Week 4: Videos

Evaluation of an instructional video:

Well, I am cheating here! I will be evaluating my very own video. My digital circuits class for college freshmen engineering students was flipped 3 years ago and since then I have been using the same recorded videos of mine. I am getting sick of them. They serve well but I am sure they can be better particularly now that I am more aware of the multimedia design principles. Video below is the very fundamental principles of decimal system to binary system conversion. It talks how decimal system is defined and how it can be converted into binary counting system which only has ones and zeros as numbers.

I will follow the “10 factors to consider when evaluating a podcast” pdf file (ISTE, 2007):

1.      The content is appropriate for the current area of study as it deals with the binary conversion which is the building concept of the course.

2.      The video enhances my lesson plan. Students watch the video first and we do decimal to binary conversion activities in class. By watching the video (and eventually doing a quiz online), students come to class prepared.Video is appropriate for general audience, including my college students.

4.      Content is easy to understand and follow. One thing maybe is my writings are not that great, which shows my initial struggles using the writing pads.

5.      The video is not that excited. It does convey the information but is not necessarily entertaining or stimulating enough.

6.      The video is on youtube so it is easily accessible by any digital device.

7.      The source of the video is credible! Hey, it is me who created the video, it is the best! ;)

8.      Watching this video will definitely help students to have a kick start on the topic but they will not fully learn the material by just watching this video. Complimentary in-class activities and homework assignments are needed.

9.      The video is not really supported with additional information links. I could have mentioned some additional resources in the video.

10.  The video is open to public.

Use in the classroom or educational setting:

If you have been following my blog, you should be getting some ideas about digital circuits by now. This time, I have created a video about digital circuits in general to give you an idea the size of the circuits. I used to design circuits so I was able to pull materials from my own resource. This video will be used to give students the idea that circuits are really small and we want to be very efficient in designing them. Students will be asked to watch the video before the class and perhaps be given credit for an online quiz. In the class, students will see the chips physically and be able to observe them under custom made smart phone compatible microscope stages. Youtube video here is created using Screencast-o-matic.

The learning objective would be:

“Students will recognize the need of creating small circuit components in an efficient way to reduce the cost.”

Students then can be asked to create similar presentations using online screen capturing programs and presentations can be posted on Blackboard to create a learning community.

Application:

I think using videos as a part of learning is very powerful and it addresses many design principles that are stated by Mayer, 2014. Spatial contiguity is applied by putting related text next to the images in the video. Voice was indeed used instead of computer generated sound to foster generative processing.

Reflection:

I created my previous videos using Panopto recorder. This was my first time using an online video capturing besides jing. I liked it. It was easy to upload to youtube as it already had an option to do so, which prevented me saving the video on my local computer and having to upload to youtube afterwards.

I do not clearly understand what tension is supposed to mean. Also, creativity is another thing I am stuck on. I am not sure what I need to be talking about those in terms of creativity. Could someone give me a hint on that?

Citation:

Mayer, R. E. (2014). Research-based principles for designing multimedia instruction. Acknowledgments and Dedication, 59.