Friday, February 27, 2015

2.1.4 Lecture Capture



Lecture capture software systems allow teachers to digitally record lectures and make them available for students to watch via the Internet. This feature makes of lecture capture a perfect tool for flipped teaching and learning. However, in the online classroom, which is predominantly asynchronous, the only effective practice I could think this resource could facilitate was to deliver and review course content.

While doing some research to learn more about how the integration of lecture capture would function and modify teaching methods in the online classroom, I came across the article Flipping the Online Classroom – One Professor’s Unique Approach, by Kelly Walsh. In this article, Walsh tells the story of Dr. Marshall, a college professor that decided to flip her online classroom. It is quite a fascinating story about how she created a robust set of regular synchronous working sessions, which turned the class into a truly dynamic digital classroom. Here is an excerpt from the article:

Students were assigned lectures she had recorded as their out-of-class work, which is common in flipped on-campus classes. Marshall’s recorded lectures were often rather lengthy, in contrast with common recommendations, but it is important to remember that this is also a graduate course. In some cases, they were split into two parts and/or students chose to view them in two parts, as there was usually only one lecture per week.

During the synchronous meeting sessions, students would log in and complete a “sign in” activity, based on the material from the lecture, while also serving as a record of attendance. Within the Adobe Connect platform, students would break into groups, each working on activities in their own digital breakout rooms. Marshall can ‘roam’ for room to room and observe or participate. Each group also has its own online collaborative whiteboard, and its own chat functionality. Everyone returns to a main meeting room to work together afterwards.

This practice seems to indicate the direction that online teaching and learning might take in the future. According to Walsh, increased use of synchronous elements is going to become more common as online learning continues to evolve. Using a tool like lecture capture will not only help flip the online classroom but also, as Walsh suggests, it will help emulate elements of the on-campus classroom which can strengthen the engaging social aspect that is often challenging to replicate in distance learning formats reliant solely on course management systems.


References

Walsh, K. (2014) Flipping the Online Classroom – One Professor’s Unique Approach. Retrieved February 27, 2015, from

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