Short Video Walk-Throughs Help Your Students

Each semester, we face the challenge of getting our students properly registered with their login credentials for their learning management system, adaptive quizzing platforms, course software or websites, and online textbook resources.

I think that most of us provide detailed instructions in our syllabi, on a course website or (even better) a no-password public web page. But despite our best efforts at providing fool-proof instructions, there always seems to be a large group of students who just can't seem to get off on the right foot and hit one or another snags in trying to get logged into everything and squared away.

I've found that supplementing your written instructions with a personalized video walk-through of all the steps necessary works wonders.  By simply going through each step as a I describe it out loud while it's all being captured by video capture software, students can see exactly which buttons to click, which forms to fill (and what data to fill in), and can be warned off of possible pitfalls during the registration procedure.

I usually sign up using an email I set up using the name of my pet fish, Clyde.  But sometimes that doesn't work if I need a purchased product code or need an official student email address or other credential.  In those cases, you can sometimes get a trial product code or fake student credential from the powers in charge of those things.  For example, at one college we had one fake student in the system—which allowed us to test our courses.

There are many free plugins out there that allow you capture your voice and your browser activity in real time as a video clip.  Here are a few that I've used:

• Jing
• Snagit
• Screencastify (for Chrome)

By taking just a few minutes to walk (and talk) through the process while the browser screen is being captured, you can reduce student anxiety and give them a more positive "first impression" of your course. An added benefit is that you'll spend less time answering panicked calls and emails from frustrated students—giving you more time to prepare those brilliant class activities!

Here's a sample of a screencast in which I show my students how to get started with an online anatomy program that comes with their textbook. Notice that I start with a photo that's open in a viewer window that is in front of (overlaying) the browser window. After the introductory discussion, I close the photo viewer, revealing the browser, where I walk the student through the registration process.

Click here if the video viewer is not displayed.

Top photo: Raven3k

Bottome photo: theveravee

Photos and Video Helps Connect Students and Teachers in Online Courses

A recent post at Extra Credit: The Canvas Blog discusses their findings that the use of video in online courses may help increase student retention—at least in larger courses. This reminded of a phenomenon that I noticed over the first few years I taught fully online courses: photos and video can help connect students and teachers.

After decades of teaching traditional face-to-face courses and web-enhanced courses, I transitioned to fully online courses. The first thing I struggled with was the seeming lack of personal connection with my students, and among my students.

I found that if I used a clear and "happy" photo in my LMS (learning management system) profile, students started recognizing me around town and reported that they felt more "connected" to me than before.  And more connected to me than their other online teachers with no profile photo—or an unclear or "not happy" photo.

Then I started prodding all my students to post profile pictures. Face pictures, not vacation photos taken in front of Niagara Falls and not photos of their dog or favorite child. No avatars, either. And you know what? I felt more personally connected to THEM!  And they found they felt a bit more connected to each other.

Then something wonderful and unexpected happened. It was a course I teach in an online graduate program that trains anatomy and physiology professors. I had been using the iSpring plugin for PowerPoint to create short presentations that introduce each learning module in the course. There was a software upgrade that allowed me to embed a video of me narrating alongside the slides and outline. I thought I'd try it to see how it worked.

I got immediate feedback from nearly every student in the course! They loved, loved, loved it. Not because of my amazing face or resonant voice—they just loved finally seeing and hearing me as I presented the introduction. They reported feeling more connected to me. 

That program has a required summer seminar at the home campus near the end of the program. When I go there now, the students who have taken my course in previous terms tell me that they feel like they already know me well because of those videos. They tell me they can better pick up on my style of conversation, my sense of humor, what I think is important in the course, and my enthusiasm for my subject. And they appreciate that.

So now I'll never go back. I'll always find a way to include video of myself somewhere in each online course I teach. Because part of teaching is being there for students. And video helps me do that.

Want to know more?

Want Lower Dropout Rates? Use Video (Part 1)

• Jared Stein. Extra Credit: The Canvas Blog. 24 Oct 2016
• Blog post that interprets results of a study by Instructure on the use of video in Canvas courses.
• my-ap.us/2g1dlbD

iSpring for PowerPoint

• Kevin Patton. The Electronic Professor. 19 October 2011
• Previous post from this blog describing my use of iSpring to produce online presentations. Includes a video walkthrough.
• theelectronicprofessor.blogspot.com/2011/10/ispring-for-powerpoint.html

10 Ways to Increase Student Engagement Online

• Dr. Al-Malood. Faculty Workshop. 16 Feb 2014
• Podcast and blog post, with point #5 explaining the importance of profile photos.
• my-ap.us/2g1gyYI

What Technology Will Revolutionize Education?

It's a trick question!  According to This Will Revolutionize Education, a new video just posted by Derek Muller at Veritasium, none of the technologies that have been predicted to revolutionize education really have done so.

Not radio, not movies, not television, not computers. So what will revolutionize education?  A better understanding of the learning process—what goes on inside the heads of learners.

Muller also points out that all of the previously predicted revolutions in education were predicated on a notion that technologies would eventually replace teachers.  But they haven't done so, have they?  That's because, Muller stipulates, teachers are needed for the social aspect of learning.  As long as you have a good teacher, the technology doesn't matter.

Watch Derek's brief and engaging This Will Revolutionize Education and see what you think.

For me, it supports a long-held theory that all these new electronic learning tools are just that—they are simply tools.  They need to be used by teachers and learners skillfully to be effective.  The tools alone—or the wrong tools for the wrong job—or the right tools used badly—just will not work.

So when I hear colleagues say that "lectures don't work" or "online learning doesn't work" or "PowerPoints don't work" I'm thinking it's like saying "hammers don't work" just because you've never learned how to use a hammer correctly or have never seen a hammer used effectively.  Like Derek, I think it's how a teacher uses the tools of education that is the key.

Watch This Will Revolutionize Education for yourself and tell me what you think!

Presentation Zen

I just ran across an article at the Cult of Pedagogy blog that reinforces some ideas that I've been sharing with my students who are in training to be anatomy and physiology professors. They're from a book by Garr Reynolds called Presentation Zen, which is all about improving presentations.

These include:

• Tell a story: tell it, don't put it all on your slide
• Use pictures: they help students "get it"
• Keep each slide simple: do you want them reading the slide or listening to your story?

The blog article also includes this nifty video to summarize some of these points.

Want to know more?

The Cure for Bad PowerPoint: A Review of Presentation Zen

• Jennifer Gonzalez Cult of Pedagogy. September 16, 2013
• my-ap.us/1qIflRo

Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery

• Garr Reynolds. New Riders. 2011. 312 pages.
• The book that oullines Reynold's ideas on PowerPoint presentations.
• my-ap.us/1lqjLJC

Presentation Zen

• The blog by Garr Reynolds
• my-ap.us/1kg1qU8

Are your students dodging bullets?

• Kevin Patton. The Electronic Professor. JULY 28, 2011
• My blog article on improving slide presentations.
• my-ap.us/1ni8c72

Handling bullets safely

• Kevin Patton. The Electronic Professor. AUG 3, 2012
• Another of my blog articles on improving slide presentations.
• my-ap.us/1ooEced

The Future of Learning

Here's an interesting little video about the future of learning. Embedded within it is the role of electronic approaches and their rapid evolution as critical tools for learning effectively .

What we can learn from online education

I recently watched a talk on online learning by Daphne Koller of Stanford University  on TED: Ideas worth spreading.  Her brief presentation outlines the revolution in online learning being pioneered at Stanford and other institutions.

I love this statement by Koller:

"We should spend less time at universities filling our students' minds with content by lecturing at them, and more time igniting their creativity … by actually talking with them."

A few major points made in her presentation:

1. Online methods of course delivery are cost effective in delivering high quality educational experiences to millions around the world that otherwise would not have access to such education.

2. Online methods of education, when used appropriately, can be a lot more effective than the traditional lecture methods.

3. Online learning can teach more people more effectively with far fewer faculty and lower infrastructure costs.

4. We can use what we learn from online education to improve how we teach and how we learn by using a data-driven approach.

But she says all this in a more interesting and arresting way than I can, so take a few minutes to watch her video below.

When you've finished watching it, you may asking yourself this question (as I did):

Why do so many colleges and college faculty hesitate to experiment with and exploit this electronic revolution in education?

Want to learn more? 

• Using video to reinvent education
• Teaching as Testing
• Practice. Practice. Practice.
• Practicing . . . some more

Handling bullets safely

Recently, I was involved in reviewing a large of number of PowerPoint presentations created by professors (and a few professors in training) and found that there were a few folks struggling with some basics in using bullet points effectively.

For example, some professors don't even use bullet points to present a series of concepts.  Instead, they use either a paragraph or an unformatted list of sentences.  A list of key terms or phrases formatted as bullet points works much better in sketching out ideas for listeners as you talk about them.  But if you're not experienced with PowerPoint, or similar tools, then you may not realize that.

A few who were using bulleted lists were not effectively using indented levels to graphically organize concepts in a way that helps students see how it all hangs together.  Again, experience and training can help professors apply these principles that make their presentations much more effective.

To help out, I've created this 25 minute video show both basics on how to make bullet points and a few tricks on making bullet points more effective.  The second half of the video shows a bad example of a slide and then walks you through several tricks to fix it up into a much more effective slide.




This next video shows you how to animate bullet points so that they appear one at a time.  If have several different points on one slide, it is sometimes more effective to reveal them only as you get to them in your talk. If they all come up at the beginning, your students are reading ahead and not staying focused on your point.



Related blog post:  
Are your students dodging bullets?