Beyond Lecture Capture: The Ever Expanding Video Learning Applications in Education
By Adam Noyes
The phrase “lecture capture” is often used as a blanket term for the various video learning applications in education. In reality, lecture capture is just one of the tools used to assist a specific application.
The actual scope of video learning goes far beyond the traditional understanding of lecture capture (e.g. recording a teacher giving a lecture for later review by students). In their 2018 survey of the State of Video in Education, Kaltura found that the use of video learning is steadily rising and becoming more widespread. We’d like to shed some light on the different categories and use cases of video learning in education, as well as talk about the future trends.
Today, video (along with other digital tools) is used so widely in schools, universities, and online learning institutions, that it’s often difficult to draw a clear line between all the various applications. To help categorize the different use cases of video in education, we’ve broken them down into 4 main categories:
- Teaching materials
- Student-generated content
- Special events
- Internal and external communication
These basic applications could be live or pre-recorded, interactive or non-interactive. Let’s look at the specific examples within each category.
1. Teaching materials
Video teaching materials are created with the specific goal of passing on knowledge from one person to another using visual channels. Enhancing teaching using video has been proven to improve information retention, facilitate creative thinking and problem solving, and develop a deeper understanding of the subject.
Recorded lectures
Going back to our original point, recorded lectures (or lecture capture) is probably the first thing that comes to mind when talking about video learning. And for a good reason: using recorded video lectures for teaching has proved to be very beneficial. Pre-recorded teacher lectures play an integral part in the flipped classroom model as well as blended learning. The flipped classroom model infers that students watch lectures as homework, and then spend class time in meaningful discussion and participating in more practical activities. Blended learning on the other hand talks about combining the traditional ways of teaching (class time, interaction with the teacher and peers) along with the use of video and other electronic means of learning. Recorded lectures are also used to build online courses, making remote learning possible.
Recorded lectures could take many different forms: they could be pre-recorded by the teacher on their own time or they could be filmed during an actual lesson. These could be instructional videos, demonstrations, simulations, material presentation, and much more. They could consist of just the talking head and voiceover, or they could incorporate slides, desktop recordings, screen casts, animations, additional video materials, titles, and more.
Live lectures
Video teaching could also be live. Think of a one-on-one session between a tutor and a student, who is located remotely. This is especially useful when learning practical skills like languages. Thanks to the interactive component of live video, the student can ask questions and receive immediate feedback regarding their progress.
Supplemental video materials
Supplemental video materials include any additional video materials used for teaching, but that aren’t necessarily created by the teacher. This can include clips pulled from social media, the institution’s media library, or even educational videos made by third parties. This could include things like interviews, documentaries, demonstrations, simulations, or other clips to observe and learn from.
Learning games
With the arrival of mobile devices and tablets into the hands of every student, educational games are becoming very popular. Starting from kindergarten spelling games and all the way up to complex logical games for college students, these games are a fun way to learn. Educators are now also experimenting with recorded interactive lectures, where the next step might change depending on the player’s (student’s) choice. Games like this are great for simulating life situations where the student has to make decisions quickly. These are often made by third-party companies rather than educational institutions themselves, however, it’s a great way to engage students.
2. Student generated content
More and more educators assign creating a piece of video content as homework (and not just for AV class!). Creating video is a great way to check for subject understanding and a great practical way for the student to learn presentation skills. This type of content is also called student generated content. Some examples:
Group and individual video projects
Creating a video could be assigned as a class project. As today’s generation uses video as a way to communicate on a daily basis, using this medium might inspire and motivate students to take a more creative approach to the task. Making videos helps develop critical thinking, storytelling, video editing, as well as presentation skills. Group video assignments help develop collaboration skills.
Peer teaching
A great way to learn something is to teach it to others. Some educators have their students prepare and explain a concept to their peers using video. This method can accomplish a few things: it lets the teacher know whether the student understands the material; it also teaches other students the material; and it lets the student practice their presentation skills. The video doesn’t even have to be presented in class – it could be distributed over the school’s LMS.
Active learning classrooms
Many universities are introducing media spaces equipped with audio, video, and internet technology (a.k.a. active learning classrooms) for teachers and students to use. One of the most prominent features that relates to the use of video is that these spaces allow both the staff and students to share materials and work on collective screens.
One of the pioneers in this field is the University of Indiana’s Mosaic program, which focuses on all types of active learning. Their Solstice screen sharing app allows users to freely share their screens with any other screen or device within the Solstice network.
Programs like these make great strides forward in researching the effects of active learning classrooms on students. Active learning classroom applications go far beyond work demonstration and screen sharing. It is a huge topic worth diving into in a separate article.
Self-recording
Students can benefit greatly from observing and reviewing their own performance on film. For this reason, some teachers record or assign students to make a recording of themselves practicing a specific skill. This approach is particularly useful for activities like performing arts, language study, oral communication, and even athletics.
3. Special Events
Schools, universities and colleges often organize special events outside of the regular school curriculum. This may include inviting guest speakers for a talk or an interview, conferences, fundraisers, and also things like athletic events and competitions. Even though these events may not necessarily be educational on their own, they do present informational interest to the students, staff, and faculty. These events could be recorded, streamed, or both.
Special guests, conventions, talks, etc.
A school may invite their distinguished alumni to give a talk for the entire school. Those unable to attend in person would still be able to watch the recording or live stream.
Competitions
Videos from athletic events could later be reviewed and analyzed by coaches and used to improve their team’s future performance.
Remote interviews
If a guest cannot attend the physical event, video could be used to conduct a live interview with them. Live bridges with another school could also an interesting interactive opportunity.
4. External and internal communications
The truth is that video is not just used for learning in educational facilities. It is also a powerful communication and marketing tool that schools use to spread their message to the world and interact internally.
Internal communications
A lot of the internal organizational communications today are done using video. This can include teacher-student and internal staff communications, employee training, internal webcasts, video feedback and performance reviews, official addresses and more. Using video for internal purposes has the potential to save a lot of time: the school doesn’t necessarily have to bring together all participants in one physical space to conduct business. Applications in this category can be live or VOD, depending on the specific use case.
With internal video communications, security becomes especially important. For safe management and distribution of video, it’s important to use a secure video CMS platform, such as Panopto or Kaltura. They are specifically designed to make sure that private information stays private.
External communications
Similar to internal communications, video could assist with the school’s external communications. This could include automating the admission and orientation process, distributing “next steps” video manuals to applying and accepted students. Videos could be used to make personal introductions from staff to students. Video could also be used to address school alumni and organize external events.
External marketing videos
It’s no secret that the majority of educational institutions today need to generate demand and stay profitable. This means they use a lot of marketing materials to appeal to potential students. Video marketing is a huge part of that. This may include recruitment and promotional videos, ads, and so on. With so many facilities being equipped with video cameras and equipment, some marketing videos could even be made in-house.
Future trends of video learning in education
It’s quite clear that video use in education will only grow from here. Screens and videos are very deeply integrated in educators’ and students’ lives, and very few respond well to using just text for learning. Visual stimulation encourages student interaction with the content and concept, engages the student. Therefore, video in education will be headed towards more interactivity, immersion, automation and analytic approach.
On the cutting edge, augmented reality, virtual reality, and 360-degree video learning will be implemented in learning scenarios. Virtual experiences and simulations will help students practice situations and skills in a safe environment. Features like auto-scoring, predictive analytics, and self-paced video curriculums will become a standard part of video courses.
On the less inventive, but more practical side, we believe that the video applications of today will continue to grow and become more widespread. Flipped classroom and blended learning methods will become even more popular and perhaps even mainstream. These applications will tend to become more interactive, as interactive learning tends to be faster and more effective. Live video will play an active role in making traditional video applications more interactive.
Conclusion
As you can see, there is a great deal of different potential video use cases in education, and their number only predicted to grow. Multiple studies have concluded that blended learning and the flipped classroom models positively affect learning.
Naturally, to be able to properly capture, store, and distribute this amount of video content, educational institutions need to be properly equipped and prepared. This is no easy task, but luckily, there are many great tools available. From the video management and distribution side, companies like Panopto and Kaltura are making great progress in making these processes secure, intuitive, and simple for schools to use. From the video capture, recording, and streaming side, we here at Epiphan video strive to provide easy to use and reliable lecture capture equipment, such as our Pearl Mini and Pearl-2 hardware encoders.