MARIA ERB

Category: Best Practices

  • Why do we watch Ted Talks?

    Why do we watch Ted Talks?

    A few days ago, a faculty member I’m working with expressed her concern about producing online training materials that were just as boring and uncreative as a lot of the training she’d already seen especially webinars of people reading power points.  She felt a sense of inevitability as if anything online and instructional was synonymous with dull and dreadful.  But even though it’s easy enough to produce something that isn’t particularly engaging, we don’t have to  keep doing it. There is a better way. We can make something better.

    TED talks are extremely popular with audiences of all ages.  Why? It’s because they’re extremely watchable. Even when the speaker isn’t saying anything substantial at all we still watch because the stage presentation is so captivating. The singular human form framed by the dark expanse of the huge stage.  The dramatic delivery.  The well timed pauses. The supplemental imagery.  Add these things up and the speaker might as well be talking about something nonsensical (as she is in this “What is the Biggest Rock” parody video from The Onion) and it wouldn’t make a difference. We would still watch. TED talks are extremely popular with audiences of all ages.  Why? It’s because they’re extremely watchable. Even when the speaker isn’t saying anything substantial at all we still watch because the stage presentation is so captivating.  The singular human form framed by the dark expanse of the huge stage. The dramatic delivery. The well timed pauses.  The supplemental imagery.  Add these things up and the speaker might as well be talking about something nonsensical (as she is in this “What is the Biggest Rock?” parody video from The Onion) and it wouldn’t make a difference. We would still watch.

    Contrast that with the often painful content delivery vehicles that we foist on our online students.  Look at what we do to them on a regular basis!  There’s the  “Why did they put me in the studio, I have no idea what to do here” presentation of this many instructors (not mentioning names here).

    Or the “I’m Still Here, but I’m really really small now” screencast from many screencasts you’ve seen and probably produced yourself.

    I’m not singling out any presenters in particular.  This sort of thing is happening all over the place and in most cases, it’s something that can often be prevented by the instructional designers and instructional technologists who work directly with faculty. I’m sure most of us in the field have done these types of things before if we’re not still doing them now. From the looks of what’s on Coursera and many of the other MOOC platforms, this is still the norm in online learning.

    But why not take a page from the top?

    Michael Sandel’s “Justice” course lectures make incredibly compelling viewing even when they’re over the 30 minute mark. One of the reasons, other than the fascinating content, is the setting of the lectures in beautiful Sanders Theater in Cambridge, MA. The old wood charm, the spellbound audience, the simple podium all speak very strong body language before Sandel even utters the first word. You’re in a privileged position, in the company of giants, waiting to receive words of wisdom from a great mind. Even though millions across the world can experience exactly what you’re experiencing, it still feels very selective and rare. It makes you want to “be” there, even if “being” means being in front of your phone.

    Notice how the camera work and editing underscore the instructional content and support the viewer’s learning. And notice all the TED parallels? When Sandel is framed against the dark backdrop, we hang on his every word because his presence is so pronounced that we simply can’t focus anywhere else. When the camera pans the audience, we see such intensive concentration that we automatically pay attention more closely too. The audio quality is superb as well.   This is what we should be aiming for.

    While most of us don’t have anything like the majestic Sanders Theater to film our instructional media in, surely, we’ve got better settings than poorly lit, crammed offices piled high with books, papers, and coffee mugs. Best case scenario is having a fully functional studio to use. But if that’s not possible, finding a few nice spots on campus goes a long way towards making something watchable. Having a decent green screen set up comes in handy and fits into even very tight budgets.  Even on a shoestring budget, we don’t need to keep churning out stuff that is work to watch.

    To recap:

    WATCHABILITY is a THING: Make sure what you expect students to watch is watchable!  Good production values matter.

    CHOOSE WISELY: In many cases an audio file is a better way to communicate information than screencasts of slide decks that don’t have much visual appeal

    THE MEDIUM SHOULD SUPPORT THE MESSAGE: Use videography and editing to frame the content and underscore important points.  Make sure camerawork and editing support learning rather than hinder it.

  • Of Faculty/Staff Collaborations

    Of Faculty/Staff Collaborations

    Here I am in beautiful Costa Rica on a Sunday afternoon in the common room of the INBioparqué where Kate Regan is teaching a Spanish immersion class to 19 University of Portland students.  We’re here because of the WiFi.  Or rather the lack of it in other places.  While we started out with a plan, added a backup plan, revised, and tweaked until we thought we covered most of the bases, there is still no substitute for guerrilla project development. It’s the thing that works in the reality of your situation, not the thing you hope will work when you’re 5,000 miles away.

    We’ve had to deal with spotty WiFi and no WiFi, lack of cellphone coverage, and video uploads that bottleneck after a few megabytes.  We’re out of our element here.  Comfortable with high speed connections and easy communication tools, we’re in an alien landscape now.  But when you have to find a way to do what you came here to do that is exactly what you do.

    Be flexible.  Find a workaround.  Keep on going.

    Kate’s cross-cultural bilingual project aims to build bridges and community by engaging students with their new environments.  Students will be blogging and composing digital stories about the food, culture, music, lifestyle, family, community, and places of Costa Rica that will serve as more than a record of the 5-week study abroad program. It will be a valuable resource for educators, students, travelers, and others wanting to learn more about this incredible country.  As students reflect on their experiences and tell us about them, we get to engage with them on their journey and be participants in this transformational experience.  Kate is capturing so much of the richness of being here in the short videos she is composing.  It’s a powerful medium in good hands with a skilled practitioner.

    And me? I’m making sure we do what we came here to do.  I’ll leave in a few days knowing that Kate has the tools she needs to complete this project and that the students have the resources they need to feel confident about sharing their digital projects.   It is guerrilla development at it’s best — kind of stressful, a little bit crazy, but quick, purposeful, and on target.   And it works.

  • Rapid Fire Course Development

    Rapid Fire Course Development

    A few years ago, I was interviewing for a job as an instructional designer with a small private university in the mid-Atlantic region.  This school had a good number of online courses in place, no small accomplishment for an academic technology department of one person.  One of the interview questions to me was “What would you do if we told you we had to have an online course up and running in two weeks with a new instructor who has never taught online before?”  Run screaming in the other direction was my inner monologue.  Truth be told, I’d been in situations where even an 10 to 12 week development cycle was really tight considering all the media assets that had to be scheduled, developed, and produced along with all of the assessments reconfigured for an online environment.  This is on top of all of the training that needs to happen upfront for faculty who are teaching online for the first time.  I’m one for giving everyone involved ample time to prepare.  But adequate prep time, along with sufficient support staff, and reasonable timelines seems to be a thing of the past (say at least a decade or so) for most in higher ed.

    So why do I suddenly find myself thinking that a one week timeline for developing a new course is actually a good thing? Well, a lot has changed since I had that interview two years ago.  To be sure, things move even more quickly than they did just 24 months ago but that’s not a reason near the top of my list.  Developing something in a live environment, where you can see how students are receiving content, assess how well an approach resonates, tweak and rearrange in real time, and focus time and attention for a solid week can result in a better product.

  • Yes, Everything can be like DuoLingo

    Yes, Everything can be like DuoLingo

    Looks like Christmas is coming a few weeks early for those who made “learn to code” a resolution for the New Year.  Code Academy released a Duolingo style app (for free!) called Hour of Code that mimics the short-snippet lesson bites that are essential for successful learning in the digital age.  I’ve used Code Academy’s web-based environment before and lost interest very quickly.  Not enough going on to fill the big screen? Maybe.  I think the small screen is an advantage even for something like coding.  Think small and your expectations shrink a little. Not as much can happen in the smaller space.  It’s not as demanding.  You don’t expect as much.  And in this case, that’s a good thing.

    Each lesson is super short.  Maybe 3 or 4 screen’s worth, displayed one screen at a time with a 2 sentence intro and a task.  A micro concept is introduced.  There’s a short snippet of code on the screen.  You have to make the code do something by choosing from a few menu options.  Then press RUN and you’re done.   It doesn’t take a lot of time (and you don’t expect it too either).  Remember small is a good thing here.  Not a lot of time, not a lot of demands.

    But it’s these micro lessons that add up to produce mountains of quality learning.  The more consistent you are with using the app each day, the better for sure.  But even if you have lengthy breaks in between, it seems the learning sticks around.  The bit of Italian I’ve been learning from Duolingo has stayed with me even though I haven’t used the app much in a month.  I was able to jump back into a lesson the other day and found that I’d retained pretty much everything I’d learned a few months earlier.  I can’t think of too many learning modalities that would be so efficient or effective.

    The Hour of Code app teaches the basics of coding from their intro course and is designed to be completed in just one hour.  So it’s not going to cover an awful lot of terrain. I would be really curious to see how the Code Academy’s app would hold up under the weight of bigger programming tasks.  A design challenge that would be worth pursuing.  I’m pretty sure I’d slog through most of what they’d put out in this style which is more than I can say for the web-based version of Code Academy (or any other learn-to-code tool that I’ve encountered so far).  And I already know how to code.

    While small may be beautiful, really really small is just plain hot.  And effective to boot.

  • Explain Anything

    Explain Anything

    Some of the most frequently watched instructional videos are plain Jane screencasts.  They don’t look fancy.  They’re just a voice over an excel spreadsheet or a Word document.  It wouldn’t seem that anything so visually unexciting could result in something that gets rave reviews from students.  There’s definitely a secret to this success.  You know that question that gets asked every semester? Or that place in the lecture that always gets blank stares? Or that problem set that everyone stumbles on? Or that concept that no one gets the first time around?  You know that thing I’m talking about?

    Explain that thing.

    It doesn’t have to have lots of bells and whistles, but it does have to be clear.  It doesn’t have to be flashy or stylish.  In fact, the more direct, the better.

    As this screencast below shows, when students are in need of an explanation, they are looking for the thing that brings clarity.   Part of the reason this screencast has had nearly 80,000 viewers is that there are an awful lot of accounting students out there who are very confused about how to set up an accounting balance sheet.  They all need to do it for the classes they’re taking, but because they aren’t receiving clear instructions on how to do it, they’re surfing You Tube in hopes of finding something that will help them.  So necessity is a big part of the demand for screencasts like this one.

    But the other thing that makes it so successful is the tone.  This instructor makes you feel like you really can set up a balance sheet.  She has a very polite, respectful, and warm approach as evidenced by the comments on the video that refer to her “sweet” voice.  Bottom line: students found this screencast to be helpful to them.  They were able to do their homework because of it and they were very appreciative.  Here are some excerpts from the comments section:

    Thank you for the tutorial. It has really helped me, I was able to finish my homework and ACTUALLY understand what I did. Thank you again 🙂

    Well I learned more in the first 5 minutes than I did in 3h of actual class. Well done!

    thank you so much for making this vid, everything makes sense 🙂

    That really helped thxxxxxxxxxx

    it was great, I can do my homework without pulling out my hair.

    Thaaaaaaaaaaaaank you so much !!!!!!!!!!!!! That really helped i wish ur my teacher ,,, i loved it !

    Here’s another example that resonated with students.  This one explains the 5 paragraph narrative essay structure.  Again, the instructor is very warm and uses a tone that is respectful and empowering for students.

    So don’t dismiss the humble screencast.  It’s a powerful tool for learning.  Good screencasts explain something clearly and use a respectful tone.  While good screencasts are easy to produce without expensive setups or studio quality recording devices (in fact, the two examples shown above used the free web-based screencast-o-matic and a simple usb microphone), it’s still also easy to fall into common pitfalls.

    DON’T fall into the Incredible Shrinking Professor trap where you leave the small square talking head of yourself in the bottom corner of your screen during the entire screencast.  Introduce yourself at the beginning of the screencast then switch over to whatever you are showing students on the screen.  Anything else is just distracting to the viewer and detracts from learning.

    If you’re showing a text document on the screen and you expect students to be able to read it, make sure you are fitting the document (or portion of the document) into the capture window that is set to the proper resolution of the video itself.  Don’t capture your entire screen if you are showing a text document. 

    As much as possible, PLAN your screencast.  Use a topic outline.  Highlight key points.  Don’t just sit down in front of your screen and start talking.

    Editing Makes a Difference – If you’re using a high end package like Camtasia, you’ll have access to editing tools that make it very easy to produce a quality screencast.  If you’re using free ware, you’ll have to edit the screeencast file (usually in MP4 format) in another video editing program such as Adobe Premiere.  If you use YouTube to broadcast your screencast, you’ll have access to the editing tools there.  They are basic but will allow you to trim off the beginning and end of a screencast and also make minor edits elsewhere.  The more you can cut out long pauses, “ummms” and other errors, the better.  Starting over and re-recording is a good option in a lot of cases.

    Invest in a decent microphone – You don’t need anything too high end, but a good USB mic will make a noticeable difference.

  • Take it Personally

    Take it Personally

    One of the most important but often most neglected aspects of teaching online is being able to create a strong presence of yourself for students.  Especially if students aren’t ever going to meet an instructor face to face, it’s critical for them to get a sense of who is teaching the course they’re taking.  Course facilitators need to take every opportunity to inject a little bit of who they are into what they do online and especially into what they create for an online course.

    Using short videos to introduce a course is common practice.  Typically, this is a low quality effort, usually a faculty member sitting in front of his/her web cam flanked by bookshelves, papers, books, and other miscellaneous clutter.  While it’s always nice to see someone’s face, this doesn’t communicate much to the student beyond “Yep, there’s a professor out there….somewhere.  Even looks like a professor.”

    But communicating who you are matters even more in the online space when your students haven’t passed you in the hallway, heard you speak at a campus event, or read about you in the campus paper.  What matters is that students feel connected to you and to their classmates in some way.  If you’re not communicating anything more than “garden variety professor” it will be much more difficult for them to make that connection.

    Fortunately, there is a lot you can do to give students a sense of what you’re about.

    If you are kind of kooky, a little “out there” or just plain fun, you can show that as this instructor at Pittsburgh Technical Institute does in the video below.  Because I worked closely with her, I knew she was a very fun person who had a good rapport with her F2F students so I encouraged her to be as outlandish as she wanted to be and prodded her bit to see how zany she wanted to get.  She ended up with something that really gave students a good look at her personality while also giving them something to talk about.

    Even if a faculty member is particularly reserved, that doesn’t mean he or she can’t create an online video that is engaging to watch.  The script doesn’t have to be particularly revealing or personal, but what is said should be unique and descriptive.   People who choose to study medical coding and work in that field aren’t usually flamboyant, but this instructor in the following clip shared something very humorous with her online students that went a long way towards making them feel warmly welcomed and comfortable in her online course.

    In addition to showing students a little bit of who you are, intro videos should also show students the connection you have to your work.  Why are you teaching this course? What do you like about teaching it? What do you hope students get out of it? Why is it a valuable learning experience?

    So next time you need to create an intro video for an online course, strive to make it personal.

    To recap:

    Show Yourself – Let students see a little bit of who is on the other end of the course they’re taking

    Break the Ice – Tell a story, use an anecdote, put a smile on someone’s face

    Be Welcoming – Everyone likes to be noticed and recognized even in cyberspace.  Find ways to let students know you are there.