The required course work consisted of a combination of six discussion topics, three short true/false and multiple-choice quizzes, three exams involving true/false and multiple-choice questions and essay topics, and one medium-length paper with options for revision.

Together, the various writing assignments for the course accounted for 70 percent of the final grade. At the end of the semester, the class median was 82.75 points and the mean was 81 out of 100 points. Three students scored A’s and two students failed the course. The grade distribution for the course was similar to the distribution when I taught the course in a traditional classroom setting. I felt that the extent of the learning that occurred in the online course was similar to what I had seen in the classroom.

To assess the impact of the streamed presentations on student learning, I reviewed the course record for each student of the number of visits and the total time spent visiting each of the content pages and correlated this with the student’s final course score. Ten students viewed nine or more of the 12 streamed presentations and a similar number of the accompanying narration transcripts. Fourteen students relied primarily on the transcripts of the narration while viewing only a few of the presentations. Four students relied primarily on the streamed presentations while viewing only a few of the accompanying transcripts. The students who studied both the streamed presentations and the transcripts of the narration had the highest overall scores, with a median of 86.25 and a mean of 86 out of 100 points. Those who relied primarily on the transcripts had a median score of 83.5 and a mean of 80 points. The students who relied primarily on the streamed presentations scored substantially lower, with a median of 73 and a mean of 71 points.

Although other factors could account for the higher scores of those students who studied both the streamed presentations and the transcripts, I think the results suggest that the presentations did enhance student learning when combined with the transcripts of the narration. The streamed presentations were not a replacement for text-based delivery of course content, as evidenced by the lower scores of those students who relied primarily on the presentations. The streamed presentations facilitated increased learning as compared to a text-only mode of delivering course content, but the presentations should be viewed as working in tandem with the text versions of that content.

Was it worth the time needed to add the bells and whistles? Yes.

Jerry Kapus is an associate professor in the Department of English and Philosophy at University of Wisconsin-Stout.

Reprinted from Bells, Whistles, and Learning Online, Online Classroom, May 2009.

Streaming media in online courses
When I recently created an online course on the philosophy of religion, I was concerned with delivering the course content in a variety of ways that would enhance the students’ ability to understand it. In addition to primary readings, study guides, and written lecture notes, I created presentations for streaming over the Web that combined bulleted text with more elaborate narration of the presentation topic, and I made extensive use of images to visually illustrate and make apparent the meanings of the text and narration. I created 12 narrated slide presentations, ranging from 4.5 to 11 minutes and covering topics such as the problem of evil, the validity of religious experience, and faith and reason.

I used Camtasia to produce the presentations, because this software allows for easy editing of video and audio segments, easy conversion to a Flash format for streaming over the Web, and easy construction of downloadable MP3 files and files for podcasting. Although this presentation software is relatively easy to use, it still took me about eight hours to create my first four-and-a-half-minute presentation. This involved learning the software, conceptualizing and creating the presentation, editing it, converting it to a Flash format, and posting it to the course website. By the time I constructed my 12th presentation, I was able to produce a 10-minute presentation and have it posted to my course website in about three hours. The resulting presentations enabled the students to view and listen to the content as often as they wished, to jump to different spots in the presentations, and to advance forward or backward through the content.

Although I was glad to provide students with learning options that would appeal to those who preferred to learn through listening and through visual representation of ideas, I wondered if there would be increased learning benefits and whether these benefits would justify the time needed to produce the presentations. In order to assess this, I also posted a complete transcript of the narration for each presentation. With 31 students in the class, I expected that there would be a natural division between those students who preferred to learn the content through the streamed presentations, those who preferred the text-only versions, and those who would use both modes to learn the course content.

Was it worth the time needed to add the bells and whistles? We’ll answer that question in Thursday’s post.

Jerry Kapus is an associate professor in the Department of English and Philosophy at University of Wisconsin-Stout.

Reprinted from Bells, Whistles, and Learning Online, Online Classroom, May 2009.

1. Post complete text versions of the audio portion of the streamed presentations. My limited study suggests that student learning is most enhanced when students can study both streamed presentations and transcripts of the audio. You should encourage students to study both the presentations and the transcripts and advise them to avoid studying only the presentations.
2. Keep your presentations relatively short. I suggest keeping them under 15 minutes. If this is not sufficient to cover all the content for a given topic, then the content should be chunked at appropriate spots into several presentations. Each presentation should come with a table of contents that students can click on to navigate within the presentation.
3. Plan out the slide or video portion of the presentation first. This will allow you to focus on the main ideas that you want to emphasize, and it will provide you with an outline for developing the narration. You should make use of images to illustrate and represent ideas and arguments. This will allow you to present content in several modes.
4. Write out a script of the narration. Doing this will help you to organize your thoughts. It will also result in fewer audio mistakes, since you can add the narration by simply reading the script. Writing out the narration beforehand will also provide you with a text version of the narration that you can post to the course website.
5. Choose presentation software that allows you to easily edit the separate video and audio portions of the presentation and that in a few simple steps converts the presentation into a format for streaming over the Web.

Jerry Kapus is an associate professor in the Department of English and Philosophy at University of Wisconsin–Stout.

From Tips from the Pros – 5 Tips for Using Streaming Audio and/or Video, Online Classroom, May 2009.