Humanizing e-lecturers and engaging online writing students via dialogic video

Abstract

This paper reports on a study of integrating instructor-produced video 'profcasts' (Edirisingha, Salmon & Fothergill, 2007) into all 12 units of an online Master of Arts in Writing delivered asynchronously. While the value of short, targeted, quickly-made podcasts and extensive streamed video lectures in educational contexts has been researched (Williams, Birch & Hancock, 2012), few studies consider how customized videocasts supplement and complement core content to create engaging units of learning that learners value. Instead of producing instructivist, sage-on- stage, reiterative lectures, the Writing team filmed lecturers in semi-spontaneous dialogues to create critically challenging interactive experiences. The teaching and learning challenge is deeper than humanizing e-lecturers; it is about creating sustainable interfaces drawing on unique human capital: the lecturers as future-makers. It is a journey of creating enduring and impactful resources. Foregrounded by a literature review, this paper presents qualitative data from students and staff responding to the question of how valuable dialogic videos are to students‘ experiences as online students of Writing. In addition to confirming students appreciate the humanizing of lecturers, data shows video makes ideas more accessible to visual learners and more engaging overall. Most importantly, informal dialogues with their exchanges of ideas clarify written course materials, supporting learning while helping to future-proof the program in a time of change.