From the course: Teaching Techniques: Blended Learning

Designing courses to blend with video

- Video is perhaps one of the single most powerful tools for blended learning, from both a teaching and a learning perspective. It's a foundational technology that every teacher and student needs to become as comfortable creating, as they are consuming. The art of video itself is a blended medium that has become pervasive in nearly every aspect of our lives. As with any art form, we usually begin by trying to use the new medium to do what the current, or familiar one, already does. Learning to leverage this new medium for what it can really bring to the table takes time and creative experimentation. In this chapter, we'll look at creating and distributing video based content, but in this movie, let's look at how we effectively use this technology in a blended course. The obvious use is to distribute instructional materials or lectures to our students. The first impulse here is to record an existing lecture, post it to our course site, then call it done. While this may be an efficient way to push out content, it's not necessarily the most effective way for the information to be used. Instead of recording an entire lecture, consider breaking that content into logical chunks that focus on specific topics. By chunking the content, we allow our brains to focus on the content and incorporate it into our knowledge framework. It also allows for better random access to the information when we need to fill a specific knowledge gap, by allowing learners to jump straight to a particular topic when they need to review a concept. Moving beyond the lecture, video is really about making a human connection to your students. With all the personality that gets expressed by your voice, your face and your actions. You make connections to your students in your face to face classes all the time. Use video to strengthen those connections online. Here are my top five tips for making great instructional videos for your students. Number one, focus on your story. As teachers, we're naturally story tellers. Let that side of your personality come through. Number two, know and talk to your audience, your students. Take a class picture at your first class session, and keep that picture nearby when you're recording, so you always know who you're talking to. Number three, find a quiet spot and capture good audio. We will forgive bad video, but we can't tolerate bad audio. Number four, start small, and focus on good enough. As with everything in blended learning, finding that right blend for your students and your class is the key to success. Number five, relax, take a deep breath, and smile.

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