I agree that “video as a medium continues to have an on-going impact on higher education, on the role of the student, challenging the (traditional) role of the lecturer and the format of delivering course content via a lecture” (Woolfit, 2015, p. 7). Besides, I think the prevalence of video in educational use changes students’ and teachers’ roles. People have easy access to information and knowledge in the information age that is shared and distributed online. Teachers should not solely focus on transferring information. Instead, teachers can spend more time in “more engaging activities that facilitated learner’s active knowledge construction” (Day, 2008, as cited in Woolfit, 2015, p. 21).

I used to help create instructional videos to teach students how to apply for their student loan in Quebec. As the consultants could not help every student with the application, using the video that guides students to go through the steps of filling the online application form seemed beneficial for both schools and students. We wanted some students with certain computer familiarity to watch the video and complete the tasks independently without assistance. The affordance of the video, in this case, is a demonstration and the production style is the screencast. The video itself was the official instruction created by Quebec Government. In order to increase accessibility for students whose first language was not English or French, I added subtitles in other languages to the video.

Relating to the research conducted by Ljubojevic et al. (2014), students’ motivation and efficiency of learning will be maximally increased if the video is used in the middle of the class. It makes sense to me. We used to play the instructional video during the break or loop it on the big monitor in the hallway. It turned out that only a few students paid attention to it or noticed it. If it was used in the middle of the class or orientation, it might work more efficiently.

 

Ljubojevic, M., Vaskovic, V., Stankovic, S., & Vaskovic, J. (2014). Using supplementary video in multimedia instruction as a teaching tool to increase efficiency of learning and quality of experience. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 15(3). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v15i3.1825

Woolfit, Z. (2015). The effective use of video in higher education (Rep.), 10-38. Retrieved October 2, 2018, from https://www.inholland.nl/media/10230/the-effective-use-of-video-in-higher-education-woolfitt-october-2015.pdf