{"id":12013,"date":"2012-10-04t14:00:25","date_gmt":"2012-10-04t19:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/?p=12013"},"modified":"2012-10-04t09:39:14","modified_gmt":"2012-10-04t14:39:14","slug":"getting-to-know-coursera-video-lectures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/2012\/10\/getting-to-know-coursera-video-lectures\/","title":{"rendered":"getting to know coursera: video lectures"},"content":{"rendered":"

by katie mcewen, graduate assistant<\/em><\/p>\n

next semester vanderbilt will begin offering its first round of massive open online courses<\/a> (moocs) as a part of the coursera consortium.\u00a0 now 33 universities strong, coursera lists 198 courses over fifteen different disciplines: from medicine to computer science; physical and earth sciences to humanities and social sciences, coursera seems to have it all.<\/p>\n

but what does a typical course look like?\u00a0 is there even such a thing as \u201ctypical\u201d in this setting?<\/p>\n

the answer, surprisingly enough, is yes.\u00a0 in fact, in matters of form coursera courses often have more in common than not, despite the wide variety of disciplines and topics.\u00a0 over the next few posts, we\u2019ll take a look at some of these shared features, beginning with video lectures<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

in some respects, taking a coursera course is not so very different from enrolling in just about any large lecture course in the tradition of the teacher-centered classroom<\/strong>.\u00a0 without, of course, the stadium seating.<\/p>\n

\"\"
internet history, technology, and security : screencast with video narration<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
cryptography : screencast with audio narration & digital ink<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

video lectures<\/strong> are by far the most common method of presentation in coursera.\u00a0 having spent most of my academic career studying german \u2014 a discipline whose largest course here at vanderbilt enrolls 60 students \u2014 this was, at first, somewhat alienating.\u00a0 how could this be engaging to watch?\u00a0 i was skeptical to say the least.<\/p>\n

luckily, most instructors seem comfortable in the medium, using screencasts with audio or video narration<\/strong> to present material.\u00a0 although the pre-recorded narration can, in some cases, come across as slightly wooden, just as often it is surprisingly enthusiastic<\/strong> as instructors delve into their subject.\u00a0 as in the traditional classroom, slides summarize key material, supplemented with annotations in digital ink (also not a feature of your usual german classroom), less frequently with images, videos, or links.\u00a0 for the first time, i began to truly appreciate a pithy, well organized powerpoint slide.<\/p>\n

a few courses take a slightly different tack, filming and editing live in-class lectures<\/strong>.\u00a0 as in class, the ultimate success of this approach depends to large degree on the charisma of the lecturer, with big personalities translating well into the video format.\u00a0 indeed, personality is especially important here, since high video quality \u2014 for example, lighting, focus, sound \u2014 is more difficult to achieve.<\/p>\n

coursera video lectures \u2014 in whatever format \u2014 are short and interactive.\u00a0 video lectures are only 8 to 15 minutes long<\/strong>, breaking up each course unit into multiple thematic \u201cchunks\u201d: much easier to digest than a single, long presentation.\u00a0 and video lectures can be rewound, re-watched, stopped, started, sped up or slowed down, viewed with or without subtitles \u2014 all at the click of a button.\u00a0 this gives students an amount of control virtually impossible to facilitate in a lecture hall.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
health policy and the affordable care act : screencast with live-lecture footage<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

ungraded interactive quiz questions<\/strong> pop up to test recall in each lecture \u201cchunk.\u201d\u00a0 no grade is given for these questions, and students may choose to skip them altogether or merely guess their way through.\u00a0 yet, the questions do gesture toward keeping students involved in the lecture, and provide them with an easy method to check understanding.\u00a0 one course even synchronizes these questions in coursera with the clicker and discussion questions posed in lecture, allowing students in the coursera course to compare answers with those of the shadowy students filmed in lecture in philadelphia.\u00a0 a rather uncanny experience.<\/p>\n

even though video lectures are the most common method of presentation in coursera, next time we\u2019ll take a look at a different approach: the video discussion<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by katie mcewen, graduate assistant next semester vanderbilt will begin offering its first round of massive open online courses (moocs) as a part of the coursera consortium.\u00a0 now 33 universities strong, coursera lists 198 courses over fifteen different disciplines: from medicine to computer science; physical and earth sciences to humanities and social sciences, coursera seems…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":452,"featured_media":12029,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[167],"tags":[191],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/vu-wp0\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/59\/2018\/07\/09154346\/coursera-logo-300x2251.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12013"}],"collection":[{"href":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/452"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}