Samruddhi Khandare

PCE, New Panvel

IITBombayX: FDP101x Foundation Program in ICT for Education

Course Journal

Week 4: 24th August to 03rd September, 2017

Week 4 focuses on:

1. Creation of Video Resources:

Week 4 focuses on creation of video resources using a methodology known as "Screencasting"

or "Screen Recording". In the first two learning dialogues (LeDs), Prof. Kannan Moudgalya gave

detailed explanation on how spoken tutorial project at IIT Bombay utilizes this video creation

process. This is followed by a practice activity, where we had to create a short video on "How to

create a website in WordPress" in a local language that we are comfortable with.

2. Learning Dashboard:

This week also focuses on the idea of "Learning Dashboards" a semi-automatic way of creating

visualizations about our engagement with the course. In this we have to create our own

“Learning Dashboard” with the help of given sample “Learning Dashboard”.

3. Resource Creation Assignment:

The first resource creation assignment of the FDP was released where we had to create a test

course using MOODLE. This assignment was peer reviewed.

4. Mentor – Mentee Interactions:

A mentor - mentee grouping in IITBombayX was enabled where all mentors and mentees were

provided a single discussion forum where we could discuss the various aspects of the course and

activities in it.

Spoken Tutorial: Creating a Video Open Education

Resource

In this tutorial Prof. Kanan Moudgalya, talks about Open Educational Resources which are also

known as OER such as Khan Academy, NPTEL, OCW and MOOCs such as edX which have a

lot of open educational resources. They can be accessed any time. Prof. Kanan Moudgalya, talks

about an OER called Spoken Tutorial. “Spoken Tutorial” is an initiative of NMEICT, MHRD

Government of India. It teaches open source software through audio-video tutorials.

“Spoken Tutorial” has many interesting things such as software training, software creation, etc. It

is released under the license of CC BY-SA, Creative Commons Attribution- ShareAlike.

This software has two important menu bars:

a. Courses: This menu bar gives us a lot of topics on which spoken tutorials are available.

b. Languages: The language menu bar provides us with different languages in which these

tutorials are available.

So the below figure shows that the program selected is “Digital India” and language selected is

“English”.

The following figure shows the list of videos for the keyword “Digital India”.

Suppose, we click on the first result i.e. “SBI Account Opening”.

On clicking the first result “SBI Account Opening” we are directed to the next page where a

tutorial video is available which gives information about the formalities to open a savings bank

account.

This page also consist the scripts of the tutorial. To read the scripts of the video we have to click

on the “Scripts”.

Following figure shows the scripts of the video “SBI Account Opening”. So, this helps make

sure that the tutorial created is suitable for beginners. And hence, it is suitable for self-learning.

This page also consist the slides of the tutorial/video. To view or download the slides of the

tutorial we have to click on the “Slides”

The zip folder is downloaded.

On opening the zip folder the PPT slides of the tutorial is available in Pdf format.

Now we can view the downloaded slides of the tutorial.

If we select the course as “All Courses” and language as “All Languages” and press the Submit

button, we get the entire set of tutorials. There are more than 7,178 tutorials in all languages.

The figures in round brackets indicate the total number of tutorials available in different Indian

languages. The videos are dubbed into all 22 Indian languages.

We can also view the details of the conducted workshops. To view the details of the conducted

workshops, go to “Statistics” and click on “Training”.

Following figure shows the details of conducted workshops. The total numbers of workshops

conducted by this software are 71,692 and the total number of participants who attended the

workshops is 3,685,336.

We can also view the training statistics of this software used by any other colleges. In the

following figure we can see that the total number of workshops/training and the number of

participants is zero for the institution “Pillai College of Engineering”. But if we want to conduct

such kind of training for our college students for a particular lab course that runs for a whole

semester we can get in touch with IITBombayX.

We can also have a look at the tutorial statistics, where we can see the total of number of

tutorials conducted for a particular course. From the following figure we can see that the total

number of tutorials conducted for the course named “Advanced C” is 3.

Other Screencasting Softwares

Following is the comparison of notable screencasting software’s, used to record activities on the

computer screen. This software is commonly used for desktop recording, gameplay recording

and video editing. Screencasting software is typically limited to streaming and recording desktop

activity alone, in contrast with a software vision mixer, which has the capacity to mix and switch

the output between various input streams.

Product Name Publisher

Latest

Version

Release

Date OS Software License

Source Code

Available

ActivePresenter Atomi Systems 6.1.2 7/19/2017 Windows,

macOS

Proprietary commercial No

ActivePresenter Free

Edition

Atomi Systems 6.1.2 7/19/2017 Windows,

macOS

Freeware No

Adobe Captivate Adobe Systems 9 8/3/2015 Windows,

macOS

Proprietary commercial No

Adobe Presenter

Video Express

Adobe Systems 11 9/14/2016 Windows,

macOS

Proprietary commercial No

AVS Video Editor Online Media

Technologies Ltd

7.5.1.288 1/16/2017 Windows Commercial No

Bandicam Bandisoft 3.0.3.1025 2/25/2016 Windows Proprietary commercial No

BB FlashBack Blueberry Software 5.4.0.3442 12/18/2014 Windows Proprietary commercial No

BB

FlashBack Express

Blueberry Software 5.22.0.4178 11/9/2016 Windows Freeware No

CamStudio CamStudio.org 2.7.2 r326 10/19/2013 Windows GPL Yes

Camtasia (Mac) TechSmith 3.0.6 5/23/2017 macOS Trialware No

Camtasia (Windows) TechSmith 9.0.5 5/16/2017 Windows Trialware No

Capture Fox Zafer Gurel 0.7.0 11/25/2009 Windows Freeware Yes

Fraps Beepa Pty Ltd 3.5.99 2/26/2013 Windows Proprietary commercial No

Freeseer FOSSLC 3.0.1 12/15/2013 Windows,

OS X,

Linux.

GPL v3 Yes

Grabilla Grabilla 1.25 11/13/2015 Windows,

macOS

Freemium No

HyperCam Solveig Multimedia 4.0.1511.06 11/6/2015 Windows Proprietary commercial No

HyperCam Hyperionics 2.29.00 1/7/2016 Windows Freeware No

Jing TechSmith 2.8 8/19/2010 Windows Freeware No

OS X

Microsoft Expression

Encoder

Microsoft

Corporation

4 11/2/2011 Windows Freeware No

Nero Vision Nero AG 10.6.10800 4/19/2011 Windows Proprietary commercial No

Nvidia Shadowplay Nvidia 2.11.4.0 6/21/2016 Windows Proprietary (Part

of NVIDIA GFE)

No

Open Broadcaster

Software

OBS Project 18.0.1 3/7/2017 Windows,

macOS,

Linux

GPL v2 Yes

Peek Philipp Wolfer 1.0.3 6/14/2017 Linux GPL v3 Yes

Pixetell Ontier Inc. 1.3.11913 1/15/2010 Windows Proprietary commercial No

QuickTime X Apple Inc. 10.0 (118) 3/29/2010 macOS Proprietary (Part

of macOS)

No

RecordMyDesktop SourceForge 0.3.8.1 12/13/2008 Linux GPL Yes

Screencam SmartGuyz Inc. 3.3.0 3/24/2009 Windows Proprietary commercial No

ScreenFlow Telestream 5.0.5 1/27/2016 macOS Proprietary commercial No

ShareX GitHub 11.6.0 2/23/2017 Windows GPL v3 Yes

SimpleScreenRecorde

r

maartenbaert 0.3.3 1/17/2015 Linux GPL v3 Yes

Snagit for Mac TechSmith 4.0.6 10/25/2016 macOS Proprietary commercial No

Snagit for Windows TechSmith 13.0.3 10/25/2016 Windows Proprietary commercial No

Snapz Pro X Ambrosia Software 2.6.1 10/17/2016 macOS Proprietary commercial No

VirtualDub SourceForge 1.9.11 12/27/2012 Windows GPL Yes

VLC media player VideoLAN 2.2.0 2/27/2015 Windows,

macOS,

QNX,

Syllable,

BSD, iOS,

Solaris,

Android,

Haiku, OS/2,

Windows

Phone,

Linux

GPL Yes

Wink Satish Kumar 2 7/14/2008 Windows,

Linux

Freeware No

XSplit Broadcaster SplitmediaLabs 3.0.1705.3117 6/27/2017 Windows Freemium No

XVidCap SourceForge 1.1.7 7/13/2008 Unix-like GPL Yes

The following table compares features of screencasting software. The table has seven fields, as

follows:

Name: Product's name; sometime includes edition if a certain edition is targeted

Audio: Specifies whether the product supports recording audio commentary on the video

Entire desktop: Specifies whether product supports recording the entire desktop

OpenGL: Specifies whether the product supports recording from video games and

software that employ OpenGL to render digital image

DirectX: Specifies whether the product supports recording from video games or software

that employ Direct3D to render digital image

Editing: Specifies whether the product supports editing recorded video at least to some

small extent, such as cropping, trimming or splitting

Output: Specifies the file format in which the software saves the final video (non-video

output types are omitted).

Product Name Audio

Entire

Desktop Open GL Direct 3D Editing Output

ActivePresenter Yes Yes No No Yes

Video: AVI, FLV, MKV, MP4, SWF, WebM, WMV

Image sequence: PNG, JPEG

Slideshow: PowerPoint, HTML

Scripted animation: SWF, HTML5, SCORM

Adobe Captivate Yes Yes ? ? Yes SWF, EXE, MP4

Adobe Presenter

Video Express Yes Yes ? ? Yes MP4

Bandicam Yes Yes Yes Yes No AVI, MP4

BB FlashBack Yes Yes ? ? Yes AVI, FLV, SWF[4]

BB FlashBack express Yes Yes ? ? No

AVI, FLV, SWF, MP4 (H.264 or MPEG-4

ASP), WMV, Animated GIF, PowerPoint slideshow,

self-extracting EXE[4]

CamStudio Yes Yes ? ? Yes AVI, SWF

Camtasia Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes .camrec, AVI

Capture Fox Yes Yes ? ? No Motion JPEG or Xvid in AVI

FFmpeg with a plug-in Depends Depends Depends Depends No cf. FFmpeg § Codecs, formats and protocols supported

Fraps Yes Yes Yes Yes No FPS1 in AVI

Freeseer Yes Yes ? ? No Ogg

Grabilla Yes Yes Yes No Yes WMV, mp4 on website.

HyperCam Yes Yes ? ? No AVI, WMV

Jing Yes Yes ? ? No SWF

Microsoft Expression

Encoder

Yes Yes Yes No Yes

Nero Vision Yes ? ? ? Yes

Nvidia Shadowplay Yes Yes No Yes No Video: MP4

Image sequence: PNG

Open Broadcaster

Software

Yes Yes Yes Yes No

Simple mode: FLV, MP4, MOV, MKV, TS, HLS

Advanced mode: Any format supported

by libavformat

Pixetell Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

QuickTime X Yes Yes ? ? No

RecordMyDesktop Yes Yes ? N/A No Theora in Ogg

Screencam Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

ScreenFlow Yes Yes Yes N/A Yes

ShareX Yes Yes No No No AVI, MP4, GIF

SimpleScreenRecorder Yes Yes Yes N/A No Formats supported by libavformat

Snagit Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes MP4

Snapz Pro X Yes Yes ? ? No

VirtualDub Yes ? ? ? Yes

VLC Yes Yes Yes ? Yes

Windows Media

Encoder

Yes Yes ? ? No

Wink Yes Yes ? No Yes SWF, PDF

XVidCap Yes ? ? N/A No

XSplit Broadcaster Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes MP4, FLV

The softwares marked with GPL (GNU General Public License) in this list come under the

Copyleft, allowing users to freely distribute and modify the original program. The following

non-GPL softwares are most popularly used:

1. Screencast-o-matic.

2. Techsmith Jing (for Windows and OSX).

3. Techsmith Camstatia (for Windows).

4. Quicktime (for OSX).

Learning Extension Resources

Multimedia Principles

Following are some simple multi-media principles that help in designing better screen casts.

1. Redundancy.

2. Coherence.

3. Spatial Contiguity Principles.

As discussed in the Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia learning by Richard Mayer, we will see

how these three principles affect or how they relate to cognitive load theory and the cognitive

theory of multimedia learning.

Redundancy principle states that people learn more deeply from graphics and narration than

from graphics, narration and screen text. Learners can learn better just with animation and

narration. The visual text information, which is presented simultaneously to the verbal

information, becomes a redundant material. Eliminating redundant material, avoiding narration

and "identical" text will be a good way to let learners learn well. The basic reason is people can't

focus when they both hear and see the same verbal message during a presentation (Hoffman,

2006).

Coherence principle states that “Students learn better when extraneous material is excluded

rather than included”. One of the mistakes commonly made when e-learning developers design a

course or project is to use non-related background music and content, and irrelevant graphics on-

screen. According to Clark and Mayer (2011) in the book “E-Learning and the Science of

Instruction”, the Coherence Principle states that all unnecessary information in multimedia

messages should be eliminated, such as sound, images and words as they may decrease the

interest in learning. As by adding interesting but irrelevant materials to e-learning courses may

distract the learner.

The three Coherence Principles which instruction designers should follow:

1. Avoid e-lessons with Extraneous Audio:

According to the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia, the capacity of human memory is very

limited. It predicts that adults will learn more deeply from multimedia presentations which do

not contain extraneous sound. However, music can be used at the beginning of the course to

make the learner focus on the course and right and wrong sounds can also be used in internal

assessments.

2. Avoid e-lessons with Extraneous Graphics:

This principle states that adult learners may want to mental structures or images of course

content as they read the content on-screen. An image placed in the course should complement

learner's thinking processes and not distract learners.

3. Avoid e-lessons with extraneous words:

This principle states that simple, basic and concise on-screen text helps learning. Therefore, we

should avoid using long phrases and sentences and instead help the learner by using sounds

sparingly, adding complementary images and simple and concise on-screen content.

Contiguity principle is "align words to corresponding graphics" (Clark & Mayer, 2011). This

means that a graphic that is the major subject of text should not be physically separated from the

text. The contiguity principle as stated implies that just words need to be aligned, however audio

should also be aligned temporally with graphics that correspond with the audio. One example is

that when a graphic includes a diagram which has parts indicated by text, the text should be

physically near the corresponding parts of the diagram (Clark & Mayer, 2011).

In the above example, the contiguity principle is followed because the labels for the parts of the

brain are placed physically near the parts of the brain to which they correspond.

In the above example, the contiguity principle is violated because the labels indicating the parts

of the brain are physically separated from the image of the brain.

According to Prof. Richard E. Mayer, it is not the media that causes learning; in fact it is the

instructional method that causes learning. There is no research showing that one medium is

better than other. We cannot say that video is better than text book or computers are better than

face to face interactions. We need to study the different instructional methods for videos that we

can incorporate in the video.

According to Prof. Richard E. Mayer, the main principle is the coherence principle which is the

idea of keeping the presentation simple and focused if there is too much extraneous material. In

case of video, if there is too much content then it can distract people from the main focus. We

must not overload the people with too much of content on the screen.

The second important principle according to Prof. Richard E. Mayer is the contiguity principle.

If we want to have text and graphics together, then it is good to incorporate the text next to the

graphic. Text for the video should not be placed as a caption, but it should be placed next to the

part of the image which it is talking about so that the people do not have to look back and forth

again and again.

Prof. Richard E. Mayer also talked about temporal contiguity. Professor said, if there is a voice

then it should be synchronized with the contents in the video. It is not a good idea to make

somebody watch the video and later describe what it was that they were watching. Therefore, it

is important to synchronize the voice with the video so that the people can make a connection

between the words and the pictures.

One of the main principles of instructional design is the segmenting principle. This principle is

used when there is a complicated lesson which has complicated part. It is good to breakdown the

large complicated video into segments i.e. manageable segments. Rather than having a one long

video which covers a lot of materials it is better to have shorter sequences which covers one

point very well which is well understood before going to the next segment/sequence.

What do teachers or lecturers need to know in order to be able to use video and/or

multimedia effectively?

According to Prof. Richard E. Mayer, just making the technology available to the people doesn’t

work very well. Making things available is not enough. It has to be integrated into the

instructional program in a way that it makes sense to the teachers. The teachers should ask

questions to themselves like “what is the change in the knowledge that we are trying to

promote?” In the field of instructional design one should start with clear objective. Video is used

in service of those objectives. Saying that “here are some cool videos to watch” will not be

effective if the students are not directed towards the learning objectives. It is always necessary to

start with instructional design. It is not the video that causes learning, but it is the good

instructional design and sound instructional methods that cause learning and videos should be the

part of that design.

How should we produce video in order to increase the odds of it achieving its learning

objectives for those who use it?

According to Prof. Richard E. Mayer, teachers should have a good collection of short videos

rather than having long videos. These videos should be focussed on specific learning objectives

so that it is clear to the learner what they will be getting out of this. It is also good to use video as

personalization. Videos are good for concretizing things i.e. showing a short video of how pulley

systems work will be very useful to the students.