Abstract
Most schools and universities now have online counterparts to face-to-face units/subjects through Learning Management Systems (LMS) such as Blackboard or Moodle. These sites usually provide information about the unit and its assessment, serve as a gateway to content and interaction tools, and are a portal to submit assessment and receive educator feedback and grades. As the sites become increasingly complex and multi-layered, an emerging practice is to provide a brief (for example, less than five minutes) video, often created by the educator. Some of the functions of the subject introduction video are to: self-introduce and create a teaching presence for the educator (particularly if made available prior to the first day of class); orient the student to the structure of the LMS and navigation to the overall unit; explain how the unit fits with other units and in the overall program; introduce the context, including how this unit contributes to skill development and graduate employability; and (perhaps most significant to learners) create transparency about how the student will be assessed and graded, how to access learning resources and when and where to submit assessment. The creation and inclusion of subject introduction videos is an emerging educational approach and the impact is, therefore, largely unknown. Students appear to like them. Recently, when these videos were discussed at a faculty-based Learning and Teaching Committee meeting, the student representatives were asked if they had any questions or comments. One student responded, “Can you please hurry and make them available for every unit?!” This paper describes and briefly reviews research that investigated the use of videos in universities.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 46-49 |
Number of pages | 4 |
Journal | Educational Technology Solutions |
Publication status | Published - 2016 |