VideoActive

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.

Does this sound good? The use of ‘streaming’ digital video and audio to support web-based learning resources is rapidly becoming an attractive option for many educators and an area we are exploring actively at GCU. 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.

Workshops

GCU is at the forefront of development in this area thanks to substantial funding from the JISC. Together with Lancaster University’s renowned Centre for Advanced Learning Technologies we are developing a dynamic and innovative programme of staff development workshops for delivery throughout the UK on time-based media use and development for HE and FE. Linked to these will be the coordination and support for mini-case studies with an aim to collate and disseminate good practice and build a proactive and reflective community of practitioners.

The first workshop will be running at GCU in April but you can get involved right now. If you have an idea for a case study and a genuine enthusiasm to put these exciting ideas into practice with your students, contact Ross Little, our Project Officer, based in eLISU, on Ext 1333.

The VideoActive programme will run on from the JISC funded Click and Go Video: Access for All project. The aim of Access for All was to develop pedagogically sound, practical solutions to enable educators and content providers to make their video resources accessible. Of those of us currently using digital video to enhance our students’ learning experiences, how aware are we of the accessibility problems that students with sensory impairment face? Here at Glasgow Caledonian University alone we have over 500 students who are registered with the Student Disability Advisory Service.

With an emphasis on affordable technology, our workshop series and printed guide look sure to offer realistic options for those in the HE and FE sectors, after all, accessibility isn’t just about a small minority of students, it can help everyone.

Last Updated: 31 October, 2005
Edited by: Learning Services Web Team