My Educational Diatribe

A nice overview of screencasting from Educause

Abstract:

A screencast is a video recording of the actions on a user’s computer screen, typically with accompanying audio, distributed through RSS. Screencasts can be thought of as video podcasts. They provide a simple means to extend rich course content to anyone who might benefit from the material but cannot attend a presentation.

The “7 Things You Should Know About…” series from the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) provides concise information on emerging learning practices and technologies. Each brief focuses on a single practice or technology and describes what it is, where it is going, and why it matters to teaching and learning. Use “7 Things You Should Know About…” briefs for a no-jargon, quick overview of a topic and share them with time-pressed colleagues.

So what is the true purpose for a textbook? As far as I can tell, it serves three purposes:
1. Give an alternative (read: different) explanation of concepts. Therefore if the student does not understand the way the instructor explained a concept, they can read it from a different source and understand that presentation.
2. Be ‘available’ for students to use when instructor is not available.
3. Give in depth explanation of some concepts, as well as real world examples.

So I content that these elements are all being superseded by other cheaper and more robust technologies, namely podcasts, screencasts, wikipedia, and other similar websites.

With computers and the internet so pervasive in today’s educational toolbox, the use of textbooks in their traditional form is on the way out. Honestly, most students will never read a significant portion of any of their textbooks. They are not going to go on to be chemistry majors, and they only care about what is on the test and maybe trying to understand the chemistry of the world immediately around them that they see everyday. Most of my students could give a rip about the discovery of atomic structure. No matter how sexy I dress it up, Rutherford’s experiments just doesn’t excite most 18 year old Nintendo generation students. If they don’t care, why give them that in depth knowledge? Understanding Rutherford’s experiments does not make a well rounded student, sorry.

There are certain core concepts that they must learn, but the depth textbooks go into is way too much for most students. Besides, if they want to go into more depth, there is a lot more online than there is in their textbook, and it is much easier to find online.

With podcasting and screencasting, you can give the students what they normally get in class (short condensed versions of the material, because of course we don’t teach every little detail in their textbook, right?) but in a more convenient format. Once enough people start posting their material online, faculty can start pointing to them for their students as ‘another resource’ (see point 1 above)

There are faculty who are already starting to move in this direction. As a community college professor, I must be conscious of transferability of my class for my student’s sake, so I am unsure if I will be able to completely remove a text from my class, but you never know.

So this semester I tried something completely different, online assessment. I assigned my students a 10-15 point online quiz each weekend. To cut down on cheating, I used a system that give each student a slightly different question (the server then grades the assignment). The results were abysmal. I will be removing in after only one semester.

Many students lost all the points by making simple small math errors. They understood 95% of the question, and got 0% of the grade. This is the same reason I dislike multiple choice exams. I want the score to be an accurate representation of the level of your understanding. For most concepts I teach in chemistry, a multiple choice questions does not effectively measure that.

A colleague of mine overheard a student of his remarking “I didn’t have time to do my Anatomy and Physiology online quiz last night so I had my mom do it.”
Some things are not done better online. I remember hearing the results of a study not to long ago that said each year, incoming freshman classes are more ‘OK’ with cheating. They seem to be doing it more and more in high school, and it is carrying over into college. Well, when it is that easy�

Yesterday began a 1 month long on-line convention on higher education at the HigheredBlogCon

It is focusing on how technology is changing the face of education at all levels. I was asked to give a presentation on my screencasting technique, and it seems to have met with positive response. There is some cool stuff there you might find interesting.