What type of multimedia resources could you use?
Creating content to use within your teaching is a great way to enhance your students’ experience. Multimedia resources can be added in a number of different ways from interviews with experts in the industry to case studies and simulations.
Creating a video with an industry expert or guest lecturer is an easy way to add video into your teaching and learning material for a module. This could be simply recording a talking head video interview with the expert about a topic within the module.
Having interviews with experts in the industry is a great way to enhance your module and give it reach outside the classroom. This approach can get a certain learning objective across to your students in an engaging way while giving it industry relevance.
You may even want your students to help devise the questions for the interview, thereby gaining specific information that they feel is relevant to them.
You can easily create a video using your own mobile device to film the interview. Please ensure all permissions are obtained before recording and sharing any videos created.
Some examples:
– Adam Civval, Derby Graduate, from Greendog Media, discusses what the future holds for mobile technology and its use within business.
– Claude Littner, Business Executive and star of BBC’s The Apprentice, discusses his varied and successful career and shares tips for students.
Instructional videos can be used to help students gain knowledge on technical skills through an instructional format. These types of videos are massively popular on sites such as YouTube, where users can follow a step by step guide to a achieve a certain task. Thereby sharing the knowledge and expertise of the person creating the video with the audience.
Instructional videos are great way of providing a reusable resource for your students to watch and understand core skills required. These videos can either be watched within the classroom or given beforehand to use online and creating a flipped teaching approach. An example of this is by demonstrating a particular chemistry experiment before a practical session.
Instructional videos can also enable your students to gain an understanding of what is required in the industry once they graduate.
Instructional videos can be created in a number of ways and the clarity of the content is what makes these videos work, not necessarily the production skills of the creator.
Most viewed instructional videos on YouTube consist of a single shot of the person doing the instruction while talking it through to the audience. This can be done with a single camera, a mobile phone or an iPad on a tripod.
Instructional videos can also be created from your desktop using screen capture or a webcam using Panopto.
Case studies and simulation videos can be used to create an insight to a ‘real world’ context. Real world experience is invaluable, so case study and simulation videos are a great option to put students in situations they could not experience in a traditional learning environment
Case study videos consist of a real/dramatised story that your students watch and act upon as if they were encountering it in the workplace. Depending on the subject discipline, this could vary from a mental health patient that needs assessment, to following a police investigation which students work through as the story progresses.
This type of video enables students to assess and critique ‘real world’ issues in a safe environment, where there is a lot more room for error, whilst offering the opportunity to give an insight into how professionals would operate in the workplace. The key benefit of this type of video is that it gives students the chance to experience greater interactive participation, allowing students scope for discussions and debate around the issues raised in the videos.
You can create these videos as simply as setting up an interview (or talking head) to create your case study. This could be an expert in the field (or an actor) which the students can then watch and deconstruct the video content.
Some videos are interview based around a business were students are given more information as the weeks progress. These shorter videos can be staggered on delivery to make the students adapt to change from their first decisions, just as they might do when they working in the industry.
Some examples:
The idea of this video case study was to show the policing students a crime scene, working their way from an arrest of a suspect through to the cross examination in court. The various different sections allows for discussion and debate at the end of each section. This gives the students a greater knowledge base to their learning.
The idea for this case study video was to create a journey of a student suffering with paranoia, where the students had to watch a series of videos with Jeremy either creating a piece to camera or filmed as a scene. Once created this case study has also found its way into teaching on many other courses and it has lots of different use around mental health and safeguarding.
Videos to encourage reflection on performance are used to give the student (or their peers) the opportunity to view and critique their skills. An example of this kind of practice could be used with students to peer review each others presentations and give feedback. This is therefore used to aid review, allowing the student to gain practical feedback and review evidence to support it.
In subject areas as diverse as drama, nursing, law and education, video footage can be an extremely useful tool to effectively review performance or practice.
Recording a performance can be achieved in many different ways, with one of the most typical scenarios is recording the performance of a learner while standing up in front of a group presenting. Capturing this scenario using the lecture recording system in the room is a great way of making sure all the elements of the presentation (audio and slides) are recorded and if the room features a webcam, you can also caption their posture and body language.
Videos are also a great tool to encourage discussion or increase engagement. Any video used within your programme has the potential to be used to encourage discussion or increase engagement. However you may choose to show a video that you either find or have created that specifically poses a question or statement that will provoke an action and/or debate from your students. These types of videos could be case study based videos or could be contentious statements or topics deliberately designed to provoke a response or discussion.
For example, a case study video series could be released progressively, providing more information as you go through each video, giving students the opportunity to adapt their thoughts or responses as they progress. These case study videos could also deliberately leave out key information for the students to find out or discuss.
The reason for creating this type of content is to increase involvement from your students and get them to engage more actively during sessions. There are also several other digital technologies like polling systems that can be used in conjunction with these videos and you can then get a visual representation of the views of your students.
You can create these type of experiences with existing content that you can source. You can take a segment of an already created piece of media and play it either within a lecture and discuss it within the session or do it as a flipped approach, letting the students watch the clip beforehand. You could also create your own media to be used in this way, it gives you scope to design something to direct the debate in a particular direction and potentially make it more challenging for your students.
An example can be seen here
‘Record, Pause, Rewind’ a Low-Tech Approach to Teaching Communication Skills
A module introduction is where the lecturer creates a short video to introduce the module to the learner and establish the topics to be covered.
A module introduction used in this way can be a friendly and personal way to introduce the module to the learner, talking about what they will be learning, what reading they need to undertake as part of the module and how much contact time the learner will have with the tutor. Module introductions can also be used to enthuse the learner and enhance the learning experience.
These types of videos can be something as simple as a screen capture or lecture recording using Panopto, where the tutor can have a few PowerPoint slides going over the important points of the module. They can include questions for the learner to answer at a later date and provide information regarding reading material needed.
Another type of module introduction is a ‘talking head’ style video where the tutor is introducing the module with a predetermined script talking about the key points and identifying further reading.
If you have an optional module or one that is taught to a variety of different learners from different courses, you could create something more immersive and use the module introduction as a video trailer to help students decide whether the module is right for them. This could be created as a scenario or a short documentary to make it more interesting for the students. This sort of video is great as it can enthuse the learner, however, they are a more time-intensive type of module introduction to create.
Revision summaries are a great way of recapping core information to your students at the end of a module or topic. These videos can be used to effectively communicate to your students and provide extra support during a potentially stressful time for students. It can be a valuable tool to support exam preparation by creating short manageable videos to go over key points from a topic and target areas for revision.
There are many ways this can be achieved such as:
– Creating short recordings using the lecture recording system at your own desk by picking up on certain issues students are coming across while studying the topic. This could be a short 2 – 3 minute slide show videos emphasising the more difficult parts of the topic. This recording could be released to the whole cohort or just to the students who need it the most.
– A discussion video with students who have gone through the process, talking about their thoughts on how they handled it and giving advice and techniques to help other students.
– One of the most effective ways of creating a revision resource, especially in more practical subjects, is to create instructional videos, which the student can re-watch in their own time.
Other forms of multimedia can also be used to enhance your teaching: