One Year on YouTube: Reactions and Opinions
Handke, Jürgen
Many of the 21st century changes in education are due to the availability of a variety of resources on the web - among them video. This presentation examines the options for using video in the context of a class at university level and discusses the potential of video for quality enhancement and quality assurance.
 Education in the 21st century has changed in many ways and by and large these changes are due to the availability of a gigantic pool of educational resources on the web, among them video. In the following I will outline our principles of creating and using video in the context of linguistic education at an academic level. I will show how our videos are produced, so this sort of scenario. I will show how our videos are integrated into class and how our students use our videos as you can see over here, perhaps on a phone. And I will also try to answer the question why we make our videos available on YouTube and not within the protected zone within any other platform. Let us start with a question. Where can video enhance a traditional class? There are several options of integrating video within the complex scenario of a class at university level, which normally expands over a period of a dozen weeks or even more. For example, we could produce preliminary videos that contain the administrative and organizational details of a class and make them available prior to class start. In the past, this information of which you can see a fragment over here was generally made available in print in the departmental class descriptions or like in many universities today. It is published on the university-wide campus management system, but be honest, have you ever cared about such information? Many students don't read it and they come into class totally uninformed. Why not provide this information by means of a short preliminary video that summarizes the goals, the central topics, the organization of the class, its central requirements and the deductive principles applied to name a few. The actual delivery of such video-based preliminary organizational details can be simple. All you need is a link to your video and if this information still needs to be printed out, maybe the quick response code or in short the QR code that can be made available to access this video may be of some help. The availability of this information prior to class start frees the class instructor from explaining all these details to his students. Instead of wasting the first in class meeting with administrative details, the class instructor can now straightforwardly start with a class content. But where else can we use video? Well, once a class is running, a suitable option is to create a video that contains the content of a class unit. An alternative option is to use several videos related to a unit. For example, one that contains the central content of a class, one that suggests particular in class activities and one or even several videos that provide explanations or provide exercise materials plus solutions. Once the videos are ready, it's up to you and your deductive concept how you want to use these videos. On the Virtual Linguistics Campus, we use all these options. The preliminary videos, we call them class descriptions, inform our students about all class related organizational details and make them available prior to each class. Content delivery is realized by two different video types. On the one hand, we have screen casts where we record the central screen activities, for example, in connection with software training. And we have complex e-lectures where we deliver the linguistic content standing in front of an active board of this kind. For both, we apply the following principles. The presenter must be visible. The video should not be longer than 20 minutes. And what is being presented should, if possible, be made available in print. Now these principles also apply to the remaining types of video we are using on the Virtual Linguistics Campus. For example, to the in-class activity suggestions. These are video productions that are produced together with our students that inform those who use the e-lectures in accordance with the inverted classroom model and demonstrate to them how they could, as one option, structure their in-class activities. The remaining videos are of an explanatory kind. Either they take up the questions put forward by the community, or they provide our students with model solutions about class related questions. That these cannot be made freely available on the web should be clear. We want our students to work before they see the answer. And how do we produce these videos? Well, first of all, you need a studio. That is a room with appropriate lighting, a camera, and the setup needed to record your video. And by means of the camera, you record the presenter in action. At the same time, we capture the screen activities on our computer screen, which in our case is this Promethean Active Board. And we use a suitable software for it. In our particular case, we use TechSmith's Camtasia Studio. As a result, we get a screen capture, a capture of this board content. And the screen capture does not contain the speaker. So we need a final post-editing process where we combine both tracks, in Camtasia Studio, to receive the final result. If we look at the usage of our videos, well, there's virtually no limit to use them. Students have access to the content by means of a so-called eLearning unit, which contains the so-called virtual sessions from where they can access the videos directly, or they can use their phones, as in this scenario over here. Here are the phones, where they can watch the videos directly via YouTube. Well, but why YouTube? Many of my colleagues fiercely oppose to the use of video. I won't discuss their resistance here, which may be due to a general opposition to the use of videos in teaching, or that they simply do not like the idea of having to present themselves in public and can thus be freely evaluated. I think that video is a wonderful option for our students, and that a platform such as YouTube is perfect for a variety of reasons. For example, uploading a video is dead easy. Within a very short time and by means of a few mouse clicks, one can add a video to an existing YouTube channel. And editing existing videos is also not a big issue. We are by no means perfect, and so editing has to be done quite often. And the editing function in YouTube allows us to add comments, to erase mistakes, and so on and so forth. A very suitable option for the creation and generation of video material. And then there are numerous analysis options which provide you with excellent insights into the use of your videos, from where are they used, when and how, and so on and so forth. And with the option to group your videos into playlists, you can create full courses that contain the entire video material from the preliminaries via the e-lectures to the in-class activities. Apart from these functional aspects, there are various aspects that motivate you quite a lot. A freely accessible video channel permits the users to evaluate your material, your performance, your behavior in front of the camera, and so on. Users can easily motivate you by means of appraisal or good marks, but they can also demotivate you by applying harsh criticism or by giving bad marks. So we prefer the first option, and in particular we can profit from the number of clicks, that is the actual viewers of the videos. In our case, about 160 videos after one year and 180,000 clicks. The number of likes and dislikes can be very motivating, where hopefully the number of likes is much larger than the number of dislikes. And most importantly, you can build your own community of followers, that is, your subscribers. And after one year, we've had 1,600 subscribers. Beyond the generation of mere motivation, however, it is important for the users to leave behind comments to make proposals and to correct errors. This readily improves the quality of individual videos and of your channel as a whole. Many of the comments or questions are truly scientific, like the ones over here. Is the uvula an active or a passive articulator? What about inserting R between morphemes as in drawing? Is that received pronunciation? Now questions like these have to be answered with all scientific care. In some cases, questions may be more or less didactic in character, leading to explanations about our didactic and presentational concept. In both cases, we have to take great care in answering these questions in order to satisfy our customers. The videos, questions of the month, contain our answers to our community and our reaction towards this issue. Well and then, there are really motivating comments, which make you feel fantastic. But even those comments that do not praise your teaching talent can evoke interesting discussions that you would probably never get without opening your video channel to the public. For example, the debate about the origin of man as a consequence of our video, the evolution of language, is a good example of such a comment. The result was a discussion about the evolution of man. Finally, there are numerous flanking effects that we did not expect when we decided on using YouTube. After one year, we've had almost 1,000 new community members on our e-education platform, the Virtual Linguistics Campus. And meanwhile, a considerable number of them have registered for our online classes. And furthermore, what is important for us, we have satisfied the expectations of our sponsors and have evoked a lot of media interest leading to an increase of our international reputation. So by and large, we are very glad to have taken all these decisions. We will not end up here. We will develop new video types. We will try to improve our presentation techniques. We will deliver more and more content by means of video. So we will be at your service. And we will make mistakes. We are not perfect, but we are humans. And humans make mistakes, but we will try our very best to avoid them. So as usual, at the end of such a video, I invite you to join us wherever possible. Share your ideas with us, motivate us as well as you can so that this channel can remain what it has become one year after its start, your linguistics video platform. Thank you.
 Education in the 21st century has changed in many ways and by and large these changes  are due to the availability of a gigantic pool of educational resources on the web,  among them video.  In the following I will outline our principles of creating and using video in the context  of linguistic education at an academic level.  I will show how our videos are produced, so this sort of scenario.  I will show how our videos are integrated into class and how our students use our videos  as you can see over here, perhaps on a phone.  And I will also try to answer the question why we make our videos available on YouTube  and not within the protected zone within any other platform.  Let us start with a question.  Where can video enhance a traditional class?  There are several options of integrating video within the complex scenario of a class at  university level, which normally expands over a period of a dozen weeks or even more.  For example, we could produce preliminary videos that contain the administrative and organizational  details of a class and make them available prior to class start.  In the past, this information of which you can see a fragment over here was generally  made available in print in the departmental class descriptions or like in many universities  today.  It is published on the university-wide campus management system, but be honest, have you  ever cared about such information?  Many students don't read it and they come into class totally uninformed.  Why not provide this information by means of a short preliminary video that summarizes  the goals, the central topics, the organization of the class, its central requirements and  the deductive principles applied to name a few.  The actual delivery of such video-based preliminary organizational details can be simple.  All you need is a link to your video and if this information still needs to be printed  out, maybe the quick response code or in short the QR code that can be made available to  access this video may be of some help.  The availability of this information prior to class start frees the class instructor  from explaining all these details to his students.  Instead of wasting the first in class meeting with administrative details, the class instructor  can now straightforwardly start with a class content.  But where else can we use video?  Well, once a class is running, a suitable option is to create a video that contains the content  of a class unit.  An alternative option is to use several videos related to a unit.  For example, one that contains the central content of a class, one that suggests particular  in class activities and one or even several videos that provide explanations or provide  exercise materials plus solutions.  Once the videos are ready, it's up to you and your deductive concept how you want to  use these videos.  On the Virtual Linguistics Campus, we use all these options.  The preliminary videos, we call them class descriptions, inform our students about all  class related organizational details and make them available prior to each class.  Content delivery is realized by two different video types.  On the one hand, we have screen casts where we record the central screen activities, for  example, in connection with software training.  And we have complex e-lectures where we deliver the linguistic content standing in front of  an active board of this kind.  For both, we apply the following principles.  The presenter must be visible.  The video should not be longer than 20 minutes.  And what is being presented should, if possible, be made available in print.  Now these principles also apply to the remaining types of video we are using on the Virtual  Linguistics Campus.  For example, to the in-class activity suggestions.  These are video productions that are produced together with our students that inform those  who use the e-lectures in accordance with the inverted classroom model and demonstrate  to them how they could, as one option, structure their in-class activities.  The remaining videos are of an explanatory kind.  Either they take up the questions put forward by the community, or they provide our students  with model solutions about class related questions.  That these cannot be made freely available on the web should be clear.  We want our students to work before they see the answer.  And how do we produce these videos?  Well, first of all, you need a studio.  That is a room with appropriate lighting, a camera, and the setup needed to record your  video.  And by means of the camera, you record the presenter in action.  At the same time, we capture the screen activities on our computer screen, which in our case  is this Promethean Active Board.  And we use a suitable software for it.  In our particular case, we use TechSmith's Camtasia Studio.  As a result, we get a screen capture, a capture of this board content.  And the screen capture does not contain the speaker.  So we need a final post-editing process where we combine both tracks, in Camtasia Studio,  to receive the final result.  If we look at the usage of our videos, well, there's virtually no limit to use them.  Students have access to the content by means of a so-called eLearning unit, which contains  the so-called virtual sessions from where they can access the videos directly, or they  can use their phones, as in this scenario over here.  Here are the phones, where they can watch the videos directly via YouTube.  Well, but why YouTube?  Many of my colleagues fiercely oppose to the use of video.  I won't discuss their resistance here, which may be due to a general opposition to the  use of videos in teaching, or that they simply do not like the idea of having to present  themselves in public and can thus be freely evaluated.  I think that video is a wonderful option for our students, and that a platform such as  YouTube is perfect for a variety of reasons.  For example, uploading a video is dead easy.  Within a very short time and by means of a few mouse clicks, one can add a video to an  existing YouTube channel.  And editing existing videos is also not a big issue.  We are by no means perfect, and so editing has to be done quite often.  And the editing function in YouTube allows us to add comments, to erase mistakes, and  so on and so forth.  A very suitable option for the creation and generation of video material.  And then there are numerous analysis options which provide you with excellent insights  into the use of your videos, from where are they used, when and how, and so on and so  forth.  And with the option to group your videos into playlists, you can create full courses that  contain the entire video material from the preliminaries via the e-lectures to the in-class  activities.  Apart from these functional aspects, there are various aspects that motivate you quite  a lot.  A freely accessible video channel permits the users to evaluate your material, your performance,  your behavior in front of the camera, and so on.  Users can easily motivate you by means of appraisal or good marks, but they can also  demotivate you by applying harsh criticism or by giving bad marks.  So we prefer the first option, and in particular we can profit from the number of clicks, that  is the actual viewers of the videos.  In our case, about 160 videos after one year and 180,000 clicks.  The number of likes and dislikes can be very motivating, where hopefully the number of likes  is much larger than the number of dislikes.  And most importantly, you can build your own community of followers, that is, your subscribers.  And after one year, we've had 1,600 subscribers.  Beyond the generation of mere motivation, however, it is important for the users to  leave behind comments to make proposals and to correct errors.  This readily improves the quality of individual videos and of your channel as a whole.  Many of the comments or questions are truly scientific, like the ones over here.  Is the uvula an active or a passive articulator?  What about inserting R between morphemes as in drawing?  Is that received pronunciation?  Now questions like these have to be answered with all scientific care.  In some cases, questions may be more or less didactic in character, leading to explanations  about our didactic and presentational concept.  In both cases, we have to take great care in answering these questions in order to satisfy  our customers.  The videos, questions of the month, contain our answers to our community and our reaction  towards this issue.  Well and then, there are really motivating comments, which make you feel fantastic.  But even those comments that do not praise your teaching talent can evoke interesting  discussions that you would probably never get without opening your video channel to  the public.  For example, the debate about the origin of man as a consequence of our video, the evolution  of language, is a good example of such a comment.  The result was a discussion about the evolution of man.  Finally, there are numerous flanking effects that we did not expect when we decided on  using YouTube.  After one year, we've had almost 1,000 new community members on our e-education platform,  the Virtual Linguistics Campus.  And meanwhile, a considerable number of them have registered for our online classes.  And furthermore, what is important for us, we have satisfied the expectations of our  sponsors and have evoked a lot of media interest leading to an increase of our international  reputation.  So by and large, we are very glad to have taken all these decisions.  We will not end up here.  We will develop new video types.  We will try to improve our presentation techniques.  We will deliver more and more content by means of video.  So we will be at your service.  And we will make mistakes.  We are not perfect, but we are humans.  And humans make mistakes, but we will try our very best to avoid them.  So as usual, at the end of such a video, I invite you to join us wherever possible.  Share your ideas with us, motivate us as well as you can so that this channel can remain  what it has become one year after its start, your linguistics video platform.  Thank you.
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Education in the 21st century has changed in many ways and by and large these changes are due to the availability of a gigantic pool of educational resources on the web, among them video. In the following I will outline our principles of creating and using video in the context of linguistic education at an academic level. I will show how our videos are produced, so this sort of scenario. I will show how our videos are integrated into class and how our students use our videos as you can see over here, perhaps on a phone. And I will also try to answer the question why we make our videos available on YouTube and not within the protected zone within any other platform. Let us start with a question. Where can video enhance a traditional class? There are several options of integrating video within the complex scenario of a class at university level, which normally expands over a period of a dozen weeks or even more. For example, we could produce preliminary videos that contain the administrative and organizational details of a class and make them available prior to class start. In the past, this information of which you can see a fragment over here was generally made available in print in the departmental class descriptions or like in many universities today. It is published on the university-wide campus management system, but be honest, have you ever cared about such information? Many students don't read it and they come into class totally uninformed. Why not provide this information by means of a short preliminary video that summarizes the goals, the central topics, the organization of the class, its central requirements and the deductive principles applied to name a few. The actual delivery of such video-based preliminary organizational details can be simple. All you need is a link to your video and if this information still needs to be printed out, maybe the quick response code or in short the QR code that can be made available to access this video may be of some help. The availability of this information prior to class start frees the class instructor from explaining all these details to his students. Instead of wasting the first in class meeting with administrative details, the class instructor can now straightforwardly start with a class content. But where else can we use video? Well, once a class is running, a suitable option is to create a video that contains the content of a class unit. An alternative option is to use several videos related to a unit. For example, one that contains the central content of a class, one that suggests particular in class activities and one or even several videos that provide explanations or provide exercise materials plus solutions. Once the videos are ready, it's up to you and your deductive concept how you want to use these videos. On the Virtual Linguistics Campus, we use all these options. The preliminary videos, we call them class descriptions, inform our students about all class related organizational details and make them available prior to each class. Content delivery is realized by two different video types. On the one hand, we have screen casts where we record the central screen activities, for example, in connection with software training. And we have complex e-lectures where we deliver the linguistic content standing in front of an active board of this kind. For both, we apply the following principles. The presenter must be visible. The video should not be longer than 20 minutes. And what is being presented should, if possible, be made available in print. Now these principles also apply to the remaining types of video we are using on the Virtual Linguistics Campus. For example, to the in-class activity suggestions. These are video productions that are produced together with our students that inform those who use the e-lectures in accordance with the inverted classroom model and demonstrate to them how they could, as one option, structure their in-class activities. The remaining videos are of an explanatory kind. Either they take up the questions put forward by the community, or they provide our students with model solutions about class related questions. That these cannot be made freely available on the web should be clear. We want our students to work before they see the answer. And how do we produce these videos? Well, first of all, you need a studio. That is a room with appropriate lighting, a camera, and the setup needed to record your video. And by means of the camera, you record the presenter in action. At the same time, we capture the screen activities on our computer screen, which in our case is this Promethean Active Board. And we use a suitable software for it. In our particular case, we use TechSmith's Camtasia Studio. As a result, we get a screen capture, a capture of this board content. And the screen capture does not contain the speaker. So we need a final post-editing process where we combine both tracks, in Camtasia Studio, to receive the final result. If we look at the usage of our videos, well, there's virtually no limit to use them. Students have access to the content by means of a so-called eLearning unit, which contains the so-called virtual sessions from where they can access the videos directly, or they can use their phones, as in this scenario over here. Here are the phones, where they can watch the videos directly via YouTube. Well, but why YouTube? Many of my colleagues fiercely oppose to the use of video. I won't discuss their resistance here, which may be due to a general opposition to the use of videos in teaching, or that they simply do not like the idea of having to present themselves in public and can thus be freely evaluated. I think that video is a wonderful option for our students, and that a platform such as YouTube is perfect for a variety of reasons. For example, uploading a video is dead easy. Within a very short time and by means of a few mouse clicks, one can add a video to an existing YouTube channel. And editing existing videos is also not a big issue. We are by no means perfect, and so editing has to be done quite often. And the editing function in YouTube allows us to add comments, to erase mistakes, and so on and so forth. A very suitable option for the creation and generation of video material. And then there are numerous analysis options which provide you with excellent insights into the use of your videos, from where are they used, when and how, and so on and so forth. And with the option to group your videos into playlists, you can create full courses that contain the entire video material from the preliminaries via the e-lectures to the in-class activities. Apart from these functional aspects, there are various aspects that motivate you quite a lot. A freely accessible video channel permits the users to evaluate your material, your performance, your behavior in front of the camera, and so on. Users can easily motivate you by means of appraisal or good marks, but they can also demotivate you by applying harsh criticism or by giving bad marks. So we prefer the first option, and in particular we can profit from the number of clicks, that is the actual viewers of the videos. In our case, about 160 videos after one year and 180,000 clicks. The number of likes and dislikes can be very motivating, where hopefully the number of likes is much larger than the number of dislikes. And most importantly, you can build your own community of followers, that is, your subscribers. And after one year, we've had 1,600 subscribers. Beyond the generation of mere motivation, however, it is important for the users to leave behind comments to make proposals and to correct errors. This readily improves the quality of individual videos and of your channel as a whole. Many of the comments or questions are truly scientific, like the ones over here. Is the uvula an active or a passive articulator? What about inserting R between morphemes as in drawing? Is that received pronunciation? Now questions like these have to be answered with all scientific care. In some cases, questions may be more or less didactic in character, leading to explanations about our didactic and presentational concept. In both cases, we have to take great care in answering these questions in order to satisfy our customers. The videos, questions of the month, contain our answers to our community and our reaction towards this issue. Well and then, there are really motivating comments, which make you feel fantastic. But even those comments that do not praise your teaching talent can evoke interesting discussions that you would probably never get without opening your video channel to the public. For example, the debate about the origin of man as a consequence of our video, the evolution of language, is a good example of such a comment. The result was a discussion about the evolution of man. Finally, there are numerous flanking effects that we did not expect when we decided on using YouTube. After one year, we've had almost 1,000 new community members on our e-education platform, the Virtual Linguistics Campus. And meanwhile, a considerable number of them have registered for our online classes. And furthermore, what is important for us, we have satisfied the expectations of our sponsors and have evoked a lot of media interest leading to an increase of our international reputation. So by and large, we are very glad to have taken all these decisions. We will not end up here. We will develop new video types. We will try to improve our presentation techniques. We will deliver more and more content by means of video. So we will be at your service. And we will make mistakes. We are not perfect, but we are humans. And humans make mistakes, but we will try our very best to avoid them. So as usual, at the end of such a video, I invite you to join us wherever possible. Share your ideas with us, motivate us as well as you can so that this channel can remain what it has become one year after its start, your linguistics video platform. Thank you.
Education in the 21st century has changed in many ways and by and large these changes are due to the availability of a gigantic pool of educational resources on the web, among them principles of creating and using video in the context of linguistic education at an academic within the complex scenario of a class at