CLIPP Board

Flipping Vital

In most examples at Aston,  Replay (Panopto) lecturecasts are made available to students immediately following the formal lecture. But “flipping” could provide another equally popular model?

What is flip teaching?
This refers to a method of instruction where classroom-based teaching time and traditional “homework” time are reversed (flipped). A teacher provides video lessons to be reviewed outside of class, which in turn gives teachers more time in class to focus on higher-order learning skills. Ref: http://ed.ted.com/about

I recently attended a webinar organised by the ViTAL SiG.  This caught my eye as it covered a new ideology called Flipping the classroom. The webinar by Carl Gombrich outlines his approach to successful flipping. Carl, records lectures, then encourages students to ask three questions about them (in the VLE) – and add a timestamp video reference.
Essentially this “movement” entails the use of short video “lectures” either using tools such as Panotpo, or shorter chunks of videos posted on YouTube, or hosted on sites like the popular Kahn Academy. Essentially the idea is to make traditional lecture material available to students BEFORE a lecture, in a more informal/accessible/varied format.

By supplementing the [chunked] video material with tasks/questions in a VLE or by using the new TED ed tool box – you extend the learning, and move towards a more inquiry based model. The students then arrive at the traditional lecture primed full of ideas they want to discuss – as per a standard tutorial format. We used to call this homework! The same outcome of promoting learner autonomy, inquiry, and problem solving, can be also achieved by posting any resources for students to work on before lectures into Blackboard or Pebblepad. The aim is to promote a more discursive, Q&A lecture format. The use of chunked video clips or lecturecasts in this new “flipping” ideology ensures that core course resources could be presented in a more engaging format (as opposed to text) and could therefore improve motivation?

Further information;

• http://www.ucl.ac.uk/teaching-learning/news/carl-gombrich-flipping-the-lecture-theatre
• http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/04/flipping-the-classroom/
• http://remoteworker.wordpress.com/2012/05/01/flipping-lectures/
• http://www.khanacademy.org/
• http://ed.ted.com/about
• http://www.youtube.com/user/TEDEducation 
• http://tlc.aston.ac.uk/aston-replay/case-study-lecture-capture-aston-university
• MIT & Harvard release Edx

Animation for all – a demonstration

I love the idea of making animations without using complex animation software and have been looking for alternatives to the PowerPoint standard animations that we’ve all seen a million times before. I’ve just discovered this very interesting short video (though it’s been around for over 3 weeks and already gathered 1.1 million views, so I’m patently not living on the technological frontiers here, people) which is part of the laudable Google Demo Slam project that is showcasing how Google apps can revolutionise our lives. It’s pretty self-explanatory (one of the many benefits of being made by nerds) but in short, 3 animators working as a team but in different locations, put together a fully animated presentation in Google Docs in only 3 days that fair blows your socks off. And the message is, if they can do this, think what you can do with such a simple and accessible outlet. “No animation software, no high-tech hardware, nothin’ but Google Docs” – couldn’t have put it better myself, ‘though I probably would have spelt it “hi-tech” but that’s just me….

Food for thought from 100 science videos

Here is a link for “The 100 Coolest Science videos on Youtube“, collected and recommended by the American website Onlineschool.net. It’s a site that specialises in recommending learning establishments to online learners.

The 100 videos feature everything from making soap bubbles containing dry ice and songs about the periodic table to a 75 minute lecture on Electron Spectroscopy from UC Berkeley, taking in such presentation as “a 3 minute skip through 100,ooo years of volcanic eruptions” and “an introduction to heredity“. Oh, and who wouldn’t want to learn chemical reactivity from this video?

What’s impressive about this list is both the variety of different teaching and presenting styles (animations, straight to camera, wacky experiments, songs, etc) and the many ways that complex information can be condensed into digestible videos. We at Media & Learning Technologies are always keen on making multimedia content that grabs the viewer and which are clear anc concise; these videos are a good cross-section through the world of online video learning and hopefully will provide plenty of inspiration to us and ayone who wants to make videos for learning.

Food for thought, indeed.

Teens don’t use Twitter; not interested in traditional media

A recent report for the European Media Analysts of US Investment back Morgan Stanley about the media habits of teenaers has caused shockwaves throughout the media world and will have an effect even further afield among anyone who makes media products for that target audience.

What gives it the most credence so far is that it was written by a 15 year old intern at Morgan Stanley, based on the preferences of his friends, and so it paints a very interesting picture of what media teenagers do and don’t use.

The full report can be read here.

In short, they have a Twitter account but don’t use it (it costs them money and no-one reads it) and they don’t use traditional news media (newspapers, TV or radio). They don’t pay for music and will illegally fileshare. They don’t like intrusive advertising but will support viral-type marketing. They appreciate a different approach to marketing. They significantly use Facebook and YouTube. They know that they can get information from the net so won’t use hard copy directories, e.g. for listings. They go to the cinema for the experience, as much as for the film itself. They all have high quality mobile phones but are mostly on pay-as-you-go. They use Bluetooth but not video messaging (Bluetooth is free, VM is expensive). They like the idea of new gadgets but their computers are basic (they rarely have state-of-the-art) and mostly PC, not Mac.

What does that mean for us, as media producers for a young audience?

Well, we should not presume that because we use an online or electronic service, younger people do too. We should bear in mind that while we know that students like to use their phones, they have to pay for the privilege and so they may be restricted in their use by their budget. There is plenty they can do for free; cost should not be an issue in consuming our media. They are very savvy about exchanging media files and appreciate the communal experience of consuming media together. They will appreciate a clever ‘spin’ or ‘take’ on a media presentation.

There are lots of gimmicky things we can do but we should bear in mind the tolerances and expectations of our target audience. What we shouldn’t do is make media that presumes we know best how they are going to use it, or stipulates how theyshould use it in the future. The learning experience can be enhanced by the inclusion of multimedia resources but using those resources should not force them to do things they can’t afford to do, or exceed the limitations of their  gadgets.

Diverse2009 – Broadcast Your University: YouTube and the global classroom (key note 2)

Obadiah Greenberg, YouTube Strategic Partnerships.

YouTube has started a new service that is part of the YouTube concept called YouTube EDU. Originally developed as one of Googles 20% projects, it was created internally by staff who were inspired by the content that was being put onto YouTube by universities, one of the main players being Berkeley.

Berkeley were one of the first to move into a new realm of openness and sharing their materials through YouTube. They decided to allow the public to openly comment on their channel, a brave move, but one that worked for them. The kind of positive PR that they obtained from this you can’t pay for and so combined with YouTubes world wide network meant that their PR coup went global. After seeing how well this worked for them, many unis followed suit including USC & Duke.

Berkeley had their own system called Web Cast Berkeley. This was already an open system, admittedly this was not one of altruism, but more to do with not really understanding the technical issues. This made them put things out into the open domain under creative commons licenses. As this developed it became a driving factor of their philosophy so they decided to go with other services on top of their own so they could increase their reach and really get the material out there. It was not just lip service to openness they really wanted to share things.

The thing I find very inspirational about this story is the way that they embraced new technology and ideas is such a positive manner. Their were bold and just had a go at stuff providing a shining example to the rest of the world. I think there are many lessons that Aston could learn in how we can move forward into a future were Aston is leading and not catching up. After all the best way to predict the future is the make it.

ECHO360 Presentation Recording

Stuff to check out:

www.youtube.com/edu

webcast.berkeley.edu