Ed tech must reads: column #58

First published in Campus Morning Mail 25th Oct 2022

The combination of segmentation and self-explanation to enhance video-based learning from Active Learning in Higher Education

The received wisdom when it comes to the use of video in education has long been to chunk it into bite-sized chunks to give learners breathing space between concepts. Over time I have read assertions that these chunks should be a maximum of 20/15/7/3 minutes, depending perhaps on how distracted writers feel students can be. Zheng et al. don’t go into chunk size but do make the valuable point in this pre-test/post-test based study of 121 participants that segments definitely appear to lead to better learning outcomes than continuous viewing of a long video. More importantly, they observe that building in activities between segments – even simple summarisation tasks – is more helpful than not.

Higher Education Leaders’ Perspectives of Accessible and Inclusive Online Learning from Distance Education (Pre-print)

Addressing the barriers experienced by disabled students in online learning is work that is commonly acknowledged by universities as vitally important but which sometimes lands in the too-hard basket. Gradually things have improved but there is still work to be done. This paper from Lomellini et al. discusses their interviews with nine HE online learning leaders about the current state of play and how to do things better. More agency for learning designers, better faculty development, quality standards and accessibility checkers are all identified as ways forward. Most interesting for me though was the small note that while the literature suggests pushing the learning gains in advocating for support from the executive level, they pragmatically suggest that legal obligations, recruitment, retention and satisfaction are more likely to get their attention.

Accessible IT Procurement from CAUDIT (and co.)

From an operational perspective, working smarter to ensure that institutional technologies are accessible is clearly an important step. Last week, this guide was launched, part of a collaborative project involving a number of high level sector bodies from IT, Disability and Education. It offers detailed guidelines and some useful sample clauses for tender documents for better IT procurement. Anyone with an interest in how Higher Ed IT really works would be well served by looking over this valuable guide. 

A journey through time and space – Mixed reality media in teaching (Webinar – Thursday 27/10 12 noon AEDT) from ASCILITE TELedvisors Network

One of the greatest benefits of technology for learning and teaching is the opportunity to do things that would simply not be possible in person. Augmented/Virtual/Mixed Reality, 3D models, video games and simulations and even simpler tools such as Light Boards extend our ability to share experiences and ideas. This webinar showcases two innovative examples of the use of these teaching tools in practice from Greg Dorrian (UNE) and Carmen Vallis (USyd)