A recent coaching workshop at Missenden Abbey allowed for an unplanned, yet very helpful, meeting with a colleague who offered to meet again today (also at Missenden) to go over what I had done so far for the PGCert. It gave me an interim deadline to work to, and I need deadlines!
It also gave me an opportunity to do a little filming with the Swivl. So I popped out into the beautiful grounds at the Abbey, set up the tripod, Swivl and iPad, and recorded a little 'welcome' video for myPGCert Bb organisation. A little gimmicky, perhaps, but it did allow me to have a bit more of a play with it and showed that filming with this can be done anywhere and is simple to do alone. This contrasts with some recent attempts to do filming with a cameraman, etc. to produce video materials for the distance MAPP for 2015-16. So much easier to film and upload, rather than film bits that need a good deal of editing, etc.
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?
One of the projects I was working on over the past year was something I was calling 'Go Luck Yourself!' (GLY!), a research project in which I wanted to explore the impact of certain apsects of positive psychology upon people's experiences of 'luck'. The project built upon previous research I had conducted on the psychology luck that formed my PhD (something I have blogged a little about elsewhere).
The GLY! project involved six fortnightly sessions in which participants were introduced to a set of related ideas based upon psychological theory that might impact their experiences of 'luck' (that is events that happen to us that are seemingly brought about by chance or other factors beyond our control). The reason I mention it here is that the GLY! project involved an online element, so that participants could take part without having to attend sessions at the university and could participate fully online. Or they might choose to attend some sessions in person and some online. This was made possible by my filming the sessions I was running at lunchtimes on campus (using Swivl and an iPAD or iPhone), and posting these on a specially constructed Blackboard organisation for which I gave participants guest usernames. I have included these materials in my PGCert submission (itself a Bb organisation) to give an idea of how these materials looked and how they were presented to participants. An example of one of the recordings (the first of three parts that comprised session 1) is embedded below:
At the beginning of the project, prior to the first session, participants were asked to complete some online assessments (via PsychData.com, a secure service that allows online surveys and other psychoological assessments) and then complete the same assessments at the end of the project, up to 2 weeks after the final (sixth) session. They were also asked to keep a 'Luck Journal' throughout the 12 weeks of the project to record their experiences of luck (both good and bad!) during this time, along with any other thoughts about the GLY! project and luck in general. They could do this as a hard copy journal (and were provided with a book for this) or they could post their journal directly on Blackboard using the 'journal' facility on there.
A Twitter account for the project
was also set up to help promote the project and also to support
participants by reminding and encouraging them to view the sessions (if
taking part online) and to remember to keep their Luck Journal. I even created a 'tongue-in-cheek' hashtag #DFYLJ (Don't Forget Your Luck Journal!). Those participants who completed the online assessments at the end of the project and submitted their Luck Journal received a certificate of completion.
I presented some initial findings from the project at the Applied Social Sciences Research Group in March 2015 and will also present as part of the Applied Positive Psychology Symposium in May 2015 (slides are in my PGCert submission Bb organisation, and can also be viewed via issuu.com here).
My reflections here focus on the effectiveness of the online element of the project, specifically how engaged online participants might have been. The long and short of it is that they weren't. Of 66 participants who originally signed up to take part (by completing the online assessments at the beginning of the project) only 14 (21%) completed the assessments at the end of the project (despite several follow-up emails to encourage completion). It was also clear that engagement in the project by those viewing the online materials quickly dwindled as the number of views of the video-recorded sessions reduced after the first couple of sessions.
In essence, I think there were two main reasons for this. The first is that I had originally intended to make the sessions far more interactive than they ended up being. They became more 'instructional' and I was aware that people's time was quite limited. The small number of people who attended in person were doing so in their lunch-break and so I was keen not to take up more than around 30 minutes for each session. Similarly, I was sensitive to the fact that those viewing online wrould be more likely to watch clips that weren't overly long (and I was limited to uploading in 15 minute parts due to YouTube's restrictions).
The second main reason is that I would have liked to given more time to building a 'community' for all participants that the online participants would have felt part of and perhaps supported them through the project. I attempted this a little through the use of a specific GLY! twitter account (@go_luckyourself) and by encouraging use of the discussion boards on Blackboard. But, if I am being honest, these were really a half-hearted attempt to create any sense of community.
I am considering running the project again in some way and looking at ways of making the sessions more interactive and introducing additional ways of supporting participants through a communityor example, maybe framing it as the 'Go Luck Yourself! Challenge' and explicitly asking those taking part to use social media to report on how they're getting on? One other simple change may be to make it a 6 week programme with one session (or 'lesson' or 'step') each week, rather than once per fortnight. Something that might help put it into the routine of participants.
