Will Hughes – School of Built Environment (Construction Management & Engineering)
Overview
The personal capture pilot project helped me to develop and test ideas to advance what I had been previously trying using YouTube. One important lesson for me was that shorter duration videos better engage students. I also learned how to record videos featuring more than simply a talking head. Using this technology for augmenting the usual pedagogic techniques was very useful. I would like to replace some of my lecturing using screen-cast videos, but I have learned that there is more to this than simply recording pre-prepared lectures for my students.
Objectives
My aim was to produce detailed explanations of points too elementary or too complex to address in lectures and to replace some one-to-one meetings. I aspired to produce a series of 5-10 minute videos that responded to specific student questions generated from lectures and emails. One specific idea was to support reflective portfolio writing.
Context
My motivation to join the personal capture project was to acquire screen-casting skills and to better understand the technology.
There were two key groups I chose to produce recordings for:
- 40 MSc students, of whom some were flexible-modular and off-campus except when there were formal classes. The main module was CEM102: Business of Construction.
- 142 BSc students on a Part 2 module: CE2CPT Construction Procurement.
Implementation
I tried using the webcam and laptop provided in the pilot. With these, I made some videos using the Mediasite tool, but the video and audio quality were not as high as I would have liked and the editing offered by Mediasite was very primitive, with no opportunity to fix issues like colour grading, for example. I preferred using my own professional-grade camera, microphone and lighting. I realised that I needed much better software than Mediasite and bought a license for Camtasia, which opened up a lot of interesting possibilities and made it possible to achieve what I had in mind.
Dialogue with students was around presenting them with a video and asking them to let me know what they thought, whether it helped and what kind of things they would like me to cover in future.
Impact
The most well-received videos were those that summarised assignment guidance in 10-11 minutes. My video on research conceptualization proved popular. The assignment summaries in CEM102 Business of Construction, for a Reflective Portfolio and a Case Study, were very impactful and prompted a lot of student approval.
One unanticipated experience was in using the technology for replacing a lecture cancelled due to bad weather; 66% of the students accessed this 55-minute lecture but for an average view time of only 18 minutes which I found to be a depressing statistic.
Reflections
Things improved as I progressed. Planned use of personal capture was much better than using it to overcome lecture cancellations. The pedagogical challenge is to figure out how to produce short videos that are useful to students. It was useful to work out how to provide simple overviews of things that would be helpful in the students’ learning and produce short videos based on this. I found filming at home better than filming in the office. I have learned the importance of issuing reminders about Blackboard-posted videos as students can miss the initial announcement and then never see the video produced for them.
I found the Mediasite tool itself clunky and challenging in terms of its permissions, lack of utility and quality.
Follow up
I still believe personal capture is useful but I am thinking about changing my strategies for how to use it. The changes are not technical put pedagogical. As I move to part-time working and ahve less contact time with students, personal capture may become indispensable for me.