the process of being a scientist. These tools also offered a variety of creative features, including whiteboard-style hand drawing and sketching (iBiology) and documentary-style videos (HHMI Biointeractive series).
*Pro tip - “Previous research suggests online video assignments should be 6 to 9 minutes in length.” - Dr. Laci Gerhart-Barley
Now more than ever, utilizing both synchronous and asynchronous video in our teaching is fundamental to ensure we are maximizing our students’ learning in accessible and interactive ways. Additionally, video in teaching is temporarily supplanting in-person experiences, and can be leveraged as a way to make connections among students and their peers, and students and their instructors. For those that might be new to utilizing video, or for those that want to expand on their existing knowledge, consider the resources below for UC Davis faculty.- Learn how to capture your lecture in your home office, and read about best practices for recording videos
- Get Video Production support on recording class lectures, seminars, and special events with the Academic Technology Services team
- Re-opening, we hope, in 2021, to create and record content in the UC Davis eLearning studio
The discussions carried out via video and about video during the 2020 Summer Institute on Teaching and Technology sparked optimism about opportunities for human-centric and content-centric engagement, especially when we cannot gather physically in the same space.
If Gen-Z really is a video-first generation, and prefers mobile video as a means to stay connected, then communicating course content via this mode represents an opportunity for all faculty.
Post event resources:
- Keep Teaching Student Resources
- Keep Teaching Faculty Webinars
- Center for Educational Effectiveness
- Email Instructionaldesign@ucdavis.edu for consulting and advice on how to implement instructional technologies in your specific UC Davis course.
- Find SITT snippets from Twitter by following @ucdaviswheel and @Lily_Jones20, using the hashtag #UCDavisSITT.