We're all YouTubers now!

Reflections on creating video content for teaching...

Over the past few months, I have been reflecting almost continually on the challenges associated with creating video content for teaching. This has emerged out of the wish to create video-based materials as part of the development of course materials for the MAPP 'distance'. It has also emerged out of the use of Swivl for the 'Go Luck Yourself!' (GLY!) project, which allowed me to video-record myself (on an iPad or iPhone) running each session and upload the clips on to YouTube. So I am not so much discussing the use of existing video within a course, but instead the value of creating videos of, say, a tutor talking through some of the course content or an interaction between two or more people discussing the course content.

My reflections here focus on weighing up the different ways of creating this kind of video content. In this way, I am in a way side-stepping the question of the need to creat video content fullstop (I will come back to this). I am assuming that video content is desirable that it enhances course materials and that it helps learners/students (you decide what you want to call them!) to engage with said materials. The two main methods of creating video content I will refer to are either (a) self-created or (b) created with the help of a camerman.

Using Swivl to film oneself (or indeed others) falls into the former category, and some examples of materials created as part of the GLY! project are provided on my PGCert Bb organisation. In terms of the latter category, we recently booked time with a Learning Technology Ambassador (LTA) working within the Open4Learning unit to help with the development of materials for the MAPP 'distance'. The still below shows a break in the filming last Friday as we filmed with Dr Andrew Machon, Visiting Teaching Fellow at the University, and key guest contributor on the MAPP.

A  break in filming

The idea about having some segments 'professionally' filmed and edited is that this will produce much higher quality recordings that will be more engaging for learners and generally 'look better'. However, I am quickly becoming of the view that self-created video content (such as that produced using an iPad and Swivl) produces quality that is 'good enough' and importantly one can do without the need for a cameraman and needs little nor no editing. The value of this is that one doesn't need to book time with a camerman well ahead of when the materials will be needed to allow the time needed for rendering (?), editing, etc. This is of enormous importance when considering the pressures on teaching staff to create (or 'convert') course materials as one is often not in the position to create course content months in advance of the scheduled running of the course (see my experience running the Intro to Positive Psychology distance learning module the first time).

In light of this, I am now wondering whether working towards creating video content with the help of a cameraman is such a good idea. Indeed, as part of the filming last Friday, we shot some more 'conversational' material (i.e., conversational interviews between Piers and Andrew) using two cameras. From a learning perspective I would imagine these elements would be more engaging than the original 'talking heads' we were filming, but I felt that these would work just as well (if not better) as simple audio recordings as the video was not adding much of value. Given the extra difficulty created by trying to film these 'professionally', I was left with the feeling that much simpler audi-recording would be preferable here. This would be something I could do myself and could be created as 'podcasts' to form part of the course materials.

So perhaps video content is not needed here after all?