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Vicki Louise McDermott-Thompson

‘Snackable content’: developing effective bite-size video screencasts to support undergraduate psychology students’ learning.

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Edited by Vicki Louise McDermott-Thompson, Thursday, 16 Jan 2020, 21:17

H818 Conference Abstract

The use of screencasts as an instructional technology is growing significantly in higher education (Wakeman, 2013). Screencasts are bespoke, typically short, digital videos which involve an audio voiceover talking over a ‘screenshot’ or series of ‘screenshots’ which are displayed on a computer screen (or other compatible device). It has been argued that screencasts offer a way to open up education beyond the confines of the classroom (Miller & Zhao, 2017), but that effective development of screencasts is dependent on a number of factors including:

  • Perceptions of innovations in higher education (Shneckenberg, 2009).
  • Appropriate hardware (infrastructure) and software (tools) (Ehlers, 2011).
  • Technological skills, competence and confidence of the practitioner (Soden, 2017).
  • Pedagogical ‘fit’ with practitioners practice and student need.
  • Adequate time to prepare, develop and create content.

A combination of factors can therefore act to facilitate or inhibit the creation of effective screencasts. Research into screencasts tends to focus upon how students perceive screencasts for learning, how they use them and why. Whilst it is important to understand the way that students respond to the use of technology as part of their learning experiences, capturing the views and perspectives of practitioners (in this case higher education lecturers)  is vital when taken with what is known about what makes for an effective screencast (Sugar et al. 2004).

Taking this as its starting point, this project will focus on the practitioners perspective and consider ‘what works’ and ‘what doesn’t work’ in regards to developing screencasts by drawing on research literature and first-hand perspectives of educators to explore why technology was used in their teaching and what they aimed to achieve through incorporating it into their practice. Drawing on practitioners’ experiences, and under the theme of implementation as it relates to the development of screencasts, this presentation will explore current best practices for producing effective screencasts to engage learning. The presentation will be accompanied by a multimedia resource which draws together 'what works', providing advice and tools for 'How to Make a Good Screencast'. 

The use of screencasts is continually evolving and they can be utilised effectively across a range of domains including training, staff development, teaching and blogging (Ruffini, 2012). This presentation is therefore likely to be of interest to a wide range of practitioners, both inside and outside the higher education context within which the project is situated.

You can view a multimedia poster about my conference presentation here: https://biteable.com/watch/final-poster-2419028

For more information about the H818 Conference go here: http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/OU-H818/ 

Reference list

Ehlers, U-D. (2011) ‘Extending the territory: From open educational resources to open educational practices’, Journal of Open, Flexible and Distance Learning, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 1-10.

Miller, D. B. & Zhao, A. (2017) Opening Up Higher Education with Screencasts. In: Jhangiani, R. S. & Biswas-Diener, R. (eds) Open: The Philosophy and Practices that are Revolutionizing Education and Science. Pp. 125-138. London: Ubiquity Press.

Ruffini, M. (2012) Screencasting to Engage Learning [Online]. Available at https://er.educause.edu/articles/2012/11/screencasting-to-engage-learning (Accessed 7 January 2020).

Schneckenberg, D. (2009) ‘Understanding the real barriers to technology-enhanced innovation in higher education’, Educational Research, vol. 51, no. 4, pp.411–424.

Soden, B. (2017) ‘The Case of Screencast Feedback: Barriers to the use of Learning Technology’, Innovative Practice in Higher Education, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 1-21.

Sugar, W., Crawley, F. & Fine, B. (2004) ‘Examining teachers’ decisions to adopt new technology’, Educational Technology and Society, vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 201-213.

Wakeman, C. (2013) ‘The Innovative use of Screencasts in Higher Education’, Innovative Practice in Higher Education, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 1-5.


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Simon Ball

Conference Questions

Hi Vicki

Here are the questions and comments from your conference presentation - please respond in whatever way you wish!

Best wishes
Simon

  • Perhaps it should be individualised. Decide on pedagogy before deciding on methods/tech.
  • I love the word snackable - is it another word for 'micro content' as described earlier by Karen?
  • I know I got to grips with concepts via video (visual and audio) in the early days of MAODE. It makes sense to offer a few ways to explain key ideas. 
  • Do students watch the screencasts as individuals, or are you using them in a flipped learning context -- enabling group discussion?
  • I can see how this would work really well in my online teaching.
  • are any of your students reluctant to using these sorts of technology (screencasts) if so why?
  • How polished does a screencast need to be? Relative to how polished a live/interactive session might be?
  • this is making me think our team could use screencasts for an OER we're planning to co-author this year as a CPD activity for the team which will also help the TIDE project.
  • Is this a better alternative to lecture capture?
  • would it help  your overeas students ?
  • finding time to learn it is a big stumbling block and getting the software approved and paid for (the free versions are often inadequate 
  • Are students all F2F  students?..Would this apply to distance students?
  • i imagine lecture capture is more popular with practitioners who don't feel they have time to do anything "extra"
  • Apologies if this is a silly question - but, what software do you use to create screencasts?
  • I can see plenty of applications for distance learning. I really like the idea of this
  • The issue is always enabling people to create the content! Most students will benefit from most content one way or another
  • Vicki, do you have other examples of screencasts apart from using as a poll?
  • also could the studnets crate their own as part of an actovity ?
  • Thinking about practitioner experience... for an online EFL teacher training programme I ran tutors had to give student screencast feedback on assignments. Students loved it, as it helped them feel closer to their tutors. Tutors hated doing it, as it was so time consuming and the tech didn't always work so the y would lose their recordings ...
  • the ums and ers make them more 'human'
  • not having to polish would get more buy-in!


Denise M

Really found your project useful and on trend ;-)

(oops I left it on the article post by accident!)

Hi Vicky,

I did H818 - 2 years ago and have joined the online conference since. It is so interesting to hear what everyone is up to. I contacted Simon to find out your full name so I could let you know how much I enjoyed hearing your talk and that I plan to recommend it as one of my 3 'innovations' in my TMA01 for H817.

I am on Twitter at @d607 or you can email me at denise607@gmail.com

I created the Mobile App for study guide if you want a peek and of course reuse it or pass it on I can provide a copy. Many of your cohort were very focused on mobiles wink

https://sway.office.com/aGoSSjbrDqONjV1o

Thanks and all the best,

Denise McDonough