Engage! Top 6 Best Practices that Foster Learner Engagement with Online Instructional Video

I've been watching Philip Guo at the University of Rochester closely since I stumbled across his great research on instructional video usage in MOOCs. This month, he is publishing a paper for the Association for Computing Machinery Conference on Learning at Scale that has very useful recommendation on ways to foster learner engagement with online instructional video. I love this paper and you should take the time to read it in detail because it contains more than 6 recommendations. However, for those in a rush, here's my interpretation of the Top 6 of his recommendations that resonated most with me:

1. Video length can significantly affect engagement. Shorter videos are much more engaging to learners. Invest in pre-production lesson planning to segment videos into chunks that are no longer than 6-7 minutes in length, if possible. 
2. Videos that intersperse an instructor’s talking head (where the instructor looks directly into the camera) with slides are more engaging than slides alone. Invest in post-production editing to display the instructor’s head at opportune times in the video. Avoid displaying the instructor’s head for the entire video unless there are no slides that accompany the presentation. 
3. Videos produced with a more personal feel could be more engaging than studio recordings. In videos where there are few slides and more video of the instructor’s talking head, try filming in an informal setting related to the subject matter of the video (i.e. office, lab, in the field, etc.) instead of a formal production studio. 
4. For step-by-step problem solving walkthroughs, Khan Academy-style tablet drawing tutorials are more engaging than slides alone. 
5. Videos where instructors speak fairly fast and with high enthusiasm are more engaging (especially for instructors who's native language is the same as the language of the course). The pace can be accelerated compared to conventional face-to-face lectures. This also has the indirect positive effect of keeping video length shorter (see point 1 above). During post production, consider removing some speech pauses including “umms” and “ahhs” if they are present too frequently. 
6. Learners engage differently with lecture-style conceptual videos compared to step-by-step walkthrough procedural tutorial videos. For lectures-style, focus more on the providing a good first-watch experience from beginning to end. For step-by-step walkthrough tutorials, make it easy to rewatch and/or skim the video. For example, clearly number the “step” in the process as the process develops so that students can easily orient themselves in the tutorial video when they re-watch relevant parts. 

What do you think of these 6 best practices?  Do you have experience with any of them?  Would you add any others to this list?

Add Post To:

Video is KING in distance education

With the field of Distance Education exploding due to the maturation of the Internet, it’s no wonder more good quality free academic content is finding its way on the web. Here’s a great example that I just learned about from Dr. James Harris at the University of Leeds in England. It’s called The Faculties and it contains video snipits of senior-level highschool (or junior-level university) lectures spanning several fields including Biology, Chemistry, English, History, Math, and Psychology. To date, they have produced over 360 videos with a promise of more to follow. If you are not in the business of distance education this repository remains useful. Instructors can request downloads of the videos so that they can be played for students even in classrooms that are not wired for the Internet.

This semester I am teaching a second year chemistry course via distance and I have some students in the class that have asked me if I could provide links to some useful videos on specific topics. Naturally, I am always on the lookout for them so I was very excited to learn about The Faculties. I’ve watched about a dozen videos so far and they are very good. There is definitively something for everyone in this repository and you can stay up-to-date on the progress in building this repository via Twitter (@thefaculties). Have a look at some of the videos and let us know what you think. Do you know of other similar free video repositories other than the standard YouTube search? If so, let us know by leaving a comment below.

Add Post To:

Must Watch: The best Prezi of the Year!

A colleague of mine, Dr. Jean-Marie Muhirwa, recently returned back from the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE) E-Learn 2011 World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare & Higher Education held in Honolulu, Hawaii on 18-21 October 2011. He told me about one keynote presentation that had a very high impact on the audience and after seeing it myself, I have to agree that it's one of the best prezi-type presentations I have ever seen. If you are new to Prezi, then check their website out. I asked Jean-Marie to give us a little summary of the morning of this presentation, and this is what he wrote.

The Techno Troubadour and Teacherpreneur by Amy Burvall and Herb Mahelona was undoubtedly the most popular keynote presentation of the conference. The big Hawaii Ballroom at the Royal Sheraton was packed despite the fact that it was schedule at 8:30-9:30 am, a bit early by Waikiki standards where there is so much to do and even more to see 24/7. Most of the attendees grabbed a muffin or a croissant and a hot drink form the tables at the huge entrance hall and rushed in the room. Everyone was eager to secure a good spot, close to the stage and to the big screen. Because of their creative work, the presenters have arguably become superstars in the field of EdTech. They were featured in a Washington Post article and are regularly interviewed scores of by mainstream and specialized publications, mostly in North America and in Europe. No small accomplishment for what started as a collaborative effort from a World History teacher (Burvall) and a technology specialist (Mahelona), both from Hawaii. The result was the successful History for Music Lovers to teach history online through music parody. Over the last few years this partnership took the initial project to new heights by addressing some of the most fundamental and complex issues related to online learning, creativity, copy rights, social justice, etc. No wonder the resulting prezi made Educational Technology scholars, academics and practitioners from around the world rub elbows that early in the morning on October 19 2011. Although there were a few glitches during the playback, especially since it had to be fast-forwarded to selected videos due to time constraints, it looked like the engaging prezi stole the show to its creators’ live presentation. However, the packed conference room shrunk to less than 20 attendees during the Keynote conversation with Burvall and Mahelona, scheduled 10:00 – 11:00 am the same day. Not blessed with the gift of being everywhere at once, I had to follow the crowd to equally inviting concurrent sessions. The one I was heading to was entitled’ A Novel Pedagogical Evaluation Model for Educational Digital Storytelling Environments by colleagues from Greece.

• Gosh, I wonder how much time they spent putting together the whole thing, one attendee asked me unexpectedly while we were exiting the room.
• A lot, I bet!... That’s all I had the time to reply before our paths diverged.

On my way to the next presentation, I overheard another attendee mentioning to his friends that he was impressed by the engaging prezi but couldn’t quite see how he could possibly harness its potential to benefit his online students. There you go! Even the prezi of the year didn’t escape the rule: there is no meeting of academics and professional s without hard questions. Assuming the technical skills and the subject matter expertise are warranted as it was the case in the Burvall-Mahelona partnership, where do you find time and pedagogical skills to design a prezi that is worthwhile to your students? A good question to ponder during the upcoming holidays while enjoying the best prezi of the year.

So after seeing the prezi, what do you think? Any juicy tidbits in there that are interesting to you? If so, leave a comment below.

Add Post To:

cck08: Wesch Strikes Again!

I can't get enough of this. The University of Manitoba recently posted the video of Micheal Wesch's June 17, 2008, talk entitled "A Portal to Media Literacy" where you can get a glimpse into how Micheal organized a couple of his classes at Kansas State University. He strives to create platforms of participation for students that leverage the emerging media environment. He shows how to let students participate in their learning in an open way to harness the 'upload world' they are familiar with. Some great illustrations of practices in wiki and RSS aggregator usage are found in this video... just in time for this week's CCk08 topic of Instructional Design and Connectivism! Food for thought!

In fact, I'm revamping one of my courses for Winter 2009 (Biol2: Intro to Molecular Biology) and I am going to use a wetpaint wiki as a type of portal for my students to bring together course information. I'll be sure to write about it on this blog once I get the wiki slightly more crytalized.

Note: image credit located here.

Add Post To:

The Reflective Teacher

If you are a teacher then you are acutely aware that the level of effectiveness of ones teaching can vary from day-to-day and class-to-class. In fact, some days the effectiveness level is high while other days you are not so effective. Personally, I’ve often walked out of the classroom feeling that a particular class went horribly. So what do you do in situations like this? Well, you start by thinking about it… by reflecting. Many people have written about the reflective practitioner or the reflective teacher. In fact, many educators use the process of self-reflection with their students when developing skills in the classroom. Journaling is the classic example of this. Documenting the process of reflection can help the progression to solution finding. In the 21st century, blogs have facilitated the sharing of self-reflective material – they are much easier to distribute and access then hard-bound journals.

This web 2.0 concept of sharing when applied to professional reflection is very powerful. Have you ever wanted to be a fly in the classroom of a respected teacher to see how she does it? Have you ever wanted to read or hear the reflections of that same teacher on the effectiveness of their teaching? I’m guessing you answered YES to both of these questions. If so, this 13 minute video will be interesting to you. Filmed in the Fall of 2006, it shows a glimpse into the classroom of Queen’s University mathematics professor Leo Jonker and subsequently documents his reflection on his teaching style.

What do you think about Dr. Jonker’s video? Leave a comment below.

Add Post To:

TeacherTube!

Ok, we all know what YouTube is and today I learned about TeacherTube. Basically, it's YouTube for education. It has a wide variety of videos that are useful to educational practisioners and students alike. Some of the types of videos you will see there include tutorials on software tools, presentations on education (alternate link), lessons on how to add fractions, and thought provoking videos on a historical concept. TeacherTube hosts many interesting video clips and there is likely something for everyone. Despite some bandwidth and downloading slowness that I experienced while using the site, I still give big kudos to TeacherTube. Keep going.

Add Post To:

Video animation can be powerful

As most of my readers know, I am a trained biochemist. When I went to university and while I worked in the field, most of the cell biology that I came to know I had learned by reading a text description and by looking at a two-dimensional static cartoon representation. I had to extrapolate these rudimentary items into a three-dimensional dynamic mental model that was useful for me when conceptualizing cell biology concepts.

Well that was then, this is now.

Thanks to BioVisions at Harvard University, they have produced a video animation sequence of how a leukocyte (a.k.a. white blood cell) works at a basic level. The video animation is so detailed and so powerful that it comes very close to the kind of three-dimensional dynamic mental model that I was taught to create for myself all these years. My first reaction while watching this was quite emotional really. To finally almost ‘see’ what I’ve been trying to ‘imagine’ by entire scientific career gave me an amazing feeling.

The animation video is available in two formats:

1) A non-narrated three-minute version with a powerful music overlay. It can be found on this page and it auto-starts.

2) An almost nine-minute version that contains the same animated sequences as the three-minute version; however, it is slowed down to accommodate narration of the action. It can be found here under the title “Inner Life of the Cell”.

Take a peek at the video and let me know what you think from either a scientific or non-scientific perspective (or both!).

Add Post To:

Does Web 2.0 mean anything to you or your students?

Are you having trouble seeing how Web 2.0 ideas like Blogs, Wikis, Mashups, Social Bookmarking, and Podcasts relate to you or your students? Do you have trouble seeing the difference between the old Internet and Web 2.0? This video created and produced by Micheal Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, may help you connect the dots on these concepts. It was added to YouTube 2 weeks ago and has already received over 1 million viewings. It's a powerful video. I love it. What do you think about it?

After watching that video, and thinking about it for a bit, take a look at this video response posted 5 days ago by CoreyTheRaven. Pretty cool.

Add Post To: