Excellence Gateway
Published: 11 December 2008
This case study was produced by JISC RSC (Regional Support Centres) Northwest on behalf of the Excellence Gateway
Sector relevance: Further education colleges
Keywords:Improving teaching and learning, improving responsiveness to learners, construction, apprenticeships, video resources, creating e-learning resources, motivating learners
Three members of staff at Hugh Baird College have created a set of video resources to demonstrate joinery techniques and procedures. Learners can access the resources through touch-screen technology in the workshop environment, enabling them to revisit demonstrations when they are performing these techniques and procedures for themselves.
Hugh Baird College, a further education college in Bootle, Liverpool, consists of three main buildings on its one campus (the Balliol, the Pembroke Centre and the Sixth Form Academy) offering courses to more than 7,000 students. The College has achieved the Training and Quality Standard (TQS) related to its work with employers.
The College has a strong apprenticeships provision, and has outstanding provision in the areas of Construction, Motor Vehicle, Hospitality, and Skills For Life.
A standard part of joinery courses within apprenticeships in the School of Construction at Hugh Baird College is the demonstration of techniques and procedures, which learners then replicate in the workshop and need to remember for future tasks and activities.
Carpentry Lecturer Phil Whiteside came up with the idea of filming workshop demonstrations, to enable learners to revisit the demonstrations whilst in the workshop environment, after the live demonstration had taken place.
Phil, along with Lecturer and Teaching and Learning Development Manager Jim Hankin, and ILT/ICT Co-ordinator David Lockwood, identified that filming the demonstrations and making them available in the workshop environment would:
Phil and Jim came up with an initial list of 13 demonstrations to video (although the number now completed has risen to 20). Fortunately, Phil, Jim and David found that between them they had the relevant set of skills for producing the videos, and through the production have also trained each other in some of the skills. It has been to their advantage that Phil, a Carpentry Lecturer, has done most of the editing, as he knew exactly which camera angle would best demonstrate each particular element of a technique or procedure.
The team of three considered shooting the videos in a ‘real' lesson situation with learners in attendance, but felt they needed a more controlled environment to make it work successfully, and that it would disrupt lesson time too much. Originally they shot the videos in a workshop but, following chance disturbances - noise from rain hammering down on the workshop roof, and also light changes when clouds covered the sun - they asked for a workbench to be moved to the Arts Department film studio where the environment could be controlled.
In the studio they were able to set-up three cameras (one long shot and two close-ups); sound was recorded from each camera, which made it easier for Phil to match-up different camera angles during editing; and lighting could be balanced to suit the different camera angles.
Jim took on the task of doing the demonstrations to the camera. His ability to run straight through a demonstration has earned him a reputation as a ‘one-take wonder' and he is now very accomplished in making sure his hands are in the defined viewfinder area for the close-ups; not only has this avoided having to go back to shoot parts of a demonstration again, it has helped the production of the videos significantly in that editing has simply required selecting footage of the most appropriate camera angle, rather than having to select and piece together from several separate ‘takes' showing the same part of the demonstration. It also means that learners see the video demonstrations in ‘real time', although they can also pause the video, or use a slider to fast-forward or rewind as suits their needs.
The finished demonstrations, which vary between seven and 20 minutes duration, were then made available for learners in the workshop environment through a touch-screen monitor. Initially this was done through navigating a Flash-based interface, which allowed learners to select the demonstration they wanted. However, the team discovered that this had a big disadvantage in that additions or changes to the set of resources had to be loaded locally onto each PC.
A more recent development for delivery of the demonstrations is ‘Hugh Tube', providing a web-based interface through which the videos are streamed from a media server. New workshops at the College each have two touch-screen monitors and an interactive whiteboard through which the video demonstrations can be played.
Use of the media server now means that just one location needs to be updated when changes occur, and has also created one central location for the provision of other video demonstrations to which the College subscribes, including other subject areas besides joinery.
This has not been straightforward, and David has had to ensure that ‘Hugh Tube' is currently only available internally to comply with the licensing of their resources, and has also had to overcome issues with some of the resources only being available as videos/DVDs, not as electronic files that can be streamed online.
Image 1: A video demonstration playing on a touch-screen monitor in a workshop
Through production of the joinery video resources available through ‘Hugh Tube', alongside the licensed resources, the team now has a demonstration covering every first year element for their learners. Second year learners find the set of resources just as valuable because they often have to revisit and apply the same techniques and procedures, some of which they may not have undertaken for some time.
Whilst, as David acknowledges, the production of video demonstrations is not new - these have been used in practical and work-based learning situations for many years - it is the use of these resources in the workshop environment via the touch-screen monitors that really marks their development out.
Live demonstrations are still an important part of teaching joinery techniques and processes, but the video demonstrations have become a valuable resource in the workshop. Some learners use them to progress while the lecturer is busy helping other learners, others use them to work at their own pace. One learner summed this up by saying:
“It has been like having another teacher in the classroom and I have been able to progress on my own in my own time”.
Whilst some will watch a demonstration all the way through before undertaking a procedure themselves, Jim has also seen learners watching a short section then going away to perform that procedure, then coming back to watch another short clip, and so on.
The team is now also sharing the video resources, having overcome some initial technical issues in making them available, with two local schools which feed learners into their joinery courses. Through this they are hoping to have an impact on the skills development of these learners so that they come to the College with better basic joinery skills.
The video demonstrations are being well used in the workshop environment, with positive feedback from learners. This has included a benefit which the team had not envisaged, one learner highlighting how the videos have helped him to become more independent in the workshop; that is, less reliant on the lecturer and more self-motivated.
The success of the resources is also sparking interest from other areas of the College, including Initial Teacher Training (ITT), Hair and Beauty Therapy, and Catering. They plan to train staff from these other areas in filming and editing; this is partly because they do not have the time available to produce resources for other departments, but also because they know from their own experience that it is more effective for the lecturers in those areas to edit footage, as they know which camera angles best explain their techniques and procedures.
David feels sure that the professionalism of their resources is an important factor in how effective they are and, whilst he acknowledges that others would find it difficult to produce quality resources without training, he is confident that staff can gain these skills.
Whilst they are obviously much more competent now than when they started, David recognises that knowledge and skills were gained gradually. However, having developed these skills over time, David says they now look at some of the external, licensed resources being used and think they would have done them differently, and better!
What advice will David be offering to colleagues from other departments? He says he will be making sure they realise how important it is to identify the right techniques and procedures to video to really be of benefit to their learners, and then to plan the set-up and shooting of the video carefully, as this can avoid much bigger issues and lengthier processes at the editing/production stage.
And finally, what of the issue of staff time in producing the video resources? They acknowledge that this will always be an issue but, says Jim, they're “in the business of teaching and learning” and are convinced that the benefit to their learners from the resources makes the effort worthwhile.
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