Instructor presence
Effective Responses
How might you effectively respond to a discussion, topical events, or student performance? In any mode of instruction, teacher presence and guidance are essential for students to learn new concepts. Bland generic feedback is far less motivational than customized personal communication directed at student performance or specific class discussions.
Timing Is Important
You’ll want your communication to students to be received as soon as possible. In face-to-face classrooms this is natural. In asynchronous settings, you have to make an extra effort to be timely. Rather than postponing days, you might consider using online tools to respond as soon as you can, so you can guide student discussion towards reaching a critical understanding or raising questions your class may not have considered.
YouTube provides an easy method that allows you to record quick videos. All you need is a computer with a webcam, or an iOS device and a web connection. With YouTube webcam recording, a video message to your class takes only moments to record.
Tips for YouTube Responses
Keep your responses thought provoking, but brief. What kind of questions would Socrates ask? Think about how your specific response fits into the rest of your YouTube video presence. Consider making the video response unlisted so only the readers of a specific discussion will see it. Before recording, take a moment to think about your response, but just as you do in in a face to face classroom, use natural conversational language. This is informal communication, a few mistakes are fine.
Recording
Login to YouTube with your instructor account and follow these steps:
- Get to the upload area and look for the “Create Videos” section.
- Click on the “Webcam capture > Record” button.
Visit your home page regularly and view it as the public would. Are you sending the message you want to the public? Do you need to revisit your privacy settings?
If you are away from your desktop computer you can always use an iOS device to record a message. YouTube makes an app called YouTube Capture:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/youtube-capture/id576941441
Learn More
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/57409 (Use webcam to record video)
https://ctl.uaf.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/623/2012/05/TT-Embedding.pdf
https://ecampus.uaf.edu/go/ctl-ip
I love the idea. It seems that this tip was meant for “whole” class response. Is there a way to give individual students private video responses on their individual work?
Hi Kristina.
You could record a single video as “unlisted” and then send the student the URL of the vid. Downside: that most likely takes them out of the context they are in, in order to watch your message. Unless…
…The class is in Blackboard. In the grading area you can leave a detailed message with formatting. You could embed a video response there just as you would elsewhere in your Bb shell.