YouTube Edu Launches - Digits - WSJ

YouTube Edu Launches - Digits - WSJ

Wondering aloud whether YouTube edu competes with Teacher Tube and all that. Not sure it matters (from a faculty standpoint) where content can be stored, but it probably matters a lot (from a student standpoint) where content can be obtained and how easily it can be found. Of course specific media used to supplement particular classes is generally linked directly in CMS or LMS systems and often authenticated. Not sure the YouTube approach has too much to do with that kind of delivery.

On the subject: Eportfolios

It's pretty clear that the only controversy surrounding electronic portfolios is how to spell it. Suffering from the same ills as all the other "e" words in modern language, e-portolios or eportfolios, hold great promise. Randy Bass and Brett Eynon offer four compelling arguments and conclude:

Wired Campus: Electronic Portfolios: a Path to the Future of Learning -
Chronicle.com: "In the past five years, according to the Campus Computing
Project, the percentage of U.S. colleges and universities using ePortfolios has
more than tripled. It is possible that 10 years from now we will no longer even
be discussing these collections as if they were a special practice; they might
be a pervasive and transparent part of the learning environment. At the moment,
ePortfolios represent perhaps the most promising strategy for responding to
calls for accountability and at the same time nurturing a culture of
experimentation with new forms of learning"

To lecture, or not to lecture...that is the question

These Lectures Are Gone in 60 Seconds - Chronicle.com

Take a 60-minute lecture. Cut the excess verbiage, do away with most of the details, and pare it down to key concepts and themes.

What's left? A "microlecture" over in as few as 60 seconds. A course designer for San Juan College, a community college in Farmington, N.M., says that in online education, such tiny bursts can teach just as well as traditional lectures when paired with assignments and discussions.

Skeptics, however, argue that lectures involving sustained arguments, such as literary analyses or explanations of complex equations, cannot be boiled down in this way.

HOW TO CREATE A ONE-MINUTE LECTURE

Professors spend a lot of time crafting hourlong lectures. The prospect of boiling them down to 60 seconds — or even five minutes — may seem daunting. David Penrose, a course designer for SunGard Higher Education who developed San Juan College's microlectures, suggests that it can be done in five steps:

1. List the key concepts you are trying to convey in the 60-minute lecture. That series of phrases will form the core of your microlecture.

2. Write a 15 to 30-second introduction and conclusion. They will provide context for your key concepts.

3. Record these three elements using a microphone and Web camera. (The college information-technology department can provide advice and facilities.) If you want to produce an audio-only lecture, no Webcam is necessary. The finished product should be 60 seconds to three minutes long.

4. Design an assignment to follow the lecture that will direct students to readings or activities that allow them to explore the key concepts. Combined with a written assignment, that should allow students to learn the material.

5. Upload the video and assignment to your course-management software.

 

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http://chronicle.com
Section: Information Technology
Volume 55, Issue 26, Page A13

Mike: Let me be not the first to suggest that this is not an either/or proposition.  Surely there is value in these chunked, modular pieces of content - particularly when they are supplemental and not primary learning materials.  You might have a different view, but for the online learner a talking head in the box does have limits just as for the lecture hall student the podium speaker has limits.  Mix, match, engage, supplement to meet the students where they will meet you.