By Eleanor Hoskins — Posted on: Mar 20, 2015
edX and Coursera do a lot for the accessibility of education, but the trend toward free, open online education goes far beyond the phenomenon of the MOOC. Just ask any high school student about Khan Academy: chances are they’ve heard of it, and used its videos to help out their science and math learning.
In fact, pick any high school subject, and there’s likely to be a passionate educator running a YouTube or Vimeo channel working to explain and enrich its core concepts. These video teachers usually welcome suggestions, answer questions, and encourage discussion for viewers all over the world. Their lectures cover an immense variety of topics and issues, and are designed to engage learners at all levels in unusual stories about and new perspectives on a field of study. They also allow educators like Emily Graslie to demonstrate the really hands-on aspects of their unique educational jobs.
Video lecturing requires technical know-how, and the editing process can be time-consuming, but it opens up a far greater amount of flexibility and material than a face-to-face lecture allows. It also presents and illustrates content in a fun, visually engaging format.
Take a look at these two video lectures about educational technology to see what it can look like:
Many of these channels have expanded beyond video lecturing to include audience question periods, interviews with other experts in the field, and even, in the case of Khan Academy, a full-fledged free and open website that blends video lectures on science, math, humanities, economics and more with problem sets and discussion forums. Khan Academy started out with one person recording video lectures, and has grown to unite a huge community of learners with an international community of teachers from museums and schools worldwide.
The movement toward open online education is growing fast, and it’s making students at all grade levels excited about their learning and engaged in finding out more.
Check out some more examples of educational videos below (but beware, they can be pretty addictive!)
Video Lecturing Channels
Additional Resources
- The Brain Scoop
- ViHart
- Take a look at the Khan Academy website to see where video lecturing can end up!
And finally, UBC offers several pieces of software, such as Camtasia, Snagit, and Videoscribe, that can help you get started on making your own screen recordings and video lectures. Contact us to learn more!