When I was at UAB a few years back, I developed and led the Instructional Media Group at the School of Public Health, which basically meant that I was in charge of the School’s website and online course development. Upon my arrival there, I inherited a system where faculty taught online by simply videotaping all of their lectures. To do this, they would either just deliver them in the studio like they would in class or, worse yet, have us actually record them in the class. They would then consider themselves done with the course before it even started, except of course, the multiple choice tests.
It was a perfect example of how not to teach online.
One plus, however, is that it gave me the motivation to explore alternative ways of presenting instructor-based material, while, at the same time, providing me the opportunity to develop considerable expertise and experience in the use and production of streaming media.
However, I will leave further explorations on that subject to later entries and focus here on one example that came up this week.
I was invited this week to Dr. Sue Walker’s Poetry Writing course to talk about ways to present her students’ poems in multimedia. In order that I would have an example to talk about, as well as to force myself to think adequately about the issue before getting up in front of her class, I developed a couple of short films. I am presenting one here as an example of what can be done with multimedia in general.
This film is based on a poem I wrote several years ago. I recorded it on my computer with a cheap microphone, and then, using video editing software, images from the Internet, and an audio CD from the Instructional Media Center here in the Library, knitted everything together into something that is (I would argue) far more engaging than a sheet of paper with some words on it.
What I’ve done here may or may not seem to apply to your class or discipline, but I would wager that with a little thought and creativity, you could come up with some ideas that would be appropriate and that, more importantly, provide you with a strategy to engage your students in new and exciting ways.
To see the video, click here. And please feel free to provide your comments and feedback.
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