Section 1: Introduction

Online lecture, videos, or screencasts created by an instructor can have a positive impact on students’ attitudes towards their learning experience. Students may believe that they comprehend the content better due to hearing their instructor’s voice. Students also believe they can work at their own pace because of the ability replay the recorded video. Guerrero, Baumgartel, and Zobott (2013) developed a study comparing experiences of two sections of students within a transformation of pedagogy setting that had similar traits to flipped learning. Section 1 did not view screencasts and Section 2 did view screencasts. Guerrero et al. state “Findings from instructor insights reflect many of the positive comments made by students regarding the use of online notes. Students in Section 2 seemed more aware of the content being covered each day and came to class prepared to engage with group members on the content.” The screencasts allowed students to view the lecture outside of class. Students were able to gain an initial understanding and went to class prepared with questions along with applicable knowledge for the face-to-face activities. Guerrero et al. (2013) explained that students from Section 1 received more “conventional” education in which students took notes during class with hands-on learning integrated throughout the face-to-face meetings.” Students from Section 1 asked more definition-based and procedural questions while students from Section 2 asked more application-oriented and conceptual questions. When students ask more application-oriented questions this is indicative of progressing towards higher order thinking skills such as applying and analyzing.

Asynchronous lectures are online lectures that are done on the participant’s own time. The instructor and student do not need to be present at the same time. This is a good type of online lecture for fully asynchronous online courses in which students are not required to attend any real-time sessions.

Effective Recorded Lectures for Online Courses

Recorded lectures for online courses provide the opportunity for explicit explanations of a concept. Instructors can use screencasting software or web conferencing software to record microlectures. Brown, Luterbach, and Sugar (2009) state “Wouter, Paas, & Merrienboer (2008) observe that the instructional methods of modeling and vicarious learning, in which experts perform problem-solving tasks for learners while explaining their actions are a good fit with teaching task performance.” Screencasting offers the opportunity for instructors to record a video that captures the task performance along with audio commentary explaining the process. Brown et al. (2009) state “Screencasting technology fits well with this instructional approach in that it presents digital video of the expert’s actions for the learner to see while simultaneously presenting the expert’s audio commentary on his/her actions.” Screencasting also supports Mayer’s Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (CTML). The CTML states that students learn better from words (spoken or typed) and graphics, rather than just words alone (Mayer, 2005). Screencasting provides the combination of graphics and words that encompasses the practical vision of the CTML. The words can be in the form of audio commentary or added as callouts to highlight key points during the screencast.

Recording a screencast entails structural elements and instructional strategies that can impact student learning. Sugar, Brown, and Luterbach (2010) state “Structural elements are those that describe the format of a screencast in terms of sectioning, screen recording, and general narrative elements.” Sugar et al. (2010) identified three structural elements after analyzing 37 screencasts. The structural elements include bumpers, screen movement, and narration.

Bumpers are considered the introductory and concluding statements for the screencast. They identify the beginning and the ending of the screencast. Bumpers can also be utilized to provide a brief introduction of the topic being presented in the screencast.

Screen movement during a screencast can be considered static or dynamic. Dynamic screen movement follows the cursor and may zoom in to focus on particular images or text. This can be helpful when identifying key points on a document with a small font size. Static movement is when the screen does not follow the cursor. This is evident when simply presenting the content for a slideshow presentation.

Narration is the audio commentary for the screencast which can be explicit or implicit. Explicit narration explains each step such as “Click on the edit button in order to edit the site.” Implicit narration could be “Edit the page then click save.” Notice the implicit narration does not explain where the edit button is located because of the implication that the student already knows where the “edit” button is located. Explicit and implicit narration depends on the background knowledge for the students. A student that has limited experience with the topic will require explicit instructions compared to someone with significant experience may only need implicit instructions.

Best Practices for Creating Recorded Online Lectures 

1. Scripts: Write a script of what you want to say, to make sure the most important things are covered. This can then be used as the transcript in the video to attend to ADA compliance.
2. Storyboards: Design a story board, which is just a plan of what will be said, shown, and described. This helps guide the project to make sure it covers the needed material.
3. Learning Nuggets: Break the topics down into bite-sized ’learning nuggets’. Keep narrated lecture videos to 15 minutes or less, with 10 minutes being the optimal time. People will not sit through longer video lectures.
4. Colors: Think about text and content colors to make sure they are easy on the eyes. For example, light Orange text can be hard to read.
5. Avoid Fluff: Keep the content tight and to the point. People are busy and do not want to waste their time. So stick to short learning videos on key topics.

Flipped learning is, essentially, blended learning. It is a course that utilizes both in-class time and online time for student learning. The focus of a flipped learning approach is to take the lectures out of the classroom time and put them online for students to view on their own time prior to class, and then using the in-class time for in-person activities that better utilize the face-to-face (f2f) time than lectures would.

Some of the benefits and reasons to move to a flipped-learning environment are:

1. Limited class time: There is only so much f2f time with students. Why waste it droning on about lecture topics they could easily read or view prior to coming to class? Instead put the lectures online, and use limited class time for doing interactive student group work on the lecture materials.
2. Checking for Understanding: This one is very important! If you lecture for an hour, students take notes, and then leave. But how do you know they actually correctly understood the content? How do you catch misconceptions? If you put the lecture online for the students to view prior to class, then you may use limited class time to check for student understanding and application of the learning content, which in turn takes the student to a higher order of Bloom’s Taxonomy.
3. Teach Self-Efficacy: In the modern world we must become responsible for our own progress and success. We have to learn to organize our time, and take control of our learning. A flipped learning environment teaches students to plan ahead and review content prior to coming to class. Though we do suggest a quiz at the start of class to be sure they actually viewed the lectures before coming.
4. Better Learning Design: Split the class up into learning that works well online, and that which is best suited to the in-person environment, so that students are getting the best use of learning time with the instructor.

Following are some tips and tools to support a flipped learning or even fully online classroom environment:

1. Online Presentations as Lectures: You can create online lectures using a presentation you normally use in a f2f course. However, note that taking a PowerPoint presentation and throwing it into an online course with out notes or audio to go with it is akin to standing in the back of a classroom and flipping through the slides without saying anything to the students. Throwing a PowerPoint into an online course is not providing a suitable online lecture material to students that is the equivalent to what they would get in a f2f course. Remember, it is about equivalency. Here are some online presentation tools you could use, and then screencast yourself speaking about each slide or image in them, and then provide that screencast of your audio lecture on the presentation as an online lecture for students.
   • Prezi (Presentations that are more dynamic than PowerPoint): https://prezi.com/
   • Sway (Interactive reports and presentations): https://sway.com/
   • Glogster (Multimedia Posters): http://www.glogster.com/#one
2. Screencasted Lectures: There is now easy access to many different types of screencasting tools online. This makes it easy to video record a lecture or screencast a tutorial online and then load those in the online portion of the course for students to access on their own time. Then classroom time can used instead for checking understanding on those concepts.
   • Two good possible tools to try:
     • Screen-casto-matic: http://wscreencast-o-matic.com/
     • Knovio (the free version): http://wknovio.com/
     • PowToon: http://wpowtoon.com/
     • Prezi : https://prezcom (Use screen-casto-matic to record the audio of a Prezi or PowerPoint)
     • Sway: https://sway.com/