I’ve been experimenting with different ways to share micro lectures with students this spring term. This has been prompted by learning that the vast majority of my first year students are using their cell phone data plans to download course content while socially isolating, and that over 80% of students feel challenged by having to share screens, space and time with family members. Suddenly, posting 1 GB narrated powerpoint files felt a little extreme!
To enable students to download content asynchronously while avoiding placing extra burdens upon their time, administration skills and data plans I’ve been using YouTube to host micro lecture videos, and embedding them into my BlackBoard course shell learning modules. This has a bunch of bonus points that I didn’t even think of before I started. I can see when, for how long, and how often students are watching the micro lectures (this helps me plan which topics we need to review or reintroduce for our learning community). I can see when my most popular times and dates are for watching the videos (hint: it is waaaaay later than I stay up each night), and most importantly, I can see which concepts students are cruising through, and which ones they are pausing and rewatching in order to contextualize their learning.
The following video presents a quick reflection on how I use YouTube videos on BlackBoard, and how I embed them into the BlackBoard shell.