Friday, 30 November 2018

(Screen)cast a spell on your students!


Every year the English Studies Department delivers a Crash Course to its postgraduate students, which consists of a series of presentations and seminars on core academic skills or discipline-related topics. This year we decided to shift away from traditional teaching norms and give those presentations through screencasts (videos which capture everything that is displayed in your computer screen, e.g. a powerpoint presentation).  More specifically, screencasts were delivered on the following topics: exploring academic writing, citing sources and referencing, how to do an oral presentation and pronunciation teaching. All videos aimed at providing students with valuable knowledge and skills ahead of their first assignments. As Generation Z learns best through information chunking, the seminars were divided into two or three parts lasting 5-10 minutes each. After the screencasts had been recorded, students were sent the links so that they could watch the videos at their own convenience.

The tool we decided to use is Screencast-o-matic (https://screencast-o-matic.com/), a screencasting and video editing software the International Faculty has been using for quite some time. This tool is quite intuitive and requires only a short time of engagement for the user to familiarize themselves with the interface. It also offers multiple options. For instance, the presenter can pause the recording any time they choose (e.g. when an error occurs) and continue recording from the same point, or even move the slider back to the preferable point and record over the part that includes the error. This method minimizes the post-recording editing. Alternatively, the presenter may decide to avoid pausing the recorder every time an error occurs and keep recording, simply repeating the part that needs to be ‘repaired’. This method allows the presenter to maintain a consistent pace throughout their delivery, although it requires heavier editing afterwards. By now you must be thinking: ‘this sounds very complicated’! However, you will be glad to hear that although to a screencast rookie the process might seem a bit frustrating and repetitive, the software is extremely easy to use and editing does not require any special skills.

        

In addition to that, the advantages of this particular teaching method are numerous. 
  • Screencast presentations can be used in a variety of manners, from providing feedback to targeted students or cohorts to covering key points relevant to a certain module or discipline. 
  • Screencasts can also be used as an assessment method by asking students to generate their own video presentations on a specific topic. 
  • Moreover, they allow us to introduce chunking into our teaching by forcing us to approach key concepts and ideas in the context of short videos instead of hour-long lectures, all the while sustaining our Gen Zers’ interest. 
  • More importantly, however, screencast presentations are readily available and as the topics we have selected are rather general, students can refer back to them any time they need to dust off their referencing, paraphrasing, presentation or writing skills. 
  • Finally, screencasts save valuable time as instructors do not have to deliver the same seminar every semester. For example, with a few modifications these videos can be shared with undergraduate and postgraduate students year after year.

For those interested, these are some examples of screencasts we developed:

So, if you want to try out something new in your teaching this year, we strongly recommend opting for a screencast. It’s easy to use, saves valuable time and effort and you can always refer back to it! Happy screencasting everyone!

Evgenia Kleidona, Vicky Papachristou, Kelly Pasmatzi and Zoi Tatsioka, 
ESD

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