Finding Educational Videos

May 25, 2012 at 11:11 am | Posted in useful links | Leave a comment
Tags: MOOC, video

Week 4 of the Bonk MOOC is all about the use of free online video, and presents some ideas about structuring that use. It’s no use simply having a bunch of links to ‘maybe useful’ videos from Blackboard; they really need to be integrated into the learning design. Prof. Bonk published a paper in 2009 that discusses these structures; some are instructor-centred while others are learner-centred. For example:

Anchor with Discussion: The instructor(s) finds videos and shows them in class and students discuss them in small groups with certain assigned tasks.

Collaborative Anchoring: A pair of students as well as the course instructor each find a few relevant videos for the week and then share what they have found with each other and decide which ones to use in class.

It should go without saying that any videos used need to be fully previewed beforehand and their links checked a few days before use; don’t assume that what you used last year will still be available online. If they contain some information or opinions that do not align with your teaching, that is not necessarily a reason to reject them – conflicting voices present a great opportunity for discussion in class. By highlighting any bias, omissions, contradictions or misinformation you can help students become more self-critical of the online resources they find themselves.

Contributors to the discussion forum in the MOOC provided a couple of great links to help you find video resources in places other than YouTube or iTunes U:

• RefSeek provides a great list of educational video sites – and looks to have many other useful lists in addition.
• The Internet Archive has links to a wealth of historical moving images

I’d also thoroughly recommend looking at the JISC Digital Media advice on Finding Videos for Academic Purposes Using Web-based Video Hosting Sites which highlights the time taken to find and review suitable material as well as the importance of choosing effective search terms and filters.

Bonk, C. J. (2008, March). YouTube anchors and enders: The use of shared online video content as a macrocontext for learning. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) 2008 Annual Meeting, New York, NY. Accessed online (May 2012) http://www.acecjournal.org/2009/Journal_Data/Vol7No1/201103.pdf