Easy and Participatory: The changing face of web resources Dr Martin Poulter Economics Network of...

Easy and Participatory:The changing face of web

resources

Dr Martin PoulterEconomics Network of the HE Academy,

University of Bristol

www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk

But First…

• http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ndpehyXPD9o


Pre-web

• Books

• Papers

• Computer-based activities (e.g. simulations)

• Each with a physical location


With the web

• Text and images

• Interactive tutorials, simulations

• Video and audio

• Addressed by URL anywhere with internet access

• (Creating your own web page still requiring some expertise)

• http://economicsnetwork.ac.uk/handbook/web/


The next generation

• “Edit this page” buttons

• Everyone has a web site, and now so has everyone else

• Almost every site becoming a discussion/community-based site

• You can now point students to a (constrained) blank canvas


What’s changed?

• The web got easier; easier to access, easier to create

• The web got more participatory

• Services became embeddable

• The commercial sector delivered cheaper, more usable and better quality services than expected

• Web pages become more interactive, more like applications


Drivers

• Student culture – digital natives– Confidence with the technology

– Participation in online communities

– Short attention span for text (“TL;DR”)

– Expectation of interactivity

• Changing staff/student ratios– Uptake of “active learning” approaches such as

Problem-Based Learning

– Attempt to preserve mentorship


Student activism


User-editable pages

• Blogs– A chronological series of posts, like a diary– A sidebar– Comments boxes– Rapid authoring

• Wikis– “Edit this page”– “New page”– Can also have a sidebar– Unstructured; a “blank slate”


Blogs: educational uses

• Track news items

• Invite students to post and make comments on each others’ posts

• Post class notices

• Organise discussions

http://economicsnetwork.ac.uk/showcase/ayres_blogs.htm


Blogs as substitute for VLEs

• “A nice feature of Blogs is that they allow students to post comments to any announcement. In practice I have found that the comment is not always related to the post but may be another question relating to the class in general.This feature provides an excellent format better than email for questions. With the comments posted on the class blog other students gain a better appreciation for the course dialog as it develops and can ask questions that build on previous one.”

“The Economics Class Blog: An Alternative Course Management System”http://economicsnetwork.ac.uk/showcase/kochanski_blog


Podcasting

• Blogs can include audio or video content with each post.

• Users can subscribe to a feed, then receive new programmes as they are put online

• Students like having short audio or video clips while on the bus.

• Audacity is free, easy to use audio-editing software used by a lot of podcasters

http://economicsnetwork.ac.uk/showcase/johnes_podcasts.htm


Delicious versus the VLE

• “Tagging items with a module code makes it easy for students to find sites their lecturers think look interesting. This is easier than posting links in Blackboard, since the process can be done with a couple of clicks. Crucially though, the students can also be encouraged to do the same, sharing useful pieces they find, so that the whole process becomes a social one.

“And because del.icio.us has an RSS facility, students can use a feed reader/aggregator to notify them of new entries as and when these appear.”

• http://pllatreille.wordpress.com/2007/09/14/reflections-on-dee-2007/


Wiki example: PBwiki.com

• Free multi-user editable web sites for academic purposes

• Group collaboration• Share files• Track contributions (notified

by email) • Revert damage• Comments at foot of page• (Limited) choice of appearance


Example: Health Economics Education

• Community of academics that share teaching resources and course details

• “easiest experience of making a web site”


What is YouTube?

• Number one video sharing site on the Internet, top 10 of all Internet sites

• Approx. 40% share of online video market - if it's not on YouTube, it doesn't exist?

• Viewers watch 10's of millions of videos each and every day

• Vast majority of videos are "user generated content" - made by people like you and me


A YouTube profile can

• Upload videos

• Assemble videos into playlists with their own URL

• Recommend videos to other people

• Subscribe to video providers (e.g. Nobel Foundation)


What you need (1)

• Camera – Flip £90 on Amazon

• Video editing software (Movie Maker/ iMovie) – no charge

• Account on YouTube or other video sharing site – no charge

• Consider a dedicated laptop

• May need a firewire cable or interface if getting a higher-spec camera


What you need (2)

• Something to say!

• YouTube is a community website, be prepared to engage

• You don't have to have to be the BBC - it's a world of webcams

• Perhaps you'd prefer to be Tim Harford instead


Example: Economics Network

• Uploading student videos

• Playlists

• Recommending Oxford Brookes student presentation videos

• Monitoring other providers


Educational Uses

• Distance learning

• Supplementary lectures (e.g. maths skills, presentation skills)

• Contextualising an issue, e.g. old news footage

• Perspectives for students to examine critically (news coverage, activist videos, TED lectures)

• Screen capture (e.g. demonstrating software)

• Short humour items to break up a long lecture

• Student video assignment?


Alternatives to YouTube

• Vimeo– www.vimeo.com

– Much higher video quality than YouTube, same ease of use, less “community”

• Google Video– video.google.com

– Hosts more “serious content” e.g. documentaries

– Not limited to 10 minutes as on YouTube

– Search engine searches other video sites


Finding more videos (1)

• Findability on YouTube is awful - try the Education section, try searching for Economics

• Video can't be indexed in the same way as text - relies on user input / metadata

• Third parties can help to get beyond the what's popular / new lists

• Try OpenCulture www.oculture.com


Finding more videos (2)

• Intute Social Sciencesintute.ac.uk/socialsciences

• Economics Network video indexeconomicsnetwork.ac.uk/teaching/video

• Subscribe to EN’s YouTube profileyoutube.com/economicsnetwork


Camtasia

• Screen capture and video editing

• Educational price as low as ~£60 (buying 5 at once)

• Input: video from camera, video from screen, images, sound, text

• Output: video in a variety of formats, compressed well and ready to put online

• Hard to beat in terms of ease of use


Camtasia resources

• Guides to Stata, SPSS & other software– www.stat.tamu.edu/spss.php

• Help with Web 2.0 services and Blackboard– teachertrainingvideos.com/

• Help with Moodle– treadwell.cce.cornell.edu/moodle_doc/


Alternatives to Camtasia

• Cheaper but less flexible:

• Wink– www.debugmode.com/wink/

• Hypercam– www.hyperionics.com


Your mission

• Log in to the pbwiki for this session

• Look around: all the links mentioned so far are there.

• Find a link that’s relevant to today’s issues and add it either in comments or directly on the page.

• Use the links from the Blogs page to register your own blog if you don’t have one already. (You’ll need an email address).

Easy and Participatory: The changing face of web resources Dr Martin Poulter Economics Network of...

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