The University of Manchester Archives - Ecolearning

Dec 01
Picture in Picture / PIP video

Videos for MOCCs: Picture in Picture (PIP)

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Considering that video is the main method of content delivery in MOOCs, we are going to provide you an overview of  Picture in Picture (PIP) videos for MOOCs.

This article forms integral part of the on line MOOC course Videos for teaching, learning and communication,created by The University of Manchester. It will end the 4th of December. You can still enrol!

NoPicture in Picture / PIP videowadays, Picture in Picture videos are frequently used to present two different scenes taking place at the same time. Millions of people tend to create picture in picture video while playing games, explaining texts, even promoting products and so on, trying to convey much more information to their viewers in the simplest way.

Traditional techniques for creating picture-in-picture videos are expensive, no portable, or time-consuming.
If you want to show yourself in a video and demonstrate at the appropriate time, well, it is very easy to achieve if you choose the right tool. We have several solutions:

  • Make a video of yourself first and then insert this video into the background video.
  • The other is that you are capable of recording yourself and video at the same time.

Solution 1: Screen Recorder + Editor

Picture in Picture video refers to a video that is put one small video clip over a background one, so we need to prepare two videos at first. You can choose one screen recorder to make the video you plan to present for your students; also, you need a webcam recorder to record yourself. Then, a video editor which allows you to add Picture in Picture effect can help you to create side by side video.

Solution 2: Screen Recorder

Other solution is to use professional screen recorder software that allows you to make side by side video simply in one click. It’s not only a screen recorder but a webcam recorder and a basic editor too.

This technique uses a laptop computer with a video capture device to acquire the ultrasound feed. Simultaneously, a webcam captures a live video feed of the transducer and patient position and live audio. Both sources are streamed onto the computer screen and recorded by screen capture software. This technique makes the process of recording picture-in-picture ultrasound videos more access
ible for ultrasound educators and researchers for use in their presentations or publications.

You can still enrol! We can’t wait to see what you filmed after completed “Videos for teaching, learning, and communication” – Team UoMan.

Note: Article idea and some texts are taken from:
https://www.apowersoft.com/forums/topic/create-picture-in-picture-video.html
http://www.jultrasoundmed.org/content/32/8/1493.full.pdf

Nov 17
Khan Tablet Capture style

Guide to creating your own videos MOOC’s: Khan Tablet Capture style

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Considering that video is the main method of content delivery in MOOCs, we are going to provide you an overview of one of the most frequently requested type of videos: Khan-Style Tablet Capture.

Khan Tablet Capture styleThis article forms integral part of the on line MOOC course Videos for teaching, learning and communication, created by The University of Manchester. It will end the 4th of December.

Salman Amin “Sal” Khan is an American educator who founded the Khan Academy, a free on-line education platform and an organization with which he has produced over 6,500 video lessons teaching a wide spectrum of academic subjects, mainly focusing on mathematics and sciences.

Khan was motivated even at a young age to help other people learn.In late 2003, Khan began tutoring his cousin, Nadia, in mathematics over the internet using Yahoo!’s Doodle notepad. When other relatives and friends sought his tutoring, he moved his tutorials to YouTube where he created an account on November 16, 2006.

The popularity of his educational videos on the video-sharing website prompted Khan to quit his job as a financial analyst in late 2009.

He moved his focus to developing his YouTube channel, Khan Academy, full-time with the aid of close friend Josh Gefner.
Khan consequently received sponsorship from Ann Doerr, the wife of John Doerr.
His videos received worldwide interest from both students and non-students, with more than 458 million views in the first number of years.

Khan outlined his mission as to “accelerate learning for students of all ages. With this in mind, we want to share our content with whoever may find it useful”.  Khan plans to extend the “free school” to cover topics such as English. Khan’s videos are also used to educate rural areas of Africa and Asia.

Khan published a book about Khan Academy and education goals titled The One World Schoolhouse: Education Re imagined.

Khan Academy, initially a tool for students, added the Coach feature in 2012, promoting the connection of teachers with students through videos and monitor tools.

As an educator, this handy guide to creating your own lectures in Khan Academy style will hep you:

  • First, an overview of what is needed:
  • A program to record your screen, and make a video out of it.
  • A program to “draw” on.
  • Any drawing program could be used for this. Even PowerPoint if you don’t care for the handwritten look. This is the actual content being recorded.
  • A tablet. This is optional. If you want the “handwritten” look of Sal’s videos you will need to buy a pressure-sensitive tablet. This allows for very natural looking handwriting.
  • A microphone. Assuming you want to use your voice in the video, you will need a microphone of some sort.

If you use a Mac, you can use the following programs:

  • If you have Photoshop, use that.
  • If you have Microsoft Office, PowerPoint and Word have drawing functions.
  • Otherwise: search for a free drawing program.
  • Mac has screen recording software built in with QuickTime.
  • Just run QuickTime, and then go file -> new screen recording.

How can you improve your handwriting?

  • Make sure that the tablet is set straight in front of you, on a table. Having it slanted will produce slanted writing.
  • Write slowly.
  • Write small. It seems necessary to write really big, but if you write as if you were using college-rule paper, it will look better.

If you want to work with layers, and / or  import pictures, you could check some video tutorial.

  • If you don’t have sound.
  • If you are using FrontCam, go to Options -> Video,
  • Then click the audio tab, and check “Record Sound”.
  • Otherwise, make sure your microphone is plugged in and that your speakers are up.

We can’t wait to see what you filmed after completed “Videos for teaching, learning, and communication”. You can still enrol! – Team UoMan.

Note: Article idea and some texts are taken from:

Nov 02

MOOC landscape in the UK

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The phenomenon of Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs, has attracted a great deal of reportage, debate and research over the past two years. As learning and teaching in higher education continues to be high on the agenda of UK governments, higher education providers and policy makers alike, it is vital that this aspect of one of the most significant developments in higher education in recent years receives attention.

UK MOOC scene is currently undergoing a period of significant growth.

As the activities of the early UK MOOC innovators extend and start to become mainstream (via new iterations of existing MOOCs, the launch of the UK MOOC platform FutureLearn, the expansion of existing platform partnerships, and the emergence of new platform options), there is value in offering a portrait of ‘where we are now’ at this turning point for MOOC engagement within UK higher education.

Here we have elected to focus on another of the UK Higher Education Academy’s core concerns: the provision of evidence-informed support for the development of pedagogic practice across the disciplines. In doing so, we aim to engage not with macro-level debate largely characterised by MOOC hype and MOOC backlash, but rather with the current micro-practices of MOOC teachers, and what these might mean for the role and place of online teaching in the open and at scale.

As the national body for learning and teaching in higher education, the Higher Education Academy (HEA) has been involved with MOOCS since their earliest implementation: the first MOOC to be named as such was the part-HEA-funded Oxford Brookes course “First Steps into Learning and Teaching in Higher Education” (May-June 2012). In 2013 this course included an option for gaining credit for its completion.

As at the end of 2013, 25 MOOCs had run in the UK, five of them at least twice, and as the fast-moving MOOC landscape shifts once again with the recent announcement of the first courses to be offered through the Open University’s FutureLearn platform.

The emergence and current state of play of MOOCs in the UK is described here, alongside a time line of MOOC delivery from UK universities. We trace the growth of the UK MOOC offer from the first MOOC to be named as such (the part-HEAfunded Oxford Brookes course ‘First Steps into Learning and Teaching in Higher Education’, May-June 2012), through the launch of the first big Coursera MOOCs (the University of Edinburgh MOOCs, Feb-March 2013), and the announcement of the first waves of courses offered through the UK FutureLearn platform (Oct 2013-Feb 2014).

In summary:

  • Fifty-eight MOOCs are currently offered by UK universities
  • Twenty-nine of these are on FutureLearn, 21 on Coursera and eight are offered without platform partnership, using CourseSites, OpenLearn and social media
  • The dominant disciplinary area of offer is Social Science (18 MOOCs), with Humanities and Medical and Veterinary Science each having 13 MOOCs; Natural Sciences offering eight, and Computing Sciences six
  • MOOC durations are between two weeks and 12 weeks; the majority category is six weeks in length
  • Two UK MOOCs are currently offered for credit: First Steps in Learning and Teaching (Oxford Brookes University) and Vampire Fictions (Edge Hill University).

In October 2013 the University of Central Lancashire announced it would welcome students and applicants using MOOCs as evidence of prior learning, providing its own assignments to test understanding of the equivalent course material (Parr 2013). It is particularly important to consider the implications that such innovations may have on a range of notions of ‘openness’; accreditation comes along with particular expectations about the processes of designing and teaching the MOOC, and expectations about participation. These expectations may work against certain ideas of ‘openness’, a matter that is discussed in the literature review.

At the end of 2013, 25 MOOCs have been run by UK universities, and five of these have run at least twice. Another 33 are currently being marketed for 2014 via Coursera and FutureLearn.

Enrolments in courses run to date have ranged from a few hundred (for example, First Steps in Learning and Teaching, Oxford Brookes University) to 97,000 (Introduction to Philosophy, University of Edinburgh). Eight of the UK MOOCs offered to date have been built outside the major platforms, via a social media mix, using CourseSites or the OpenLearn LabSpace, with the rest either taking place in Coursera or FutureLearn. No UK universities currently offer through the other current major US platforms EdX and Udacity.

distribution-of-uk-moocs-on-different-platforms
The disciplinary mix of the UK offer is notable, with a relatively high proportion of courses being offered in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Courses tend to be short, with six-week courses being the largest grouping.
Note: Article idea and some texts are taken from: The pedagogy of the Massive Open Online Course: the UK view Siân Bayne and Jen Ross, the University of Edinburgh. ‘https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/system/files/hea_edinburgh_mooc_web_240314_1.pdf‘.

Oct 24

What video production style to choose for a MOOC? Typologies of Video Production Styles

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MOOCs can distribute content in a scalable and high-quality format to a large number of learners around the world. This MOOC is available to learners who want to teach or communicate via the medium of video and the art of video production.

This article forms integral part of the on line MOOC course Videos for teaching, learning and communication, created by The University of Manchester.

Considering that video is the main method of content delivery in MOOCs, we are going to provide you an overview of video production styles. So you will have more information about what video style to choose for recording your own MOOC.

A video production style is the main method of visual organization that is employed to realize a video’s goals and achieve specific results when the video is viewed.

When thinking about video for learning, the choice of video production style will have a great impact on a video’s ability to effect pedagogical objectives and desired learning outcomes.

Typologies of Video Production Styles.

When choosing a production style, it is important to keep in mind the video’s goals and desired results. Different production styles have different affordances, so it is vital that the selection process be both: thoughtful and intentional.

The main production styles that are currently being used in on-line learning context are:

Talking Head:

  • Common style typically shot in a studio.
  • Can be used to build a connection between the person on-camera and the viewer.
  • Multiple camera angles may be used for easier editing and to break the monotony.

Presentation Slides with Voice-Over:

  • Could be PowerPoint or any other presentation format, with voice-over and slides visible full screen.
  • Annotations on a slide can be used to highlight information or draw the viewer’s attention to a specific detail.

Picture-in-Picture:

  • Ability to show slides and instructor at the same time.

Text Overlay:

  • Text or graphics overlaid onto a video.
  • Can be used to summarize main points, highlight keywords, and phrases, or visualize what is being discussed.

Khan-Style Tablet Capture:

  • ‘Chalk and talk’ style made on a tablet.
  • Relatively cheap and easy to produce.
  • Presenter typically uses a conversational tone.

Udacity-Style Tablet Capture:

  • Voice overlay over digital whiteboard / writing hand.
  • Presenter’s hand captures using an overhead camera, but made semi-transparent in post –production, so writing is not obscured.

Actual Paper / Whiteboard:

  • A low-tech alternative to digital tablet capture.
  • Could be an upright whiteboard, or an overhead shot of a piece of paper on a desk.

Screencast:

  • Recording whatever is on the instructor’s screen and adding an audio voice-over.
  • Very versatile, can be used for any on-screen content.
  • Commonly used for technical training, software training, and step-by-step video tutorials.
  • Relatively cheap to produce.

Animation:

  • Useful to visualize abstract concepts and relations.
  • Can range from very simple to highly sophisticated.

Classroom Lecture:

  • Filming a traditional lecture in a classroom.

Recorded Seminar:

  • Recording a seminar discussion, often with the professor and current or the past students of the course.
  • Can be useful to give viewers the feeling that they are in class together with other learners.

Interview:

  • A good way to involve outside experts from a particular field.
  • Gives viewers access to a leading expert’s opinions and ideas about a relevant topic.

Conversation:

  • An informal conversation about a particular topic, typically featuring the instructor(s) and perhaps a guest.
  • Typically unscripted, authentic conversations, which may help build a connection between the presenters and the viewer.
  • Can be used as a method for reflecting on discussions and happenings within the course.

Live Video:

  • Live virtual office hours can help instructors establish a presence in the course.
  • Hangouts-on-Air can also be useful to bring in external experts.
  • Gives students a chance to get their questions answered live.

Web Cam Capture:

  • Relatively cheap to produce, web cams are easily accessible.
  • Similar to a talking head style video, but more informal and not shot in a studio.

Demonstration:

  • Allows viewers to see a concept, process in action, rather than just seeing someone talking about it.
  • Can give viewers special access to art, tools, etc.
  • Very useful for showing experiments that viewer would not otherwise be able to see or do on their own.

On-Location:

  • A great way to take viewers to places that they might otherwise not be able to go or see things from a new perspective.
  • An uncontrolled environment makes this format more risky to film

Green Screen:

  • A green screen can be used to substitute different
  • Requires proper equipment, lighting and post production.

Two video production styles that are featured prominently in many MOOCs: the talking head style, where the instructor is recorded lecturing into the camera, and the tablet capture with voice-over style.

It is, of course, possible to combine two or more of them in one video, thereby achieving different results than could be produced with any of these formats on its own.
One common combination is often referred to as a ‘bookend’ approach, which usually features the talking head style at the beginning and the end of the video, with a tablet capture or screen cast used in between.

So, have you thought about what video production style to choose for your next MOOC?

Following the idea of being ‘Massive’, why not share it on your Social Media sites, with your friends, and see if they might like to join them on this course.

For an introvideo to the course, please watch the below:

We look forward to seeing you there! – Team UoMan.

Note: Article idea and some texts are taken from: Hansch, A., McConachie, K., Hillers, L. and Prof. Dr. Schildhauer,T. (2015). TopMOOC Research Project. ‘The Role of Video in Online Learning: Findings From the Field and Critical Reflections‘.

Oct 19
windows-movie-maker-screen

A video is worth a thousand pictures. Videos for teaching, learning and communication

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Video is an essential component of most Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and other forms of on-line learning.

We successfully launched our 3rd edition of our MOOC: Videos for teaching, learning and communication by The University of Manchester. The course started on the 3rd of October and will end the 4th of December. You can still enrol!

Video content plays a central role in most MOOCs and other forms of on line learning. It is typically the main form of content delivery as well as the greatest cost driver of MOOC production.

MOOC videos tend to be structured as short pieces of content, often separated by assessment questions. Splitting videos into 2-3 minute segments or 6-minute chunks maximizes viewer engagement.

windows-movie-maker-screen
Two video production styles that are featured prominently in many MOOCs: the talking head style, where the instructor is recorded lecturing into the camera, and the tablet capture with voice-over style. Do-it-yourself (DIY) is another popular one.  When choosing a production style, it is important to keep in mind the video’s goals and desired results.

Windows Movie Maker screen.

Video production, in nearly all cases, is the most expensive component of creating a MOOC, but it does not have to be. In many cases, opting for a lightweight production process is a great way to achieve educational objectives, while at the same time reducing cost.

Many smart phones and web cams are able to record in high definition, and many free on line resources exist that make the filming and editing processes accessible to non-professionals. In this course, we will share with you copyright-free resources you can use and teach you how to use them.

The relevance of quality for on-line learning videos are hard to make given the many variables and diverse populations involved.

High-quality video content might, therefore, be especially important to keep MOOC students interested in the course. The importance of a video’s production value depends on its context and audience.

This MOOC is available to individuals from all around the world, who want to teach. It is for any learner who wants to: teach or communicate via the medium of video.

Delivering content clearly on video requires a different set of skills than those required for classroom teaching. This course is also catered to those just interested in gaining Social Media Marketing Skills. You will be able to utilize the knowledge you have gained from completing the course and apply these Web 2.0 skills to create videos for teaching and communication.

A test shoot can be a valuable source of feedback for both the instructor and the production team.

Following the idea of being ‘Massive’ and starting applying your Web 2.0 skill, why not share it on your Social Media sites, with your friends, and see if they might like to join them on this course too?

We look forward to seeing you there! – Team UoMan.

Note: Article idea and some texts are taken from: Hansch, A., McConachie, K., Hillers, L. and Prof. Dr. Schildhauer,T. (2015). TopMOOC Research Project .
‘The Role of Video in Online Learning: Findings From the Field and Critical Reflections‘.