By Amanda Gregorio,
Imagine a future where you submit video projects instead of essays. Where your textbook links you to online videos instead of 60-page papers. Imagine a future where you engage in your own learning, rather than sitting through a lecture. There are people out there working to make this future possible . . .
Online there are countless YouTube personalities with a mission to teach you one new thing every day鈥攐r at least help you understand what is so important about The Great Gatsby. They are the minds behind shows such as Crash Course, SciShow, VSauce, CGP Grey, The Brain Scoop, Mental Floss, Minute Physics, and countless others. They are also the people at TED-Ed, who work with animators to bring lessons to life.
At 杏吧原创, they are the people who ensure you can study in your pyjamas on your couch by creating content with professors for online classes and broadcasting Video-On-Demand classes. They also create online content for professors to use in CULearn and in class.
And they all have the same goal in mind: getting you, the student, engaged in learning.
Crash Coursing to success
鈥淐rash Course has been an invaluable tool for a lot of students that need that supplementary visual help to grasp something that鈥檚 being taught in class, so it鈥檚 kind of neat to see how helpful that is,鈥� Suzanna Brusikiewicz, co-founder and head of the art department at Thought Caf茅 said.
Thought Caf茅 describes itself as 鈥渁 motion graphic studio that promotes critical awareness.鈥� The company works closely with several Education YouTube channels, including Crash Course, which currently has 987,972 subscribers.
Hosted by YouTube personalities John and Hank Green, Crash Course is a YouTube channel that focusses mainly on teaching science and humanities. The show鈥檚 basis is the advanced placement high school curriculum in the United States, and it uses a mixture of comedy, lecture, and animation to explain complex concepts such as cell division and historical trends, Brusikiewicz said.
The show also attempts to add interesting flair to simpler topics such as the creation of the periodic table.
鈥淚t鈥檚 very quick moving and exciting and funny as well, so it grabs your attention,鈥� she said.
Jonathon Corbiere is the co-founder and head of the animation department at Thought Caf茅.
鈥淏ecause it鈥檚 so expensive to create animation, video production, all of that stuff, you can never have all the content that needs to be taught to these students,鈥� Corbiere said.
鈥淵ou can showcase the more complex things that the students are going to have trouble with . . . The reality would be we could see a digital textbook where there are little video sections explaining down complex details about things as you go through the book,鈥� he said.
Hands-on learning
This kind of thinking about the potential of video to educate is not just occurring to those who work in the world of YouTube鈥攊t鈥檚 also happening right here at 杏吧原创.
Andrew Barrett, assistant director of 杏吧原创鈥檚 Educational Development Centre (EDC), said getting students engaged is not just a matter of using an entertaining format. It is also a matter of hands-on learning.
鈥淩ather than using educational content as a way to push at students, it鈥檚 getting students creating content, and I think that鈥檚 where we鈥檒l see a lot of growth,鈥� Barrett said.
鈥淚 think people will be using video instead of handing in an essay or something like that,鈥� he said.
杏吧原创 already provides the software, available on the university website to anyone with a 杏吧原创 account, to create this kind of content.
Called Camtasia Relay, it enables students to record video from their webcams or screen-capture. The university also offers a space in Southam Hall called Media Commons, where students and faculty can borrow video cameras, use Macs loaded with photo and video editing software, and use soundproof spaces to record, all with support from staff.
鈥淎nyone with a 杏吧原创 account can create video using their laptop . . . It works particularly well with PowerPoint,鈥� Barrett explained.
鈥淚t records all the text separately as well, which is nice because with students with learning disabilities, that鈥檚 an important factor that it鈥檚 not just all video, but you have the text component as well,鈥� he said.
杏吧原创 is a leading university in providing video content, with about 20 per cent of students using video services, Barrett said.
The school offers recorded lectures for many classes called CUTV, which are broadcast live on Rogers, or are available On-Demand (known as VOD classes) for an additional fee. 杏吧原创 University Online (CUOL) also has all of these lectures available for viewing in their office in Loeb Building, said Barrett.
In addition, many professors work with EDC to create video to supplement the courses they teach, which EDC and CUOL estimate half of all 杏吧原创 students have accessed at least once, he said.
Available to professors are professional, high-quality cameras and crew, as well as a green screen.
However, Barrett said education can never be entirely video-based. Online classes, while supporting substantial video content, still rely on good old-fashioned text as well.
鈥淲e think about 鈥榳hat鈥檚 the goal here?鈥� because it takes a lot of time . . . And, at the end of the day, it wouldn鈥檛 necessarily serve the pedagogical goals of the class as well as some other approaches would,鈥� Barrett said. 鈥淚t goes back to really picking the right tool for the goals that you have,鈥� he explained.
Education collaboration
Online content providers and 杏吧原创 faculty do work together to bring online video content to the classroom, Barrett explained.
鈥淚f there鈥檚 a really great video, like a TED Talk or something like that, that hits what we want then using that is a good thing,鈥� he said.
鈥淏ut there鈥檚 some areas where the course is specific enough where there鈥檚 not a video that would be at the level of detail that we want . . . The Canadian context sometimes isn鈥檛 represented as much online,鈥� he explained.
Technology, Entertainment, Design鈥攎ore commonly known as TED鈥攊s recognized widely online for making speeches and presentations by prominent figures, professionals, educators, and celebrities, available online for free.
Barrett said professors of online classes frequently use it, especially since TED has begun an initiative called TED-Ed that enables animators, such as Thought Caf茅, to illustrate lessons with complex or difficult subjects for professors to use in the classroom.
Stephanie Lo, director of programs for TED-Ed, said they created a website so people can access any educational video they create and be able to ask questions about it.
鈥淲e have an open nomination process where . . . anyone who wants to communicate a short lesson can nominate themselves or be nominated to work with us,鈥� she explained. 鈥淲e work with them to create an approximately three-minute-lesson, and then we have the same process . . . an open nomination process with animators.鈥�
Lo said much of her job involves collaborating with educators.
鈥淚 end up working with a lot of teachers and a lot of students to figure out 鈥榟ow is our content useful?鈥� And then figuring out 鈥榳hat can we do to support educational systems best?鈥欌�� she said.
The price of knowledge
A challenge that faces all video educators is funding. Barrett said 杏吧原创 funds the EDC and CUOL to ensure the most high-quality equipment and video is available to students. However, sites like TED and YouTube often struggle to stay afloat in the competitive world of online video. Most YouTube education channels self-produce and are funded by their creators, occasionally using ad revenue through one to two minute ads at the beginning of videos, according to the co-founders of Thought Caf茅.
Crash Course is unique in that it receives funding from Google on top of ad revenue to cover starting costs. However, that funding is only temporary and the show is trying to work away from being reliant on advertising. Crash Course is looking into subsidizing the show using a model called Subbable, which allows educators and viewers to donate a regular amount towards the show鈥檚 continuation, said the Thought Caf茅 founders.
鈥淚 think it is fair to ask teachers or school boards and students, to some degree, to donate whatever they can to fund content that鈥檚 helped them out,鈥� Corbiere said. 鈥淚 see Subbable as subsidizing.鈥�
Brusikiewicz agreed.
鈥淲ith Subbable, it does give the audience a bit of leeway and control as to the future of the show, what topics are covered,鈥� Brusikiewicz said. 鈥淪o the nice thing about it is it gives everybody a chance to partake in what they want to see Crash Course become.鈥�
Both co-founders agreed that with initiatives like Kickstarter and Indiegogo enabling practical crowd- funding projects, perhaps paying for the online educational content is the future as much as submitting video assignments instead of essays is.
At least for now, 鈥榝ree鈥� is key in the world of online video educators, and they would like to keep it that way for as long as possible.