Media Resources

Learn about the benefits of teaching, training and communicating with media. Browse our resources to discover tips and best practices for creating your own DIY Media. 

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Teaching & Learning with Media

Learn about using Media to create engaging learning opportunities 

 

 

Tips & Tools for Creating Effective Media

Discover strategies and gain insight on Designing & Creating Media

 

 

Tutorials & How-To's

Checkout our how-to videos and help articles for using media

 


Media provides the potential to create richer, more effective and active learning opportunities by enhancing learner outcomes both in and outside the classroom. Teaching & training with audio & video in particular is a great strategy if you’re looking to reinforce or supplement your classroom instruction, flip your class, move your training online or create engaging learning content for your hybrid, on-campus or Ecampus course. Learning by way of media content enhances face-to-face interaction while removing the time and pacing constraints of the physical classroom space. Media is also a powerful means to communicate research projects, highlight department initiatives, and/or engage the public through more meaningful and dynamic experiences. 

Teaching & Learning with Media

Why use media for teaching and learning?

Media, and more specifically audio & video, is poised to become a ubiquitous and dominant form of communication. It makes sense then that we embrace media and utilize its inherent qualities in higher education. Of all the educational technology tools used in the learning experience, audio & video are the most visible and afford the ability to design flexible, engaging and impactful instructional content. And because it's such a powerful communication tool, media requires we make strong pedagogical choices and design instruction appropriately to ensure the content supports our learning objectives. In practice, media increasingly serves as an important component of many flipped & hybrid courses where providing access to online lectures creates more active and engaging in-class experiences. In addition to the online lecture, explore the resources below to discover ways effective media can support teaching and learning. 

  • Spark curiosity & engage student's attention
  • Serve as Anywhere / Anytime archived resources
  • Provide foundational knowledge about the concept you're teaching
  • Encourage reflection and application of learning by allowing student comments & responses 
  • Function as alternative instructional content to permit more active and engaging in-class meetings
  • Student-created media projects encourage collaboration, accountability, creativity, and mastery of ideas and concepts
  • Bring in expert voices from outside practitioners via interviews 

 

Give students the opportunity to encounter course content multiple times through multiple modalities, using media as appropriate.

Visit the Designing and Teaching and Effective Remote/Blended Canvas Workshop Course for tips on Making and Sharing Videos. 

 

  • Who are my learners and how can they best learn with media?

  • Will students need preparation or support material for the media to be successful?

  • Where does it make sense for me to use media?

  • What are the learning objectives & goals for using media?

  • What types of learning assessments & reflections might I align with my instructional media?

  • What media and delivery type will best achieve my learning objectives? 

  • When will I deliver the media? How will students access it?

 

 

 

  • How much time do I have to create media?
  • Will I be producing everything by myself?
  • Do I need a budget?
  • What content do I already have? And what can I curate?
  • What creation tools & strategies will I need to learn about?
  • Do I have a production plan? How will I edit and manage my media?

 

 

Many instructors create video lectures or include existing videos to model new skills and to expose students to new content. But how do you know that your students are engaged? Check out the OSU Ecampus blog to learn about how in-video quizzing can make video watching an active learning experience.

In this two-part OSU Ecampus blog series on video selection and use in online courses, Craig Rademacher provides the reasoning behind understanding course videos selection by course developers as a curatorial process, and explores video curation in practice in course development and provides a course design perspective on video presentation and management issues.

Tips & Tools for Creating Media

Designing Media

Once you have identified your learning objectives and goals, you'll want to identify the scope of your media content. Defining scope helps to ensure you're delivering relevant and connected content that best supports student learning. 

 

Instructional media is a largely passive processing experience, and over time you may lose the attention of your viewers/listeners. Rather than creating an entire lecture, chunk the content into smaller segments that focus on individual learning objectives.

  • Chunk content into 3-7 minute components 
  • Add post-viewing refelction or in-video quizzing for interactive assessment 
  • Easier to navigate & review: Concepts can be easily accessed and reviewed 

 

 

While creating engaging media may seem intuitive, it frequently requires more time and work than originally planned. With the removal of space, timing and visual/auditory queues afforded by an in-person lecture, media can highlight a lack of a connection and affirmed understanding. Think through your content and choose media that are relevant and not extraneous to the instructional material. Dialogue and storytelling are a key element to communicating your learning content. Stories help listeners relate to a recognizable structure and can increase engagement & understanding. 

  • Reduce text & opt for more visually dynamic imagery where possible
  • Eliminate all non-essential information  
  • Try not to simply narrate on-screen text
  • The use of stories & dialogue helps student relate to the content

 

 

Introducing yourself and the learning outcomes at the outset of a media element can help students understand your expectations and provides a 'tour guide' feeling of togetherness. Short summaries throughout the media and a wrap up at the end ties the learning together and highlights main concepts & learning outcomes.

 

Creating Media

Now that you've considered strategies to design effective instructional media, it's time to create content. This process may require several iterations of practicing and recording before you have produced an effective media element.  

 

Storyboarding can provide you a visual & textual template that will help guide you through the content creation process. This helps to keep you on track and ensures you cover the learning objectives determined in the Design process. It also functions as supplemental text to accompany the media element and will be the basis for captions if needed. 

 

 

A key component to any effective media element is the style in which it is created. Nobody likes the way they look or sound on camera. And while creating or recording media can feel a little uneasy, with a little practice you'll come to develop a personal approach that works for you. 

  • Natural speech is full of pauses, 'ahs' & 'ums' and inflections that are often overlooked in-person, but which will become glaringly apparent in recorded media and time-consuming to edit out. Working from a script will keep you on track, but can sound as detached or stiff. Practicing and rehearsing before recording - even when your intimately familiar with your content - will help to keep your content engaging. 

 

  • Presenting in a controlled 'studio' environment is a very different experience than teaching in a classroom. A major difference is that you won’t receive feedback from your students as you present. Essentially, the camera/screen is your audience and you'll find that it takes time to comfortably imagine you're talking to someone. That said, be sure to maintain your energy and enthusiasm and engage your audience. 

 

  • The pace of your media content will also be different from your classroom experiences. Be sure to speak naturally and with a conversational style, but not too quickly. Students will need time to process your audio and on-screen visuals without the opportunity for questions or clarification. There will also be fewer natural digressions and pauses in content delivery, so don’t be concerned if material takes less time to present with media than it has in the traditional classroom lecture. This can be a good thing! Content that is shorter, more focused, and concise provides clearer instruction and helps students better understand the concept your teaching. That said, you'll want to consider strategies for recreating missing elements like feedback, questions, discussion and assessment. You might address common questions students ask in class within the script of your media. 

 

 

 

 

 

Delivering media asks us to consider how our audience accesses and makes meaning of the learning content we create. As such, we must take care to ensure instructional media is usable for learning across the widest range of individual variability, regardless of format or features.

  • Where possible, provide written transcripts to allow additional means of engaging with media.
  • Closed Captions on videos provide on-screen descriptions of audio content. More info about the captions from the National Center on Accessible Educational Materials.
  • Disability Access Services at OSU facilitates access to University programs and services for students, faculty, staff and visitors with disabilities through accommodations, education, consultation and advocacy

Have you ever shot a video with your phone or hosted a virtual meeting and wondered if there was anything you could do to make it look better? Or perhaps even more importantly – have you ever felt intimidated to start?

Greg Aronoff from OSU's Professional and Continuing Education (PACE) shares insights in an essential guide on video. Visit the links below to learn more. 

This guide provides useful sites to help make you and your students multimedia pros! 

Multimedia Links and Resources

Visit the DESIGNING AND TEACHING AND EFFECTIVE REMOTE/BLENDED CANVAS WORKSHOP COURSE for more tips on Making and Sharing Videos

 

Tutorials & How-To's

Checkout our collection of short how-to videos and help articles to learn about Using Media and Teaching with Zoom. 

Using Media

How to Share Media in Canvas Kaltura is fully integrated into Canvas. Media that a user has previously uploaded through MediaSpace is available through "My Media" in Canvas and, conversely, any media that a user uploads through Canvas will be available to them in "My Media" in MediaSpace. 

How to Add Captions to a Video in Kaltura Learn about adding captions to your video using Automated Speech Recognition. This service is free. 

How to Edit Captions in Kaltura. Kaltura gives you the ability to update/edit captions for a video that already has captions associated with it, or delete those captions entirely.

 

How to Edit a Video in Kaltura Learn more about the Kaltura online Video Editor and how to trim your videos.

Create or Edit an Interactive Video Quiz Video Quizzing enriches student engagement and is a great teaching tool for assessing student comprehension with low-stakes quizzes. 

Download you media from Kaltura. This article shows the steps to download your own media files from MediaSpace or Canvas.

Find out how to prepare video and deliver it to your students using the tools provided by Oregon State: Zoom, Kaltura, and Canvas.

Learn@OregonState Resources

 

The Media Hub Lightboard. Learn about the Lightboard and some basic tips for it's use.

Teaching with Zoom

OSU has enhanced technology in more than 300 classrooms to support interactive remote and blended learning. Take a look at our brief videos and step-by-step instructions on Zoom and the classroom tech.

Explore tips and tricks for leveraging Zoom for synchronous course meetings, small group discussions, and remote office hours on the Teaching and Learning with Zoom site. Make sure to check out Oregon State’s collection of quick help videos on Zoom, as well as the Zoom security settings needed to prevent malicious participants from accessing your Zoom sessions.

 Go to the Teaching in Zoom Website

Learn more about support and training resources, including personalized Canvas or media consultations, recorded teaching strategies webinars, and the TechKTA program that offers trained assistants to help you manage your synchronous Zoom sessions. 

Faculty Support for Remote Teaching

Flex Kits are being distributed and designated for specific classrooms where remote and blended instruction is scheduled. To learn about using a Flex Kit in your scheduled classroom, please check with your College IT Support group.