Networked Learning Conference 2004 |
Organised By: Mireia Asensio
RATIONALE
Imagine you could use a technology that could capture students’ attention
that could engage them and bring to them a richer, more meaningful and more
vivid learning experience. This technology would not only provide on demand
access and opportunities for student interaction; but could also enhance your
teaching practice to open up new ways of representing, delivering and sharing
your subject discipline. Through the use of this technology you would visualise
a process or show how something works, moves or performs live, without the
need to rely on purely text forms. With this technology, you would enable your
students to ’be there’ without the constraints of time, space and
safety.
The use of ‘streaming’ digital video and audio to support web-based
learning resources is rapidly becoming an attractive option for many educators.
The vision is clear: to move away from the static text-dominated content currently
prevalent on the web towards a media-enhanced environment. Video itself can
be used in many ways: ‘talking head’, interviews, video diaries,
video labs, simulations, instructional sequences, ‘fly on the wall’,
video help etc. However, the web is not a simple delivery medium. Through the
browser video sequences can be linked to slides, text conferencing, whiteboards,
video conferencing, shared applications, online assessment and third party
web sites. This seamless combination of digital video with other tools offers
an opportunity to move beyond the current understanding of video as a simply
presentational tool.
The JISC/DNER Click and Go Video project and Click and Go Access for All, have
identified and began to meet the need to promote the sharing of practice, reflection
on practice and critical examination of the experience of using video and audio
resources by students and staff. Although there appears to be some sense of
community among technical and support staff, teaching staff users are dispersed
and there is therefore insufficient sharing of pedagogic research and evaluation.
An unexplored facet is how this technology adds to the visual literacy of participants,
teaching and support staff as well as the students. The aim of this symposium
is therefore to contribute to the community development and growth of practitioners
working in this area, particularly teaching staff that wish to share their
experience of designing and evaluating learning events.
The symposium proposes to capture four different examples of visual literacy
practice in the areas of namely: Sport Health and Exercise, Chemical Engineering,
Postgraduate Induction for Writing and Critical Thinking Skills and Health
Sciences. Each paper will describe their rationale, the processes, tools, concepts,
frameworks and theories that have and are influencing their work for developing
video and audio resources in their particular areas. The presenters will also
explore the notion of engagement for learning, on becoming visually literate,
students’ reactions, and learning outcomes that have emerged through
their empirical research.
In addition, the presenters will examine the usefulness of resources developed
within the JISC/DNER Click and Go Video such as the Decision Tool (Thornhill,
Asensio and Young 2002) and the Three ‘I’ framework of Image, Interactivity
and Integration (Young and Asensio 2002) to inform and assist their work at
the different stages of development. The Click and Go Decision Tool has been
designed to help and guide practitioners towards achieving educationally meaningful
video and audio resources. The Click and Go Decision Tool is intended to provide
a way of unravelling the often complex ideas practitioners have for using video
and audio and provide a route to clarify their intentions through understanding
the primary focus of what they wish to achieve. The examination of the above
and other practical tools and theoretical frameworks is intended to enable
more informed and researched choices, to the practitioner that wishes to start
a new journey in the area of visual literacy.
By looking in-depth at four research examples in an interactive setting, practitioners
will be able to also consider how to make their subject more visually appealing,
more fun and engaging. Seeing value and recognising the potential of visual
literacy for education, is one of the core challenges for the new generation
of e-learning technologies (Asensio and Young 2002). In addition, the seamless
combination of video and audio with other tools offers the prospect to experiment
with these technologies as a focus for networked learning (i.e. learning events
that involve interaction and dialogue between learners, teaching staff and
the resources themselves). It is equally important to explore how video and
audio technologies can indeed provide not just individual but networked learning
opportunities, and to consider and discuss within the symposium, what we can
do as a community of practitioners to move this forward in the future.
This symposium will be useful to practitioners (teaching staff, developers,
support staff, researchers and students) working or wishing to learn more about
this community of practice. It is related to the conference themes on design
for networked learning, new technologies and the relationship between research,
theory and practice. The symposium will involve presentations with examples
of video/audio material and the opportunity to engage with the ideas and issues
through the use of facilitated discussion groups.
REFERENCES
Asensio, M and Young, C (2002) The new visual literacy: the pedagogic value
of streaming video, European Distance Education Network 2002 Conference Proceedings
395a-395e
Thornhill, S Asensio, M Young, C (eds) (2002) Video Steaming: a guide for educational
development, sponsored by the Joint Information System Committee (JISC), UMIST,
Manchester, UK.
Young, C and Asensio, M (2002) Looking through three ‘I’ s: the
pedagogic use of streaming video in Banks, S, Goodyear, P, Hodgson, V and McConnell,
D (eds), Networked Learning 2002, Sheffield, March. Conference Proceedings
628-635
Using Video in Health Sciences Teaching
and Learning
Valerie Cooper
Engaging First Year
Chemical Engineering Students With Video-Based Course Material
Grant M Campbell, Arthur A Garforth and Andrew Bishop
Analysing the pedagogical value
of video treatment and text in a digital media application
Richard McCarter
Student Reaction to Video-streamed
Content: Does it Enhance Knowledge and Understanding?
John Erskine and Marc Jones