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Interactive Digital Books versus Rich Video Lectures Javier Sarsa Garrido University of Zaragoza, Spain Rebeca Soler Costa University of Zaragoza, Spain Abstract Education continues becoming multimedia. Contents are evolving from static text to sophisticated audiovisual and multimedia stimulating formats, as we can check in the new Interactive Digital Textbooks and Rich Video Lectures. Both learning supports are ideal for substituting traditional textbooks. This paper explores the differences between both types of educational products. Additionally a study involving a short number of university students unveils their preferences when using them as study materials. We will try to answer questions as which transmission channels they prefer, how to manage navigational issues or the survival of printed textbooks. Together with other studies we are developing, our aim is the selection of the most suitable type of contents and their improvement for supporting asynchronous learning, that means, above all, to be centered in the most common way to tackle the task of studying at home. Keywords: video lectures, digital books, podcast, webseminars. Introduction Nowadays education continues becoming multimedia. Different kinds of educational video based contents are delivered through Internet (podcast, vodcast, screencast, webcast, webseminars…). Even static text based contents are evolving to more and more visual and interactive formats (interactive digital books, multimedia books, talking books...). All of them benefit of the state-of-the-art in telecommunications because current networks are able to deliver smoothly high consuming broadband contents. At this stage it is not easy to forecast which will be the format for delivering educational contents in the future. Although multimedia communication experiences are not new (they existed even before ICT arrival), through digital technology multimedia are made “easy, usual, natural” (Kress, 2003, p.5). Contents are evolving from static text to sophisticated audiovisual and multimedia stimulating formats, just as we can check in the relatively new developments of Interactive Digital Textbooks and Rich Video Lectures. Additionally it would be necessary more research about the impact that these multimedia materials have on the students and which ones they prefer to study with. This information would serve to contrast the acceptance of traditional textbooks and teacher’s notes opposite to these new formats and perhaps shift towards more visual and interactive formulas. Interactive Digital Books and recorded Rich Video Lectures are both different but have a lot of similarities as well. They constitute an ideal alternative to traditional textbooks, handbooks and notes that students usually take in classroom or teachers themselves publish online. Both share the “rich” attribute which means they contain additional media tracks (“enriching tracks”) and a certain dose of interactivity. Hence, we called them Rich Video Lectures
Transcript
Page 1: Facebook 101: Facebook for Mobile Devices

Interactive Digital Books versus Rich Video Lectures

Javier Sarsa Garrido University of Zaragoza, Spain

Rebeca Soler Costa University of Zaragoza, Spain

Abstract

Education continues becoming multimedia. Contents are evolving from static text to

sophisticated audiovisual and multimedia stimulating formats, as we can check in the new

Interactive Digital Textbooks and Rich Video Lectures. Both learning supports are ideal for

substituting traditional textbooks. This paper explores the differences between both types of

educational products. Additionally a study involving a short number of university students

unveils their preferences when using them as study materials. We will try to answer questions

as which transmission channels they prefer, how to manage navigational issues or the

survival of printed textbooks. Together with other studies we are developing, our aim is the

selection of the most suitable type of contents and their improvement for supporting

asynchronous learning, that means, above all, to be centered in the most common way to

tackle the task of studying at home.

Keywords: video lectures, digital books, podcast, webseminars.

Introduction Nowadays education continues becoming multimedia. Different kinds of educational video

based contents are delivered through Internet (podcast, vodcast, screencast, webcast,

webseminars…). Even static text based contents are evolving to more and more visual and

interactive formats (interactive digital books, multimedia books, talking books...). All of them

benefit of the state-of-the-art in telecommunications because current networks are able to

deliver smoothly high consuming broadband contents. At this stage it is not easy to forecast

which will be the format for delivering educational contents in the future.

Although multimedia communication experiences are not new (they existed even before ICT

arrival), through digital technology multimedia are made “easy, usual, natural” (Kress, 2003,

p.5). Contents are evolving from static text to sophisticated audiovisual and multimedia

stimulating formats, just as we can check in the relatively new developments of Interactive

Digital Textbooks and Rich Video Lectures.

Additionally it would be necessary more research about the impact that these multimedia

materials have on the students and which ones they prefer to study with. This information

would serve to contrast the acceptance of traditional textbooks and teacher’s notes opposite to

these new formats and perhaps shift towards more visual and interactive formulas.

Interactive Digital Books and recorded Rich Video Lectures are both different but have a lot

of similarities as well. They constitute an ideal alternative to traditional textbooks, handbooks

and notes that students usually take in classroom or teachers themselves publish online. Both

share the “rich” attribute which means they contain additional media tracks (“enriching

tracks”) and a certain dose of interactivity. Hence, we called them Rich Video Lectures

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instead of the traditional “plain” video lectures or “talking head” videos. These

complementary options add a great value to plain videos.

Interactive Digital Books and Rich Video Lectures have to be considered under different

paradigms from the semiotic viewpoint. In the first case, the discourse is text driven (of

course text is received through the sight) while in the second case the sequence of

information is audio-video guided (audio usually is voice, received by hearing). But text and

voice have the same supporting code, the language. Therefore both have to be decoded by the

same language processing area of the brain (perhaps Wernicke’s area and others).

In general, information is processed through two different channels; visual channel that

processes visual information such as pictures, and verbal channel that processes verbal

information such as narrations and written texts (Mayer, 2001). Since our processing

capabilities are limited, a high cognitive load on one channel may reduce the effectiveness of

presentations. Splitting information in various channels will reduce the cognitive overload in

each channel and the presentation will be more effective (Mayer, 2001).

According to the Geschwind-Wernicke model, when one person hears another speaking, the

message is perceived first in the auditory cortex and then passed on to Wernicke’s area. In

contrast, when you read a word, the information is perceived first by your visual cortex,

which then transfers it to the angular gyrus, from which it is sent on to Wernicke’s area.

Under the postulates of this theory, a zone of the brain would be responsible for processing

speech comprehension and reading. But newer research define other distinct areas for

language processing and denounce: “It is worth bearing in mind that the range of areas

implicated in speech processing go well beyond the classical language areas typically

mentioned for speech; the vast majority of textbooks still state that this aspect of perception

and language processing occurs in Wernicke’s area” (Poeppel et al., 2008).

Even considering Wernicke’s model obsolete, whether this hypothesis is true or not is not

important for our aim because it is easy to acknowledge the difficulty for comprehension

when we are hearing a speech and reading a text simultaneously, even although speech and

text were focusing on the same theme and using similar words. This situation is produced

because our brain cannot process both transmissions at the same time in spite they are split

into different senses, hearing and sight, respectively. By this reason contents in which text

channel and voice channel are dominant will hinder comprehension and learning.

Thus, it is necessary to be very careful when designing rich educational contents in

multimedia formats. Rich media products are delivered in the form of simultaneous tracks

usually synchronized. These tracks or channels must try to affect to different cognitive areas

or be slowed down enough to guarantee the brain will have time to process them. It is also

important choosing a design where the user may stop and resume the flow according to the

complexity of the proposed activities in the contents.

Interactive Digital Books versus Rich Video Lectures We wonder and share a common question with Kress & van Leeuwen (2001, p.2) about the

better way to transmit or deliver an information, that is, “shall I say it visually or verbally?” It

is important indeed to put forward what will be finally the more successful format which will

adopt educational contents for the students.

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Before designing quality contents it is necessary to know which are the similarities and

differences of both alternatives:

Interactive Digital Books are text driven. That is, text is the most important media or

channel and text reading velocity is which defines the pace. Usually, text reading is

not in conflict with other possible media because reading may be stopped. Users may

leave their reading and dedicate part of their time to discover any other activities of

the page as, viewing images slideshows, listening audio or video narrations, playing

animations, interactive games or solving quizzes. All of them will run inside the pages

of the book making of it a really integrated experience. Therefore in Interactive

Digital Books users have more control to stop, diverge or resume the main discourse

than in Rich Video Lectures.

Rich Video Lectures are audio-video driven. At this moment we are only considering

those recorded lectures that are “rich”. This means the flow of audio-video is

accompanied and synchronized with multimedia presentations, whiteboard sharing,

teacher drawings or labeling, quizzes, website browsing and so on. We leave aside

very common educational linear contents that have spread out worldwide like we may

check if we write “math lecture” in YouTube or enter in YouTube Education. Hence

the teacher’s voice or image is the channel which drives the information flow and

users have to stop it in order to pay attention to these complementary activities. But

this is not a big problem because streaming video technology allows resuming videos

in the same time position.

In the last years some tools for producing Interactive Digital Books and other ones for Rich

Video Lectures have emerged.

In the first case perhaps the most known is iBooks Author which is offered free by

Apple to develop interactive e-Books for iBook computers. The new tool is a

challenge for traditional textbooks because of its showiness and multimedia and

interactive capabilities. Of course, it is possible to use other applications as Adobe

Flash or similar ones. But there is another choice, the ePub3 format, which has been

designed for allowing interactive capabilities. ePub standard launched its version 3.0

which supports Javascript, CSS, Object tag, access to camera, text to speech, and

therefore is able to render text with complex layouts, including animations, Flash

games, video, etc. There is an ePub Media Overlays 3.0 subset which defines a format

and processing model for synchronization of text and audio. ePub3 is called to serve

as an important support as study material.

The second case, Rich Video Lectures, also count with powerful tools such as

commercial BlackBoard Collaborate (former Elluminate), Adobe Presenter, or the

open source BigBlueButton and EVO. All of them are tools thought for synchronous

teaching but they also allow lecture recordings. We may use asynchronous tools as

Camtasia or Adobe Captivate as well. Whatever the software chosen is, Rich Video

Lectures usually mix audio and video tracks synchronized with multimedia

presentations, software captures (screencast), drawing or labeling in a shared

whiteboard, URLs navigation, Flash activities, quizzes or surveys, etc.

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In order to a better explanation of what we understand by Interactive Digital Books in

comparison with usual Digital Books we may take a look to these diagrams. They show the

timeline of main tracks, “enriching tracks” and special activities to include:

SPECIAL ACTIVITIES

ENRICHING TRACKS

MAIN TRACKS

TEACHER’S VOICE (AUDIO TRACK)

WHITEBOARD WRITING AND DRAWING (TEXT AND IMAGE TRACK)

TEACHER’S IMAGE (VIDEO TRACK)

PRESENTATION SLIDES (TEXT AND IMAGE TRACK)

Quizz

URL Flash Student’s

annotation

SOFTWARE SCREEN CAPTURING (VIDEO TRACK)

VID

EO L

ECTU

RE

RIC

H V

IDEO

LEC

TUR

E

SPECIAL ACTIVITIES

ENRICHING TRACKS

MAIN TRACKS

TEACHER’S OR EDITOR’S TEXT (TEXT TRACK)

SPEAK ALOUD – TEXT TO SPEECH (AUDIO TRACK)

TEACHER’S OR EDITOR’S IMAGES (IMAGE TRACK)

OTHER VIDEOS (VIDEO TRACK)

Quizz

URL Flash

Student’s

annotation

TEACHER IN VIDEO (VIDEO TRACK)

DIG

ITA

L B

OO

K

INTE

RA

CTI

VE

DIG

ITA

L B

OO

K

Image

gallery

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Description and results of the experience At the Faculty of Education of the University of Zaragoza we are involved in an experience

which will try to detect the preferences of our students when it comes to studying. Do they

prefer to study using traditional printed materials? Do they better prefer Rich Video

Lectures? Is the audio essential or not? Is the teacher’s image important? Do they have many

technical or navigational problems?

About 20 students (n=20) were enrolled in the trial. They were a sample taken from 60

students. They had a part of contents available in Rich Video Lecture format (figure 1). These

materials included the teacher’s voice and image in synchronization with presentation slides,

dynamic screen captures of different computer software, dynamic drawings the teacher was

making in the whiteboard and some web links and quizzes. They were expected to use the

software at the same pace the teacher was explaining (screencast) and to make the proposed

activities too (URLs and quizzes). There were also contents delivered in Interactive Digital

Book format. That means, a text digital book but with videos and interactive activities

inserted into the pages (figure 2). As this was text driven, the pace for this reading was set by

themselves. At the same time they had at their disposal the same contents in classic Web page

format (text based contents). The contents were published in our virtual learning platform

allowing them to use them freely to study. It is remarkable the lectures were not recorded in a

live classroom scenario but at an office.

Figure 1. A sample of a Rich Video Lecture about image processing in education, with teacher’s

image and voice, slides, shared Web navigation, screencast and quiz type questions.

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Figure 2. A sample page of an Interactive Digital Book about the same image processing contents,

with text, teacher’s video and voice and a software video (screencast)

After the trial period in which our students have been studying with these materials they were

proposed to complete a questionnaire. Some interesting discoveries are:

Students prefer rich multimedia contents to traditional textbooks or classic static Web

Pages or PDFs (87%)

Students find very important the possibility of listening and watching the teachers’

image (9,5 points of 10), watching screencast for realtime software explanations (9,1

points of 10) and watching the teacher’s dynamic annotations (9,5 points of 10). Other

functions, as slide viewing and inserted quizzes, were valued high too (above 8).

Students consider teacher’s video as optional in Rich Video Lectures but interesting

while they are listening to the teacher’s voice.

Students found Rich Video Lecture similar to Interactive Digital Book if both

included the same tracks (80%).

Finally, they would choose Rich Video Lectures as their preferred material in their

study time (75%), more than other classical text based formats.

Conclusions The increasing number of experiences with Interactive Digital Books and Rich Video

Lectures emphasize the need of designing better contents for the students and venture the best

preferred format of contents to study with.

Although constructivism theories are nowadays defending that collaboration is the most

direct way to reach critical thinking and active learning, the quantity of time students spend

studying alone is really huge. Perhaps the formats of the contents with which they usually

study are not very interactive or may be videos are less engaging than other collaborative and

interactive actions. But while collaborative tasks could be very successful, they only take

place in occasional and synchronous moments. Meanwhile a lot of tasks, including many of

Page 7: Facebook 101: Facebook for Mobile Devices

those performed within a group or for the group, are made individually and suppose a great

part of the time of the students. For a long time student-contents interactions have been

considered to be part of the set of interactions surrounding learning, in combination with

student-student and student-teacher modes (Moore, 1989). Some reports evidence that many

students deliberately choose learning programs that allow them to minimize the amount of

student-teacher and student-student interaction required (May, 2003). Therefore

asynchronous contents must be improved.

Video lectures and multimedia books are especially powerful in individually study tasks.

Study time is the moment in which interaction between students and contents is more intense

and requires a high concentration level.

Video has been considered a mechanism by which students were merely passive receptors of

contents. This simplification is too much trivial; somehow, we are assuming that students’

brains are inactive and they are not acquiring any learning while they are watching them.

However internal cognitive processes can be so high when watching videos as they can be in

constructivism tasks. An equal circumstance occurs when we study with printed material or

read a book.

In subsequent studies our team will try to deal with various aspects related to Rich Video

Lectures such as their possibilities of combination with tasks of social interaction, the

differences in information retention depending on the number of simultaneous channels

delivered, changes in attention focus depending on spatial distribution of graphical interface

elements or the possibilities to leave and resume the linearity of the main discourse,

performing complementary activities without losing learning efficacy.

From this forthcoming research, together with surveys, we are expecting to include Rich

Video Lectures in our instructional model to add value for the students and, why not, if

possible, achieve a higher impact on scores than with traditional models.

Teachers have to get down to work to gradually change the classical paradigm of designing

poor text based contents embellished with a few images, to another one, more audiovisual

and interactive, which allows students to have more visual and engaging experiences.

References

Kress, G. (2003). Literacy in the new media age. London: Routledge.

Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. (2001). Multimodal discourse: the modes and media of

contemporary communication. London, New York: Arnold.

May, S. (1993). Collaborative Learning: More is not necessarily better. American Journal of

Distance Education, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 39 – 49.

Mayer, R.E. (2001). Multimedia learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Moore, M. (1989). Three types of interaction. American Journal of Distance Education, vol.

3, no. 2, pp. 1 – 6.

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Poeppel, D., Idsardi, W. J. and Van Wassehove, V. (2008). Speech perception at the interface

of neurobiology and linguistics, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of

Biological Sciences, vol. 363, no. 1493, pp. 1071-1086.

http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/363/1493/1071.full.pdf

Sun (2009). Read Me First: a style guide for the computer industry. Sun Technical

Publications.

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Rich Video Lectures: the teacher “uncanned”

Javier Sarsa Garrido University of Zaragoza, Spain

Rebeca Soler Costa University of Zaragoza, Spain

Abstract Video Lectures are more and more frequently used as a resource in both formal and informal

education. Sometimes called webseminars or canned lectures, they can be recorded

synchronous (live) or prepared asynchronously. The increasing broadband availability at

homes has allowed a better video streaming quality and the synchronization of video with

other multimedia elements such as presentations, animations, screencasts, quizzes, Web links,

etc. As a result, we obtain Rich Video Lectures which have a substantial number of

advantages and go further than simple video documents, which usually show the teacher

confined to a main video area. But the majority of students in traditional educational

institutions are enrolled in face-to-face modality. How useful is this technology for them?

Can it contribute to a better learning or higher results? Do they prefer it to common text and

image contents? This paper shows the outcomes of the experience carried out with university

students who were using recorded Rich Video Lectures as a complement to their face-to-face

education.

Keywords: video lectures, rich video lectures, multimedia, streaming.

Introduction A long time ago it was already recommended that motion pictures might be used to approach

entire courses to schools. “It appears that this idea of a ‘canned teacher’ who can bring a

whole course into any well supervised anywhere holds great promise for small schools or

remote communities where size, location or budget seriously limit the number of teachers or

courses” (Foy, 1957). Different researchers analyzed possibilities of traditional educational

videos (Ferrés, 1988; Cabero, 1989; Bravo, 1994). However there have been important

advances since then, curricular tape videos were used as support for curricular contents with a

limited impact, but today Internet is offering unprecedented possibilities. Innovative tools

have been developed to allow the creation of more versatile products; video lectures must not

be strict and boring. They even must reduce student isolation feelings, because they may

become Rich Video Lectures using a wide range of interactive and/or social activities

inserted in the lecture flow. In this way Rich Video Lectures break the monotony of the linear

lecture metaphorically releasing the teacher from its container: ‘the teacher uncanned’.

In fact, every day more and more video based contents are delivered through Internet,

podcast, vodcast, vlogcast, screencast, webseminars, flipped classrooms, digital storytelling,

etc. Elements of this list are only a few examples of contents which take advantage of the

communication power of multimedia classical elements, in combination with the great

progress in bandwidth and quality of current networks, which are capable of delivering rich

contents almost instantaneously and without annoying transmission breaks. For example, at

this time, every minute, 60 hours of video contents are uploaded to YouTube1. Today, Khan

1 http://www.youtube.com/t/press_statistics

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Academy2 has delivered over 155 million lessons (educational videos) worldwide and

hundred thousands students are connecting monthly. The digits are simply impressive.

In fact, mediatization of education is reaching all its aspects: lectures, textbooks, activities,

collaboration, tutoring, assessment, etc. We share the definition of mediatization as a

“process through which core elements of a social or cultural activity (like work, leisure, play,

etc.) assume media form” (Hjarvard, 2004, p.48, 2007). Therefore it can be stated that

delivering lectures through Internet should be considered as a strong form of mediatization of

education. Students and teachers must assume, and we think at least the first ones do it

kindly, they must increasingly access to online contexts and contents, study over and with

them and make a more intensive use of learning environments capabilities. These whishes do

not draw a harmful horizon for learning, on the contrary there are studies revealing good

outcomes as a result of this change, as we will remark later.

For us, Rich Video Lectures are an emerging technology. According to Veletsianos (poner

ref) emerging technologies are referring to new tools with a promising potential. On the other

hand the meaning of “emerging” itself holds an increasing penetration of these technologies.

Therefore, have Rich Video Lectures come to stay with us? The history is plenty of

inventions which finally disappeared. Technological innovations and advancements have

brought about massive societal changes. But in comparison, the impact of technology on

education, teaching, and learning has been rather limited (Bull, Knezek, Roblyer,

Schrum & Thompson, 2005).

From Podcasts to Rich Video Lectures While podcasts (which surges from iPod broadcast) are based on voice recording, vodcasts

(video on demand cast) and vlogcasts (videoblog broadcasting) are based on video. Digital

storytelling could be also included in this last set of elements, because it is supported by

video.

Although, in general use, podcasts often contain music, for learning purposes the primary

component is usually speech. Podcasting uses voice as an alternative channel to text. There is

much debate about possible benefits of podcasting in face-to-face education (McKinney, D.

et al, 2009).

But educational videos have gone ahead audio podcasts. Nowadays, conferences, lectures,

real or simulated activities, all of them in online published video format, are used with

intentional learning objectives in the majority of colleges and universities. Alexander (2011,

p.219) centers his research in the specific use of shorts videos (digital storytelling) in

education, both by students and teachers. “Many specific curricular situations call forth

tailored uses of digital storytelling. First, teachers can create digital stories about the content

they teach. A decade ago, this would have been considered producing learning objects; in

2010, these are simply content items, learning materials“. However, from this paper vision,

we are not focusing in the potential learning that would be acquired during the video

composing process, but in subsequent phases of learning, when students are using the videos

to study with them.

Videos with a specific cultural or educational intention, with a curricular aim (Cebrián,

1987), which are often produced and delivered by teachers live through the Web, have made

2 http://www.khanacademy.org

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up a specific category. They are called webseminars, sometimes flipped classrooms or video

lectures, and they are usually recorded and published online.

Let’s remember now the very successful example of Khan Academy, with several hundred

thousands of users per month. Khan Academy videos are stored in YouTube and also in own

Khan’s servers. But Kahn academy website adds extra assessment activities (called

challenges) which are external to the video watching, that means, they are not intercalated in

the video flow. This option complements videos but it is not synchronized with them and that

is why they cannot be considered as “rich videos”.

Apart from the most famous websites of video distribution, like YouTube, Vimeo,

DailyMotion or Veoh, in which we can find learning videos as well, some specific

educational video websites have emerged. Some examples are Videolectures, YouTube

Education or the universities (MIT OpenCourseWare Video Lectures, Princeton Event

Streaming WebMedia, Open Yale Courses, Stanford’s Coursera or PoliTube at Polytechnic

University of Valencia). Many of them are storing webinars.

Webinars (Web Seminars) are audio-video based lectures but in general they have the

characteristic they are delivered synchronously through Web, allowing the collaboration and

interaction of participants. In realtime webinars teachers often have the added capability for

sharing applications, drawing into a whiteboard, launching web URLs or proposing quiz

activities. Of course, the whole session may be recorded in order to put the lecture at the

disposal of participants for future use.

Sometimes instructors share their screen to show how to use specific software. Screencast is a

digital recording of computer screen output, also known as video screen capture. Screencasts

usually include audio narrations and are used to show software functionalities (Sun, 2009).

They can be passive or active. “In their passive form, the most likely strategy for the use of

screencasts is exploration… when screencasts are combined with other activities that allow

the learner to practise what they have learned, they can also play a key role in an instructional

strategy” (Onlingnment, 2011). Screencast websites as Atomic Learning or Lynda are good

examples of successful educational video based contents.

Ahmad et al (2011) made a pre-test post-test experimental design comparing screencast with

narration and those without it. “Screencast with narration was significantly more effective

than screencast without narration in enhancing students’ learning performance. Moreover,

from the observation, it was revealed that screencast with narration, published and shared

online, can be a potential strategy in reducing learning duration”.

Carter (2009) offered the students a number of screencasts with programming concepts.

Students were asked to watch and study them before attending the classes. Concepts included

into the screencasts were after treated in class. As a result of this experience students

understood the material more thoroughly (Carter, 2009). Thus, recorded video lectures may

serve as a prior contact or for a later study session.

As it has been highlighted the complexity of different products varies substantially. They may

contain from the teacher’s image and voice to even a blackboard (or whiteboard) in realtime,

shared applications, interactive contents, quizzes, etc.

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Considering this little mess in terminology we consider necessary a short classification of

these names from the semiotic viewpoint (type of media channel). This sorting will be useful

to establish what differences between systems exist and how their evolution has been.

In audio driven contents, like a podcast, the voice or narration constitutes the main track of

the message. In video driven contents audio and video are defining the pace of the user

synchronously. Rich Video Lectures are multimedia contents in which audio and video is also

driving the user but they sometimes include “enriching tracks” which add extra activities to

the main discourse. The following diagram illustrates the process of enriching audio-video

streams.

Usually Sometimes

Cognitive considerations Rich Video Lectures have to be carefully designed in order to have a high learning impact

without overloading our mind. The bad design of some contents can lead to fail in

effectiveness. Arguably many developers have failed to pay greater focus on the potential

cognitive overload caused by information being presented too much and too quickly, or by

the simultaneous appearance of moving elements, narration and on-screen texts in their

design that may impede learning (Bell & Bull, 2010; Mayer, 2002).

While a podcast is using only an information channel, other products use more sensorial

stimulus. Screencast with narration utilize both visual and verbal channel in the memory

structure can attenuate cognitive overload resulting in effective learning (Mayer, 2001).

The possibility of user to control videos is essential for effective cognition and reasoning

(Ahmad, 2007). When used in a correct manner and combination, the role of video as

dynamic visual representation might be a powerful tool in enhancing teaching and learning

outcome (Montazemi, 2006). Video with adequate verbal support is supposed to be more

effective in assisting students’ cognition (Ahmad, 2011). Vest suggests, for effective

Instructor’s audio

Instructor’s Video

Screen capture Whiteboard Slides URLs Quizz

PODCAST

VODCAST

FLIPPED CLASS

VIDEO LECTURE

WEBINARS

SCREENCAST

RICH VIDEO LECTURE

Applic. sharing

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pedagogy and avoiding distractions, the video segments are kept short and simple with not

longer than 10 minutes (Vest, 2009).

Another shortage that researches attribute to video lectures is this lack of interactivity and

social communication. Jonassen & Reeves (1996) seem to regret that in educational

communications, contents are encoded visually or verbally and later, during the instructional

process, students perceive the messages, for example in video, and interacting with

technology only in an occasional way.

However even recorded video lectures and interactive books could be developed in a way

able to allow collaboration, thus reducing the isolation feelings and fostering interactivity.

Some suggestions to gain a more active and engaging learning while students are studying

may be launching time-limited interactive activities over the Web, games, test, etc., link to

social spaces for chatting, always regarding the treated themes, sharing notes with others, etc.

Therefore it is necessary to merge both focuses, the “instructivist” and “constructivist” one,

in some way students can take from each one the dose they prefer.

Description and Results Our experience at the Faculty of Education of the University of Zaragoza has been focused in

the application of several Rich Video Lectures to a reduced group of students. We were

confident the results of this experience might satisfy the students’ preferences and improve

their motivation and results. Therefore we used a questionnaire to collect their answers.

Description

5 Rich Video Lectures (theme/topic was ICT) were created with BlackBoard

Collaborate.

There were 50 students enrolled in RVL experience. Finally about 20 filled in the

questionnaire.

Students have been studying with RVL instead of Web pages of PDF.

Average study time spent for each RVL was 55 min.

Average study time spent for each RVL was higher than any lecture duration itself

because they rewound and repeated fragments of the videos.

Results

All of them did evaluate RVL as positive for studying: 100%.

High score for usefulness of RVL: 8,5 points from 10 possible.

Almost 80% of the students said they would prefer to study with RVL to classical

contents.

All of them considered important the existence of teachers’ image. This was one of

our unknown factors.

Scores for the usefulness of different tracks which are complementing the teacher’s

discourse (slides, quizzes, web URLs, software screencast, etc.) have been evaluated

with high scores (from 8.3 to 9.1). These scores are reinforcing our idea of the

uncanned teacher, that means, teachers are released from receiving full attention by

the students.

There was no consensus when they answered if RVL would displace classical text

contents (in a range 1-10, average was 6 in favour of RVL).

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They complained about bandwidth and synchronization problems. The lectures were

recorded online (with BB Collaborate), and it would have been better with an offline

tool (like Camtasia or Captivate).

We were wondering if the high cognitive load of Rich Video Lectures was going to

suppose a problem but there was no complain about this.

Conclusions The ‘canned teacher’ format has demonstrated to have some disadvantages. Nowadays Rich

Video Lectures present some limitations like other asynchronous contents and methodologies

but ‘enriching tracks’ contribute to ‘release the teacher’. If students’ isolation feelings in e-

Learning can lead to a shortage of motivation and enthusiasm (Lee & Chan, 2007) perhaps

Rich Video Lectures will have to include more interactive and social activities. Therefore, it

would be desirable Web conference tools would make possible students to continue

developing collaboration tasks after the recordings. Even when teachers already were not be

there, students would follow in contact while they were watching the recorded session; they

could make and share their annotations or solve in group the problems suggested in the

recorded classroom. This is a next challenge for software development companies.

We share the urgency that Snelson (2008) stresses referring the need for research related to

the effectiveness of video lectures in education, instructional design issues and methodologies

based on educational videos.

Teachers must measure which technologies lead students to a better learning, considering

their improvement in outcomes and grades. Assessment systems should also be designed in

concordance with the technological methodologies chosen. The efforts done must be

measured in order to achieve a realistic return on learning.

We are expecting to make an intensive use of Rich Video Lectures in our instructional model

to add value for the students and, why not, if possible, achieve a higher impact on scores than

with traditional models.

Finally, we think Rich Video Lectures are a crucial tool to reinforce the study time with more

visual and engaging contents. Teachers have to get down to work to gradually change the

classical paradigm of designing poor text based contents embellished with a few images, to

another one, more audiovisual and interactive, which allows students to have more visual and

engaging experiences.

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