"Teaching with Technology"? Oh, Wait: You Meant "Delivering Content." Never Mind.

I've been sucked in again--a one hour brown-bag hosted by the university's "Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning."

Best Practices for "Back Pocket Video Production
Video pros and experienced faculty share their tips and tricks for producing video content for course enhancement and student assignments with only their phones and other "back-pocket" devices.

Sounds pretty innovative, and why not?  Most students carry around with them the capacity to shoot video; so do I.  They live in a world replete with screens and moving images; so do I.  They document their lives relentlessly with their hand-held devices, and I was born too early to understand how this unlimited capacity for self-expression across a variety of media platforms shapes how they understand the world.  I ask them to delve deeper into the printed word by writing about what they read--how might I harness their use of another media form?

I have some ideas, myself, but there are a lot of things I don't know about how to make them work:

• Like many non-tenure-track faculty with no research budget, I have to rely on a shared office computer or technology I've purchased for my personal use.  Where and how should I store video files that I create (or ask students to create) for a class?
• What are some rookie mistakes to avoid when using a handheld device to shoot video that's going to be viewed by strangers, rather than an audience of sympathetic family or facebook friends?
• What are the best platforms for making student-made videos available to their classmates?
• What FERPA and copyright issues should I be worrying about when using a site like YouTube for educational purposes?
• What kinds of video-centered assignments work well in a class where video production and visual media are NOT the main focus of learning?
• How have instructors successfully prompted students to exploit the communication possibilities of hand-held video?  What do students do better with video than with more conventional kinds of assignments?

So I went to the brown bag lunch.  Here's what I learned.

• Shooting video with a smart phones can capture ephemeral moments and otherwise undocumented voices.
• You can deliver course content effectively via three to six-minute videos that explain and reinforce key concepts.  
• Students like short home-made videos a lot, learn from them, and stop asking their instructors to repeat basic information in office hours.
• Production values matter: here are some cool toys we have to help make your videos more professional (turns out that "back-pocket" in the course description referred specifically to little backpacks full of gadgets that instructors can check out of the library).
• Editing your videos makes them better: here's how iMovie works on your handheld device.

There's nothing particularly wrong with any of that, only I don't teach big lecture classes, and I try to minimize the amount of time I spent talking at my students.  The bulk of learning takes place in my class when students discuss and interact with texts with my guidance.  Learning about a different way of talking at them doesn't help me guide that process more effectively.  Yet every time I trot hopefully off to an event that promises to help me innovate, I find myself talked to as if delivering information is the only thing I might want to do in the classroom.  "Innovation in Teaching and Learning"?  It looks suspiciously like draping Freire's banking model with enough cords,  dongles, and screens that we can make it unrecognizable and scalable.

Learn Local! (more on ASU and Starbucks)

If any local Starbucks baristas happen to be reading this blog and thinking about starting college in the next year, I crunched the numbers for them.

Only after you've accumulated 56 hours of credit (at or acceptable to ASU) will Starbucks pay your full tuition.

To acquire those 56 credits through the Starbucks College Achievement Plan will cost somewhere between $20,966 and $23,718.  It seems like a lot, but that's a discounted tuition, 78% of what a non-Starbucks employee would pay.  (ASU-Online credits vary by course, from $480 to $543 per credit hour, or $374.4 to $423.54 with the Starbucks discount.)

To acquire those credits at your local community college, assuming that you live in district? $7,364 (our local community college charges residents $131.50/credit hour).

Of course, in both cases, what you pay may be less than the sticker price.  ASU/Starbucks assume that you will apply for any federal aid you're eligible for, like military education grants and Pell grants (which, if you're supporting yourself at Starbucks, you're probably eligible for).  You are also eligible for such grant support at your local community college.

Assuming that your eligibility for federal aid will help to bring the cost of the ASU/Starbucks degree in line with the cost of a local community college education, the advantages of the ASU/Starbucks degree are as follows:

• You know that all your credits will count towards the 56 required for full tuition reimbursement to kick in.  There's always a chance that some of your community college credits will not transfer.

• ASU-Online/Starbucks is acquiring a good deal of name recognition.  People outside of your community may not have heard of your community college.

• Everything is online.  At no point you will you have to (or even be able to) get in a car to take a final exam, talk face-to-face to sort out a financial aid mix-up, take a course that's only available in brick-and-mortar form.

• There will be a seamless similarity in the format of your classes.  Since ASU-Online is partnership between Arizona State University and Pearson, an education and media company, any individuality in course content and design will be filtered through the Pearson learning management system and Pearson course products.    

• You will receive a lot of encouragement to remain at ASU-Online until the completion of your degree.  As a profit-generating venture, ASU-Online and Pearson have an interest in retaining as many students as possible.  

• You will be a conduit by which any federal grant money you're eligible for will help to improve the bottom line at Pearson.

The advantages of the local community college are as follows:

• The community college is not subsidized by a purveyor of online learning management systems, so it recognizes that some students learn more effectively in face-to-face classes.  You will be encouraged to assess your own learning needs and decide whether an online format is the best way to meet your goals.  

• Even if you are a good candidate for online learning, where the subject matter can be more effectively taught in a hands-on manner, you can get face-to-face instruction, and you have the option of taking courses in fields that don't lend themselves well to online teaching.

• Because your community college offers a limited number of four-year degrees, you will be encouraged to think broadly about how and where to transfer those credits that you've paid for. Further online education at a for-profit institution might help you achieve your goals, but then, it might not. 

• Your federal aid dollars will be used within your community.

Online Re-, Dis-, Mis-, and Anti-Education

I am really good at going to school.   A few years ago I was contemplating a career change, so I waded in gently, taking one course towards retraining at a time at the nearest community college, where tuition was only slightly more expensive than the required textbooks.  When I could take a course online, I did.  It saved me forty minutes of commuting time (not to mention gas money) for every brick-and-mortar class meeting and didn't lock up my schedule as I continued to work full-time.

Online education was a surprise.  My education, from high school through to a Ph.D., involved top-shelf, private institutions, but the best science class I ever took was the required chemistry sequence that the community college offered online.  Few of the classmates I got to know in brick-and-mortar classes felt the same way about it.  They mostly urged one another to take chemistry in person if possible--it was just too hard without the discipline and structure of regular lecture meetings. So tempted as I am to use my experience as evidence that online learning can work, I resist.  It can be excellent, but its excellence depends on the same factors (pedagogical labor, student preparation and motivation) that shape non-online learning.

The other surprise was just how bad it can be, and just what a difference that badness makes. Where the pedagogical labor is missing, all the excellent student preparation and motivation in the world will not make up for it.  The worst class I ever took was also online, a four-credit Introduction to Psychology.  By the end of the course, I had honed my skills in the following: