In Autumn Session, we reacted. The incredible speed with which the university went from predominantly face-to-face to fully online is something to be proud of (and an experience we won’t soon forget!). For many, it was the first time using new technologies and new modes of teaching. Zoom emerged to fill the role of many synchronous discussion-based classes, while other lessons made use of asynchronous, pre-recorded lecture content videos that students engage with whenever they choose.
Now in Spring, we move from reacting to acting. Hopefully the initial flurry of learning new systems and rapid adaptation is behind us, and there’s a little more time to breathe and take stock of the situation. It’s hard to imagine a world in which the traditional, large on-campus lecture is coming back, and so we find ourselves asking the question: what does a more online and blended mode of teaching look like?
To help answer the question, this week we unveil a special collection of resources that focus on converting your face-to-face lecture content for online delivery. Online and blended does not have to be simply ‘face-to-face, but recorded’ (and indeed it’s not!). Instead, asynchronous learning based on pre-recorded content has different considerations, strengths and limitations to on-campus sessions. The good news is, as we become more familiar with online video, we’ll find it opening up a whole host of new opportunities for interaction and engagement.
In this first batch of a new series of resources, we explore some light-touch ways you can use the unique properties of asynchronous, pre-recorded multimedia to create richer experiences that support more active learning. You’ll also find steps for requesting a mailed-out microphone to improve the sound quality of your recordings, how to source broadcast and other pre-existing video from the Library, and if you’re on campus, you can take advantage of our hassle-free pop-up recording spaces.
Over the coming weeks and months, we’ll be supplementing this with more guides, resources and workshops that explore multimedia use beyond the documentary-style lecture ‘content’ videos. From low-fi mobile phone updates to scripted roleplay videos, the opportunities to use multimedia in your lessons are vast.
For now, check out the new resources we’ve added this week. As ever, if you need any advice or assistance the LX.lab has a dedicated Media Team who can help you achieve your goals – find out about our services and lodge a ServiceConnect ticket to get started.
New resources
How to Structure & Chunk Your Video Lecture Content
Taking your first steps in moving from a 1-hour content block to something else? This resource looks at how and why to split up a long piece of lecture content for online delivery with the (unfortunately-named) practice of ‘chunking’. Chunking aids student comprehension and provides more opportunities for engagement.
How to Introduce and Frame Your Video Content
Encourage active participation and aid understanding of video content by providing a content summary of the video, context, and/or instructions for students to read before watching. This resource contains loads of examples you can use to set expectations, contextualise and historicise, foreshadow, justify, and activate your video lesson.
How to Design Learning Activities In and Around Content Videos
Encourage students to engage more deeply with video content, and find suggestions for quick activities you can set before, during, and after the video plays.
How to Make Pencast Videos
The temporal dimension of working through problems and drawing diagrams in real-time can significantly aid student comprehension. This resource explores both digital (screencast) and mechanical (pencast) ways of recording your annotations.
Enhancing Your Presentation Slides
Visual design and layout is another element that contributes to the cognitive processing of information. Find out how to use UTS templates as the basis for your slides for visual consistency, and some simple ways you can add animations (the timing and order of appearance, arrows, boxes and pointers etc.) to focus attention and improve comprehension.
Existing Resources
These new guides join our existing resources available to support your video production and deployment.
Making screen and webcam recordings with Kaltura Capture
Record your screen, your webcam, or both at the same time. One of the biggest benefits with Capture is that recordings can be saved and automatically uploaded directly to your Kaltura My Media collection, ready to be embedded directly into your Canvas or UTSOnline (Blackboard) site without any need to upload files yourself.
Uploading your media files with Kaltura My Media
Have you used some other program to create your media? We’ll show you how to get it into your subject with Kaltura, the university’s fully supported media platform.
Create Interactive Videos with H5P
Our newest learning technology can be used to add many different types of interactions to your videos (multiple-choice questions, fill-in-the-blanks, drag and drop, text overlays etc.). This guide from H5P explains how.
Finally, we host a bi-monthly Community of Practice event, with guest speakers and open discussion in which we share ideas and look at different educational use-cases. Find out about our previous meet-up, and register for the upcoming one:
Look forward to this learning session