International Journal of Arts & Sciences, CD-ROM. ISSN: 1944-6934 :: 5(5):417422 (2012) Copyright c 2012 by UniversityPublications.

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RICH VIDEO LECTURES: THE TEACHER UNCANNED

Javier Sarsa Garrido and Rebeca Soler Costa University of Zaragoza, Spain
Video Lectures are more and more frequently used as a resource in both formal and informal education. Sometimes called webseminars or canned lectures, they can be recorded synchronous (live) or prepared asynchronously. The increasing broadband availability at homes has allowed a better video streaming quality and the synchronization of video with other multimedia elements such as presentations, animations, screencasts, quizzes, Web links, etc. As a result, we obtain Rich Video Lectures which have a substantial number of advantages and go further than simple video documents, which usually show the teacher confined to a main video area. But the majority of students in traditional educational institutions are enrolled in face-to-face modality. How useful is this technology for them? Can it contribute to a better learning or higher results? Do they prefer it to common text and image contents? This paper shows the outcomes of the experience carried out with university students who were using recorded Rich Video Lectures as a complement to their face-to-face education. Keywords: Video lectures, Rich video lectures, Multimedia, Streaming.

Introduction A long time ago it was already recommended that motion pictures might be used to approach entire courses to schools. It appears that this idea of a canned teacher who can bring a whole course into any well supervised anywhere holds great promise for small schools or remote communities where size, location or budget seriously limit the number of teachers or courses (Foy, 1957). Different researchers analyzed the possibilities of traditional educational videos (Ferrs, 1988; Cabero, 1989; Bravo, 1994). However there have been important advances since then, curricular tape videos were used as support for curricular contents with a limited impact, but today Internet is offering unprecedented possibilities. Innovative tools have been developed to allow the creation of more versatile products; video lectures must not be strict and boring. They even can reduce student isolation feelings, because they may become Rich Video Lectures using a wide range of interactive and/or social activities inserted in the lecture flow. In this way Rich Video Lectures break the monotony of the linear lecture, metaphorically releasing the teacher from its container: the teacher uncanned. In fact, every day more and more audio and video based contents are delivered through Internet, podcast, vodcast, vlogcast, screencast, webseminars, flipped classrooms, digital storytelling, etc. Elements of this list are only a few examples of contents which take advantage of the communication power of multimedia classical elements, in combination with the great progress in bandwidth and quality of current networks, which are capable of delivering rich contents almost instantaneously and without annoying transmission breaks. For example, at this time, every minute, 60 hours of video contents are uploaded to

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YouTube1. Today, Khan Academy2 has delivered over 155 million lessons (educational videos) worldwide and hundred thousands students are connecting monthly. The digits are simply impressive. In fact, mediatization of education is reaching all its aspects: lectures, textbooks, activities, collaboration, tutoring, assessment, etc. We share the definition of mediatization as a process through which core elements of a social or cultural activity (like work, leisure, play, etc.) assume media form (Hjarvard, 2007). Therefore it can be stated that delivering lectures through Internet should be considered as a strong form of mediatization of education. Students and teachers must assume, and we think at least the first ones do it kindly, they must increasingly access to online contexts and contents, study over and with them and make a more intensive use of learning environments capabilities. These whishes do not draw a harmful horizon for learning, on the contrary there are studies revealing good outcomes as a result of this change, as we will remark later. For us, Rich Video Lectures are an emerging technology. According to Veletsianos (2010) emerging technologies are referring to new tools with a promising potential. On the other hand the meaning of emerging itself holds the idea of increasing and Rich Video Lectures are being increasingly produced. Therefore, have Rich Video Lectures come to stay with us? The history is plenty of inventions which finally disappeared. Technological innovations and advancements have brought about massive societal changes. But in comparison, the impact of technology on education, teaching and learning has been rather limited (Bull et al., 2005). From Podcasts to Rich Video Lectures While podcasts (which surges from iPod broadcast) are based on voice recording, vodcasts (video on demand cast) and vlogcasts (videoblog broadcasting) are based on video. Although, in general use, podcasts often contain music, for learning purposes the primary component is usually speech. Podcasting uses voice as an alternative channel to text. There is much debate about possible benefits of podcasting in face-to-face education (McKinney, D. et al., 2009) but we are really interested in video contents. Educational videos have gone ahead audio podcasts and simple videos. Nowadays, conferences, lectures, practice activities, all of them in online streamed video format, are used with intentional learning objectives in the majority of colleges and universities. Alexander (2011, p.219) centers his research in the specific use of shorts videos (digital storytelling) in education, both by students and teachers. Many specific curricular situations call forth tailored uses of digital storytelling. First, teachers can create digital stories about the content they teach. A decade ago, this would have been considered producing learning objects; in 2010, these are simply content items, learning materials. However, from this paper vision, we are not focusing in the potential learning that would be acquired during the video composing process, but in subsequent phases of learning, when students are using the videos to study with them. Videos with a specific cultural or educational intention, with a curricular aim (Cebrin, 1987), which are often produced and delivered by teachers live through the Web, have made up a specific category. They are called webseminars, sometimes flipped classrooms or video lectures, and they are usually recorded and published online. Lets remember now the very successful example of Khan Academy, with several hundred thousands of users per month. Khan Academy videos are stored in YouTube and also in own Khans servers. But Kahn academy website adds extra assessment activities (called challenges) which are external to the video watching, that means, they are not intercalated in the video flow. This option complements videos but it is not synchronized with them and that is why they cannot be considered as rich videos. Apart from the most famous websites of video distribution, like YouTube, Vimeo, DailyMotion or Veoh, in which we can find learning videos as well, some specific educational video websites have emerged. Some examples are Videolectures, YouTube Education or the universities (MIT OpenCourseWare Video Lectures, Princeton Event Streaming WebMedia, Open Yale Courses, Stanfords Coursera or PoliTube at Polytechnic University of Valencia). Many of them are storing webinars.
1 2

http://www.youtube.com/t/press_statistics http://www.khanacademy.org

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Sometimes instructors share their screen to show how to use specific software. Screencast is a digital recording of computer screen output, also known as video screen capture. Screencasts usually include audio narrations and are used to show software functionalities (Sun, 2009). They can be passive or active. In their passive form, the most likely strategy for the use of screencasts is exploration when screencasts are combined with other activities that allow the learner to practise what they have learned, they can also play a key role in an instructional strategy (Onlingnment, 2011). Screencast websites as Atomic Learning or Lynda are good examples of successful educational video based contents. Ahmad et al. (2011) made a pre-test post-test experimental design comparing screencast with narration and those without it. Screencast with narration was significantly more effective than screencast without narration in enhancing students learning performance. Moreover, from the observation, it was revealed that screencast with narration, published and shared online, can be a potential strategy in reducing learning duration. Carter (2009) offered the students a number of screencasts with programming concepts. Students were asked to watch and study them before attending the classes. Concepts included into the screencasts were after treated in class. As a result of this experience students understood the material more thoroughly (Carter, 2009). Thus, recorded video lectures may serve as a prior contact or for a later study session. Rich Video Lectures (or recorded webinars) are audio-video based lectures but in general they have the characteristic they are produced and delivered synchronously through Web, allowing the collaboration and interaction of participants. In realtime Rich Video Lectures teachers often have the added capability for sharing applications, drawing into a whiteboard, launching web URLs or proposing quiz activities. When the whole session is recorded the lesson can be put at the disposal of participants for future use. As it has been highlighted the complexity of different products varies substantially. They may contain from the teachers image and voice to even a blackboard (or whiteboard) in realtime, shared applications, interactive contents, quizzes, etc. Considering this little mess in terminology we consider necessary a short classification of these names from the semiotic viewpoint (type of media channel). This sorting will be useful to establish what differences between systems exist and how their evolution has been. In audio driven contents, like a podcast, the voice or narration constitutes the leading track of the message. In video driven contents audio and video are defining the pace of the user synchronously. Rich Video Lectures are multimedia contents in which audio and video is also driving the user but they sometimes include enriching tracks which add extra activities to the main discourse. The following diagram illustrates the process of enriching audio-video streams.

Instructor Instructor saudio sVideo PODCAST Screen capture

Applic.
sharing

Whiteboard

Slides

URLs

Quizz

VODCAST FLIPPEDCLASS

VIDEOLECTURE SCREENCAST WEBINARS LECTURE

RICHVIDEO Usually

Sometimes

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Cognitive Considerations Rich Video Lectures have to be carefully designed in order to have a high learning impact without overloading our mind. The bad design of some contents can lead to fail in effectiveness. Arguably many developers have failed to pay greater focus on the potential cognitive overload caused by information being presented too much and too quickly, or by the simultaneous appearance of moving elements, narration and on-screen texts in their design that may impede learning (Bell & Bull, 2010; Mayer, 2002). While a podcast is using only an information channel, other products use combined sensorial stimulus. Screencasts with narration utilize both visual and verbal channels in the memory structure. For Mayer (2001) splitting information in different channels can attenuate cognitive overload resulting in effective learning. However the case of simultaneous text and narration is special because they are received through different senses but they have to be decoded by the same brain area. In this case splitting information is not enough. The possibility of user to control videos is essential for effective cognition and reasoning (Ahmad, 2007). When used in a correct manner and combination, the role of video as dynamic visual representation might be a powerful tool in enhancing teaching and learning outcome (Montazemi, 2006). Video with adequate verbal support is supposed to be more effective in assisting students cognition (Ahmad, 2011). Vest suggests, for effective pedagogy and avoiding distractions, the video segments are kept short and simple with not longer than 10 minutes (Vest, 2009). Another shortage that researches attribute to video lectures is this lack of interactivity and social communication. Jonassen & Reeves (1996) seem to regret that in educational communications, contents are encoded visually or verbally and later, during the instructional process, students perceive the messages, for example in video, and interacting with technology only in an occasional way. However even recorded video lectures and interactive books could be developed in a way able to allow collaboration, thus reducing the isolation feelings and fostering interactivity. Some suggestions to gain a more active and engaging learning while students are studying may be launching time-limited interactive activities over the Web, games, test, etc., link to social spaces for chatting, always regarding the treated themes, sharing notes with others, etc. Therefore it is necessary to merge both focuses, the instructivist and constructivist one, in some way students can take from each one the dose they prefer. Description and Results Our experience at the Faculty of Education of the University of Zaragoza has been focused in the application of several Rich Video Lectures to a reduced group of students. We were confident the results of this experience might satisfy the students preferences and improve their motivation and results. Therefore we used a questionnaire to collect their answers. Description 5 Rich Video Lectures (theme/topic was ICT) were created with BlackBoard Collaborate. There were 50 students enrolled in RVL experience. Finally about 20 filled in the questionnaire. Students have been studying with RVL instead of Web pages of PDF. Average study time spent for each RVL was 55 min. Average study time spent for each RVL was higher than any lecture duration itself because they rewound and repeated fragments of the videos. All of them did evaluate RVL as positive for studying: 100%. High score for usefulness of RVL: 8,5 points from 10 possible. Almost 80% of the students said they would prefer to study with RVL to classical contents.

Results

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All of them considered important the existence of teachers image. This was one of our unknown factors. Scores for the usefulness of different tracks which are complementing the teachers discourse (slides, quizzes, web URLs, software screencast, etc.) have been evaluated with high scores (from 8.3 to 9.1). These scores are reinforcing our idea of the uncanned teacher, that means, teachers are released from receiving full attention by the students. There was no consensus when they answered if RVL would displace classical text contents (in a range 1-10, average was 6 in favour of RVL). They complained about bandwidth and synchronization problems. The lectures were recorded online (with BB Collaborate), and it would have been better with an offline tool (like Camtasia or Captivate). We were wondering if the high cognitive load of Rich Video Lectures was going to suppose a problem but there was no complain about this.

Conclusions The canned teacher format has demonstrated to have some disadvantages. Nowadays Rich Video Lectures present some limitations like other asynchronous contents and methodologies but enriching tracks contribute to release the teacher. If students isolation feelings in e-Learning can lead to a shortage of motivation and enthusiasm (Lee & Chan, 2007) perhaps Rich Video Lectures will have to include more interactive and social activities. Therefore, it would be desirable Web conference tools would make possible students to continue developing collaboration tasks after the recordings. Even when teachers already were not be there, students would follow in contact while they were watching the recorded session; they could make and share their annotations or solve in group the problems suggested in the recorded classroom. This is a next challenge for software development companies. We share the urgency that Snelson (2008) stresses referring the need for research related to the effectiveness of video lectures in education, instructional design issues and methodologies based on educational videos. Teachers must measure which technologies lead students to a better learning, considering their improvement in outcomes and grades. Assessment systems should also be designed in concordance with the technological methodologies chosen. The efforts done must be measured in order to achieve a realistic return on learning. We are expecting to make an intensive use of Rich Video Lectures in our instructional model to add value for the students and, why not, if possible, achieve a higher impact on scores than with traditional models. Finally, we think Rich Video Lectures are a crucial tool to reinforce the study time with more visual and engaging contents. Teachers have to get down to work to gradually change the classical paradigm of designing poor text based contents embellished with a few images, to another one, more audiovisual and interactive, which allows students to have more visual and engaging experiences. References
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