Video and Online Learning: Critical Reflections and Findings From the Field

A terrific article by Anna Hansch, Lisa Hillers, Katherine McConachie, Christopher Newman, Thomas Schildhauer, and Philipp Schmidt.

Well, I think it is terrific, because if chimes with so much of my experience working on the design and development of Citizen Maths and FutureLearn's Assessment for Learning in STEM Teaching, and as a committed MOOC learner.

Here's the abstract:

Video is an essential component of most Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and other forms of online learning. This exploratory study examines video as an instructional medium and investigates the following research questions:

• How is video designed, produced, and used in online learning contexts, specifically with regard to pedagogy and cost?
• What are the benefits and limitations of standardizing the video production process?

This report presents an overview of current video practice: the widespread use of video and its costs, the relevance of production value for learning, the pedagogical considerations of teaching online, and the challenges of standardizing production. Findings are based on a literature review, our observation of online courses, and the results of 12 semi-structured interviews with practitioners in the field of educational video production. Based on these findings, we have developed a set of recommendations designed to raise awareness and stimulate critical reflection on video’s role in online learning. Additionally, we discuss some need for further research on the effectiveness of video as a pedagogical tool and highlight under-explored uses of the medium, such as live video.

You can access the full paper from http://goo.gl/MvXXCs. There is also this shorter version by Katherine McConachie and Philipp Schmidt on Medium.

Comments

[Richard Stacy]

Whenever a new thing comes along the default reaction will always be to try to make it work like the old thing it replaces - hence the tendency for MOOCs to default to being a video of someone giving a lecture. This is because we are frequently too lazy to think about doing things differently and often because the people doing it have a a vested interest in the old thing and don't want to face-up to its (and thus their) potential redundancy.

Revolutions are always defined by the fact that the new things don't look like the old things they are replacing. http://richardstacy.com/2014/03/13/sword-printing-press-algorithm-three-technologies-changed-world/