Abstract: Stephen X. Flynn College of Wooster Andrews Library 1140 Beall Avenue Wooster, OH 44691 [email protected] Whether it’s a funny video of the Internet’s favorite cat, Maru, jumping into boxes, or the season finale of Breaking Bad, or an evening playing Wii Fit with friends, our love of video and interactive adventure is self evident. There are universal elements to great videos and games that drive large audiences: beautiful cinematography and graphics, engaging and purposeful screenplays and storylines, unforgettable soundtracks, and a brand name that makes viewers and players want to return for more. Libraries can, and should, employ these elements in their own videos to promote our services and educate our users. When Jing was first released in 2007, it catapulted screencasting onto the Library 2.0 bandwagon, adding yet another online tool to the instruction librarian toolbox. The popular free version lacked editing tools, frustrating the perfectionists who took several tries to record a two minute screencast without errors. Since the emergence of Jing screencasting has matured as a technology practice. A small industry of professionals creates beautiful promotional and training screencasts for enterprise clients. Large companies create extensive video training for customers. The Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.org) and its army of erudite volunteers harness the power of short video tutorials to flip the global classroom and disseminate free knowledge. For libraries, screencasts are a promising tool, and despite the apparent maturing of our practice, there is still room for innovation. Currently, library screencasts tell linear stories. A “how to submit your thesis to our institutional repository” video (Flynn, 2012) makes perfect sense when told in perfect sequence. When graduation requirements are at stake, students aren’t interested in deviating from clearly defined outcomes. At the College of Wooster, all seniors are required to complete an independent study thesis and submit a digital copy to our IR, and last year the Libraries created a screencast to visually guide them through the online submission form. Thanks to a strong policy, and perhaps to the fact that our senior class barely outnumbered the screencast YouTube view count, we had 100% compliance. While linear screencasts are best in some situations, what if screencasts gave viewers more choices? New teaching models emphasize peer-to-peer interaction and participatory technologies to accommodate multiple learning preferences. As librarians we constantly look for new ways to break out of the lecture model, and give students more control over their learning. Screencasting affords viewers autonomy over how much and how fast they want to learn, but just as new teaching models are balancing one-way lectures with peer interaction, screencasts should allow viewers to make decisions in their learning adventure.
Publication Year: 2013
Publication Date: 2013-04-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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