1st ICODEL Conference
Pre-Conference WorkShop
Manila, Philippines
22 February, 2012
The day before the commencement of the 1st ICODEL Conference in Manila, pre-conference workshops took place. Curtis Bonk opened his workshop, Technology-enhanced Teaching and Learning, with a session entitled The Rise of Shared Online Video, the Fall of Traditional Learning. He argued that video can play a major role in bringing learning alive. He started off by showing videos from the History for Music Lovers Channel, where an American history teacher has remixed popular songs to relate historical events. Some videos can be inspirational. Some can convey a great deal of information quickly and easily – Apple makes major announcements through video. Flipped classrooms, where teachers video-record key material for students to watch outside class, allow in-class time to be devoted to more engaging learning. There are growing banks of Open Educational Resources on the web which teachers can draw on. It’s also becoming common for conferences to be filmed and keynotes to be made available to the world. For a list of useful educational videos, see Curtis Bonk’s Shared Online Video Resources, Portals, and Pedagogical Activities, which includes sites like Academic Earth, Book TV, GETideas.org and Howcast.
Bonk listed key reasons for using video which have emerged from research, including:
- dual coding theory, i.e., the idea that information learned verbally and visually is more richly stored (Alan Paivio)
- anchored instruction, macrocontexts (John Bransford)
- multimedia theory (Richard Mayer)
- anchoring learning (i.e., finding an anchoring event for the learning)
- starting online discussions before class
- initiating a pause-and-reflect process
- stimulating reflections on key concepts
- find useful video resources for class
- edit collections of videos to sift out the most effective examples
- preview and discuss videos before class
- create videos to summarise their learning
- evaluate and update archive videos from past years/cohorts
- send effective videos to the teacher, with those chosen for class viewing receving bonus points
- share videos across classes or even institutions
- find videos that support, or contradict, their side of a debate
Bonk concluded with some key pieces of advice for educators using videos:
- consider the underpinning learning theory or approach that makes videos more powerful than other media
- get students to reflect on why or how you are using them
- the length of video for activities should be short (under 10 mins, but preferably under 4 mins)
- get students to create videos, not just watch them
- get students to find some course videos rather than looking for them all yourself
- watch and approve all videos before selecting them, and test for linkrot
- have a backup plan if links don’t work or bandwidth is limited
- have a guide sheet to foster students’ reflections
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