Educational Technology

Why You Should Consider Lecture Capture

March 17, 2014 /
[social_share/] [social-bio] “Lecture Capture describes technologies instructors can use to record voice and data projector content and make those recordings available digitally” (ICT University of Saskatchewan). At the University of Saskatchewan, many rooms are equipped to allow instructors to easily record their live lectures and distribute these recordings to their students.

Now that I’ve defined what lecture capture is, let’s explore why you should consider using it. Research has shown numerous benefits. A study found that, after using lecture capture across a variety of disciplines, class sizes, and teaching styles, students and faculty were both in favor of using lecture recordings. Benefits for students included:

  • being able to review material that was confusing,
  • study for quizzes and exams, and
  • pay closer attention in class rather than frantically scribbling notes (May, 2008).

A recent series of interviews with instructors on our campus explores these and additional benefits of using lecture capture:

These additional benefits included:

  • support for DSS and ESL students who struggle with the speed of the lecture.
  • support for sick and injured students who cannot attend class.
  • ability to view your classes as a way to critically reflect on your teaching.
  • ability to share your videos with other instructors who teach the same course or complementary courses.
  • ability to share the videos with your teaching assistant(s) to help them prepare for grading, tutorials, or labs.

When it comes to lecture capture, there is always the concern that students will stop attending class. Research around this issue has been inconclusive (Bond & Grussendorf, 2013). The interviewed U of S instructors noticed no difference in attendance between lecture captured classed and their other classes:

With all these benefits in mind and the major concern set aside, what reasons remain to not try lecture capture? The system is in place—give it a try!

For more information on Lecture Capture at the University of Saskatchewan please visit:

References:

Bond, Steve and Grussendorf, Sonja (2013) Staff attitudes to lecture capture. The London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK. Retrieved from: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/54870/

May, V. V. (2008). Lecture capture pilot project results. Retrieved from: http://2009ctconferencecommunity.campuspack.net/Groups/2009_CT_Conference_Community/Workshop_M

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2 Comments

  • diane gusa

    April 12, 2014 at 6:47 am

    Ryan, My concern with lecture capture is that it will just be a recording of a lecture (45 minutes) which according to some cognitive scientist is too long. (I know it is for me!) This model of lecturing is what Freiere refers to as the banking model, which treats the students as empty vessels to be filled
    with knowledge, like a coin bank (http://bit.ly/1oWGpzC). I did see an alternative which I liked in a MOOC where the instructor embedded questions that needed to be answered before the lecture went on (about every 7 -10 minutes). If you did not know the answer it went back to the section of the video for review. Cool? Here is a link that discusses some of these ideas (http://bit.ly/OTLc41). What do you think?

  • Ryan

    April 14, 2014 at 4:56 pm

    Hi Diane,

    Thanks for the comment. I definitely don’t disagree that:
    a) a 45 minute lecture recording is too long for most viewers
    b) lecturing isn’t the best teaching strategy

    What I am suggesting in this post is that if you are lecturing and your classroom is equipped to do lecture capture, then you might as well go ahead and use it. No matter what your teaching strategy is, you might as well record it. It’d be great if the videos were shorter and the classes were more interactive, but even if you are stuck on lecturing for an hour straight, there is no harm in recording your lectures. There are numerous stated benefits.

    In the one video, Chris Knapper, mentions that his use of lecture capture has allowed him to be much more interactive in class because he doesn’t have to worry so much about “giving time for students to take notes”. Since it is being recorded he can have much more of a conversation with the students.

    In those MOOC videos, did you need to rewatch the section if you got the questions wrong? Or was it an option? (You can do quizzes like that if you build your videos in the PC version of Camtasia–it’s pretty slick).

    By the way, I really like your second link on Interactive lectures.

    Thanks!