Excellence Gateway
This case study was produced by JISC RSC (Regional Support Centres) Yorkshire & Humber on behalf of the Excellence Gateway.
Sector relevance: Further education colleges, Sixth Form colleges/schools
Keywords: ILT services, teaching and learning, 14-19 learners, student, teacher, young people, leisure, travel and tourism, curriculum development, management of resources
Tutors have long found using videos beneficial to visual learners. Longley Park Sixth Form College has developed an in-house TV system that allows easy access, control, and flexibility for the organisation and its staff.
Longley Park Sixth Form College opened in September 2004 with purpose-built facilities. Based in northeast Sheffield, Longley Park offers a range of full-time courses to 16–19 year olds and part-time courses to adult learners.
The College had purchased a package for recording and playback of video but the recording aspect, and in particular the scheduled recording, fell short of being useable. Mark Evans, Network Support Officer, developed a system that would address the shortcomings of the previous system. The challenge was to provide quality that was useable in the classroom but, more importantly, staff had to be able to use it themselves, for both recording and playback, without any technical knowledge. He developed LPTV.
LPTV takes its inputs from Freeview and Sky. It can record up to three programmes simultaneously from a number of TV channels and store them on a dedicated server. The number of simultaneous recordings is limited only by the number of inputs provided. More can easily be added. Programmes, including whole series, can be set to record in advance.
Image 1: LPTV can be projected to screens in the main social space of the College
All classrooms at Longley Park Sixth Form College have a teacher's PC connected to an interactive whiteboard and projector. On the PC, tutors can select from previously recorded videos or a live TV/DVD/VHS feed and project them whole-screen to the whiteboard. LPTV can also be embedded into the college virtual learning environment (VLE). Copyright and bandwidth issues mean that students can only watch video on the VLE within the college. Making the videos accessible to students at home would make getting copyright permission more difficult.
LPTV has the ability to record VHS and DVD content. This introduces copyright issues but the system is designed to make everything easy for the user. Two clicks of a button generates a letter to send to copyright holders, requesting permission to record the material.
Content is reviewed automatically every month and tutors are emailed by the system with the number of times a video has been watched. The onus is placed on the “owner” of a recording. If they don't opt to keep their recording, it is pruned at the next cycle.
It took two months to develop the system and then a further six months of testing. LPTV has been in operation for about two years and currently holds about 495 recordings on the system.
Image 2: The LPTV screen shows all recorded media
The main outcome is that staff at Longley Park have an easy-to-use system that is convenient and provides reliable and easy access to a range of high quality resources. Programmes are available from a number of channels and there is the capacity to add more.
The system is easy to use and requires no training. Derek Taylor, Network Manager, explains how “teachers just need to deliver a lesson. A teacher does not want to learn about the technicalities of a complicated system”. Playback is straightforward. The result is that it is widely used by tutors in the college. Derek adds, “There are some systems that people use because they have to – they use this system because they want to”.
There is easy access. Each classroom has a whiteboard and projector so tutors do not have to book equipment. As Derek says, “it's instant – there is no searching for videos, no wheeling TVs into classrooms – you can walk in the classroom and there it is”.
Other than for retrieving channel listings, LPTV does not rely on an internet connection to bring content, as it records from the Sky or Freeview feed to the server. This means that retrieving programmes is reliable.
Image 3: LPTV is easy to use
A timer on the screen allows tutors to easily pinpoint sections of video to show to students. This saves fast-forwarding through content. Kevin Mallinson, tutor in A-level Sport and PE, adds: “The timing bit is valuable…You may only want to show a two-minute slot. The most time-consuming thing with videos is finding the right place in the clip”.
The process is convenient. A tutor can record a whole series at the touch of a button and then view the resource at a time suitable to their teaching.
Tutors can share resources. The recording location within LPTV can be selected by the user, which makes the video viewable to selected audiences.
A spin-off from LPTV is LPFM. This allows students on the DJ Technology course to plug their sessions into the network, for live play in classrooms around the College.
Kevin believes video is “extremely invaluable” to his teaching. He uses LPTV “every week” and refers students to watch clips on the College VLE. The advantage is that “it is a different way of presenting material. Some students are visual learners, some aesthetic, and you can set up different scenarios in the classroom. You have to make it active. I design questions around the video”.
Image 4: LPTV screen shows a list of recorded programmes by subject area
LPTV aids learning outside the classroom. Students can examine video in more depth on the VLE. There is the flexibility for a clip to be shown in lesson and then students watch the full video later.
Kevin outlines other advantages. Students that may miss lessons through illness “can still view the video and pick up on what they have missed”. Likewise, “if someone is late they can open the link on the VLE and begin watching it” rather than miss the beginning of the video.
There is also an organisational advantage to LPTV. Previously, if a tutor were ill then lessons would have to be cancelled. With LPTV, tutors can prepare material in advance that any other tutor can use and students still get the best out of the lesson.
Another organisational advantage is that there are the facilities to project programmes in the central “social space” within Longley Park's new build via a large screen.
The advantage of LPTV for Longley Park is that, as they have developed the system themselves, they can therefore develop it further.
Data recording the popularity of each programme is collected. This could be developed to make recommendations to staff.
As the system can record material from DVD, there is potential for the College and students to create their own content.
TIP: Have you rated how useful this case study is? Use the star-rating facility, which features in the grey bar that runs across the top of every page of this site. (To rate a case study, or any page in the Excellence Gateway, you need to log in to the site first.)
Disclaimer: The Regional Support Centres (RSC) and the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) support the development of educational e-learning. We may refer to specific products, processes or services. Such references are examples and are not endorsements or recommendations and should not be used for product endorsement purposes.
You can find this page and download any referenced resources from the Excellence Gateway at http://excellence.org.uk/206622.
