Which Video Type is Best for E-learning?
Thank you so much for sending me your questions. They are all interesting and excellent questions that stimulate lots of deeper thoughts. In this short post, I am going to answer two questions from Julliene as they are the most interesting to me and very practical.
The first question is “What in your experience is the most successful video type for engagement and learning?” Before jumping into discussing any particular video type and its effectiveness, I think it is crucial to have a good understanding of different video types have been used commonly on current e-learning platforms. Fortunately, Crook and Schofield (2017) have done this onerous job and proposed a comprehensive classification for lecture video in online learning environment. The picture below will give you a glimpse of their classification. If you are interested in learning more about specifications of each video category, you can refer to the article in the reference section at the end of this post.
Categories of video lecture design. (Crook and Schofield, 2017)
I think it is hard to tell which specific video types are the most successful since each type has its own pros and cons and depending on the subject of study, one video type may perform better than the others. In addition, it is worth noting that each learner has his/her own learning styles and preferences, so there is definitely no “one size fits all” solution. For example, it can be seen from the above picture that the video types in group A lack of the presence of lecturer and other learners as well as their interactions; put it another way, they lack social cues which are essential to maintain learners’ engagement and motivation. Nonetheless, they devote entire screen area to present learning content and that not only enhances legibility of learning content, but also avoids split attention effect and reduces cognitive load for learners subsequently. Looking specifically at Khan whiteboard videos, though they do not require sophisticated technology and time for production, but the handwriting might be hard to read. Regardless those drawbacks, from my own learning experience, these types, especially the “A2. Voice over screencast” are very effective for learning how to use computer software and applications. If you have ever checked out the online courses on Lynda.com website, you will recognize that its videos mostly fall into “A1. Voice over slides” or “A2. Voice over screencast” categories. In case you don’t know, we have free access to Lynda.com with our TC account, so take advantage of it, it is a great online self-paced learning resource that I highly recommend. You can find a plenty of intuitive and well-designed courses specialized for instructional design and e-learning. The rapidly growing ubiquity of mobile devices has been the driving force behind m-learning or mobile learning which is “learning across multiple contexts, through social and content interactions, using personal electronic devices” (Crompton, 2013) in the recent years. Learners now not only access to learning content through their computers, but also view it on their mobile devices which have the screen size significantly smaller than that of computers. With that being said, readability of content become the top priority when making decision of video types. Instructional designers would surely avoid types which have multiple windows like “B1. Presence fixed frame outside” or “B2. Presence mobile frame outside” making text less readable. To sum up, the effectiveness of video types on learning in general and engagement in particular would vary markedly from learners to learners depending on their learning preferences, subject of study, and learning context.
The second question is “How do you see that informing designs for AR/VR environments?”
It is worth mentioning that the VR immersive experience per se is sometimes overwhelming for learners, let alone the instructional content delivered in this virtual environment. One of the common issues of VR which is brought up occasionally is motion sickness. Indeed, people often experience some sort of nausea and dizziness which is the feeling you have when travelling on a ship or a car when wearing VR headset for awhile. Therefore, it is critical to understand how VR would affect learners so that we can harness this unique environment to foster learning outcome rather than hinder it.
When I think of virtual reality, I see it as a medley of various forms of multimedia including videos, images, animations and so on, so it can be hypothesized that the effect of these multimedia on learners might be similar or even augmented in VR environment. Yet the excessive exposure to a plethora of multimedia might certainly cause some degrees of cognitive load and affect attention as well as motivation of learners.
Besides, I think research findings concerning multimedia learning in general and lecture video in particular might be applicable to VR environment to some certain extents as well. For example, the prominent multimedia design principles such as signaling principle, contiguity principle, and modality principle would still be highly relevant and applicable when it comes to developing instructional content in the VR world. Finally, it is needless to say that VR technology allows us endless capabilities, but how we make good use of these capabilities is what really matters. Should we simply bring everything in real classroom to VR classroom and expect learners to perform a comparable or even superior degree of engagement and motivation? Definitely not. We need to carefully consider many other factors as when we produce learning content for traditional learning enviroment.
References Crompton, H. (2013). A historical overview of mobile learning: Toward learner-centered education. In Z. L. Berge & L. Y. Muilenburg (Eds.), Handbook of mobile learning (pp. 3–14). Florence, KY: Routledge.
Crook, C. & Schofield, L. (2017). The video lecture. The Internet and Higher Education, 34, 56–64. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S109675161730026X?via%3Dihub
