Adam P Rusch
William Cope
Jason Berg
Duane Searsmith.png "Rita van Haren")
Rita van Haren
Eric Patnoudes
Maura Rodgers Brand
Jason Williams
Melanie Lamus
Heather A Ochmane-Learning Ecologies MOOC’s Updates
Video Learning: evolving multimodal teaching and learning tool
Multimodality is so ubiquitous in today’s media landscape that we hardly even notice it. Today’s students are already products of vast amounts of multimodal input from the world, and educators are actively harnessing the potential of digital multimodal meaning tools. Broadly conceived, multimodal tools and concepts can reinforce knowledge through a variety of inputs that appeal and engage multiple senses and cognitive capacities simultaneously. They also develop knowledge capacities when students complete a variety of multimodal outputs such as video essays, blogs, multimedia presentations, etc. Here I will focus on video learning, first as knowledge input for students then as creative output by students in order to facilitate and enhance learning.
The educational capacity of video emerged gradually with the progression of the moving image and has accelerated rapidly in the digital present. This is evident with the example of the relatively recent triumph of “how to” videos for home projects and training videos in the workplace streamed at an individual pace. YouTube is now the world’s second biggest search engine after Google (MacHale) and 70% of videos on YouTube are “how to” videos (“The Importance”). This very MOOC is delivered mostly through concepts chunked into videos with text.
A common misconception about videos, perhaps inherited from the age of mass-media, is that video is an inherently passive medium that does not engage viewers actively (MacHale). This is not necessarily true anymore however as the digital age has ushered in individualized viewing. Viewers can pause, go back and forward at their own pace, while learning videos can engage the learner through built in quizzes and knowledge checks.
Video provides many pedagogical affordances as it accommodates shrunken attention spans and today’s learners’ tendency towards hyper attention instead of deep attention. Effective learning videos should be characterized by: coherence, segmenting, contiguity, and signaling (“The Importance”). In other words, learning videos should stick to the essentials of the material, be 6 minutes or less, present images and the corresponding text together, and used cues to direct learners’ attention to key concepts. I found the following video about creating effective videos for learning to be particularly instructive, aIong with being a "meta" example of the multimodal effectiveness of learning videos:
Finally, I’d like to go beyond YouTube videos as educational input to take a look at the educational output potential of TikTok. Already hugely popular among teens, some innovative teachers are now harnessing the app’s learning potential. Students can work individually or together to supplement essays with short creative videos that demonstrate their understanding of concepts (Roderick). As a social media tool, TikTok assignments that are shared within a closed classroom group also promote peer-to-peer teaching among students while protecting privacy (ibid). Additionally, teachers can share TikTok videos that combine text with speaking as a form of multimodal teaching.
Works Referenced:
Edutopia. “How to Make Effective Videos for Learning.” 23 April, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Swzhq9Pnr0&feature=youtu.be 1:43.
“The Importance of TikTok Type Videos for Learning.” Commonwealth of Learning. 23 Jan., 2020. https://www.col.org/news/col-blog/importance-tiktok-type-videos-learning
MacHale, David. “The 4 Biggest Myths of Video Learning.” eLearning Industry. 11 Mar., 2016. https://elearningindustry.com/4-biggest-myths-video-learning
Roderick, Rachel. “How Teachers and Students are Using TikTok in the Classroom.” Learning Liftoff. 11 Feb., 2020. https://www.learningliftoff.com/tiktok-in-the-classroom/
What is New Media?
As written in his book “Understanding New media” by Robert Logan, New Media refers to, “those digital media that are interactive, incorporate two-way communication and involve some form of computing.”
Mark Tribe’s book New Media Art (2007) gives potentially the most current interpretation. He states that New Media is a mixture of Media Art along with Art and Technology.
Image Source:
https://nimcjahmedabad.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/what-is-new-media-in-mass-communication.png?w=620&h=310
A distinction between new media and old media is that old media is for the most part mass media. In addition, each form of new media is highly interactive, while mass media is not. Users of new media are active producers of content and information, whether sending an email or using Internet collaboration tools. Being an Interactive medium, new media has a great potential to change the face of education system. Actually it has started changing it.
New media includes:
• websites and blogs
• streaming audio and video
• chat rooms
• email
• online communities
• social media and sharing platforms
• mobile apps
• Web advertising
• DVD and CD-ROM media
• virtual reality environments
• integration of digital data with the telephone, such as Internet telephony
• digital cameras
New Media has become an invaluable tool not only for communication & marketing but also in the field of education as well. Generally, students use social media to share & get instant quick information, reviews & solutions to their problems.
But entire world realized the power of new media at Corona Virus Crisis. Entire world has been locked down and all education institutes are also shut down. This triggered the use of new media and a new avenue in education had opened up. YouTube, Google Classroom, different learning apps came onto lime light. ZOOM, SKYPE, GOOGLE MEET became favorite platforms for video lectures.
I being media professor in India, also took many audio lectures and video lectures on ZOOM. I and my students enjoyed the interaction. It was totally effective learning and teaching tool, in reference to COVID 19 lockdown situation. Another reason why students enjoyed it is they felt this medium as their own medium of learning. I hope in future though all schools and colleges will be opened, teachers and students will continue with this innovative medium.
While concluding, I must say new media is the future of education in India. Especially, AI, Machine Learning and Deep learning is started taking their space in education sector. New media has helped entire world in all way possible to keep in touch and let our learning continue. COVID 19 hold our “Education” not “Learning” and only reason is NEW MEDIA.
Reference:
Book:
Narayan, Sunetra sen; Narayanan, Shalini; India Connected: Mapping the Impact of New Media; Sage Publication India Pvt. Ltd, 2016
Weblinks:
https://online.seu.edu/articles/what-is-new-media/
https://www.webopedia.com/TERM/N/new_media.html
http://www.shawnlawson.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/NewMediaAndEducation.pdf
you have made some great points in this update! To me there are two points that need to be considered when creating/using videos as a learning tool. First is that of quality. Filming, lighting, sound, editing and effects need to be above average in order to have a result that will be interesting, professional and won't tire the viewer. Also in terms of quality you need to have an excellent speaker( if you have a narrator) otherwise it becomes hard to follow. Second, although I totally get your points on interactivity, I would say that to me it would be really hard to follow a course solely based on videos. One integral part of learning is that of producing yourself some sort of material (assignment). With videos, although you can have quizzes and polls, it's really hard to incorporate interaction such as writing or linking of other sources/materials.
It's great that you can stop and search for a term and then continue
Thank you for the update. In my current role at Bosch, we consider video as essential learning format to transfer knowledge to employees in an effective way. As described in the video you linked, we try to keep each video as short as possible and rather split videos into several pieces called learning nuggets.
The challenge is how we can design high quality videos on the one hand, and ensure cost-efficiency (time, required capacities) on the other hand. My idea is to use a tool or application that facilitates development of high quality video content for employees. Any ideas, tips and feedback are welcome :-)