How to use 360-degree video to engage students online and off

In their personal lives, today’s students have traded in reading for watching. Whether getting a makeup tutorial on YouTube or learning ways to crack the code of their favorite video game on Twitch, they use screen time to discover new content and expand their horizons.

In the classroom, educators have the choice to fight this trend, or to embrace it. I understand the apprehension many educators have to increase screen time in the classroom, but ignoring students’ own learning preferences and inclinations is doing them a disservice. Video facilitates retention. As studies have shown, that kind of embodied learning can help students better understand the material, and immersive experiences help with retaining information.

I got a real sense for this while attending a virtual reality (VR) conference in Chicago when I put on an HTC Vive headset and was immediately transported onto a NASCAR race track. In the most complex advertisement I’ve ever seen, I was asked to change the race car’s tire and then hand the driver a Big Mac. From those couple of minutes moving around, waving my arms into the blank air, I got a vivid look at the car as I worked my way around it, and that virtual burger is emblazoned in my mind.…Read More

How to revolutionize video on your campus

In 2016, the media capture and storage system we used at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) in Boca Raton, Fla., had reached maturity. Cooperation between faculty and IT staff had yielded a video system that benefited students and teachers, but it was time to take the next step.

We wanted to expand the reach of our video offerings by introducing mobile delivery, as well as provide meaningful metrics to faculty and staff. The current system did not provide any margin for growth, yet we could not abandon the existing progress. FAU looked for the next generation of video delivery that would offer the new features needed, while also preserving the existing media. With these requirements in mind, we selected Mediasite as the new media capture, management, and delivery platform.

Start with a pilot…Read More

5 great ‘Great Courses’ worth sharing

From the origins of Earth to the greatest orchestral works, here are some Great Courses worth sharing with your students

great-course-videoThanks to massive open online courses (MOOCs), video lectures are currently all the rage.

Of course, pre-recorded lectures are not anything new. They’ve been around for decades, sent out as part of distance education courses through snail mail.

Since 1990, one company has even been producing slick videos of college lectures that rival the production value of today’s flashiest MOOC lectures.…Read More

3 tips for enhancing instruction with video

Videos often involve more than just a talking head. Dynamic speakers break down important concepts to make it easy for students to understand

video-instruction-tips

Video offers a rich, audio-visual means to grab students’ attention and generate discussion, but it can be difficult to know what kind of content to include and when to include it. Content should be relevant, engaging, and provide insights students wouldn’t be exposed to through traditional instruction, like that from a textbook.

I’ve compiled three tips to help professors sort through the clutter, find what they need, and boost their lessons with help from educational video resources.…Read More

How MOOCs are evolving with video technology

Crack open most massive open online courses (MOOCs) today and you’ll typically find three things – MOOC course documents (syllabi, eTextbooks, calendars), interactive elements (discussions, wikis, assignments, quizzes), and video lectures.

video-tech-moocs
Analysts predict that by 2016 lecture capture will become as ubiquitous as eMail on campuses.

Video is critical, not only because it distinguishes MOOCs from earlier text-heavy open courseware initiatives, but also because the video lecture is the medium that allows MOOCs to bring a high fidelity in-class experience to massive audiences online.

Yet amid the MOOC hype cycle, the issue of cost-effective video capture has largely been ignored. Most MOOCs remain agnostic on the topic, leaving the video choice to their member institutions.

For many participating universities, this “bring your own video” approach is unnecessarily ratcheting up their MOOC costs.…Read More

Oops! We could not locate your form.