Photo by James McKinven on Unsplash
Digital education reading group: October 2024
This month the digital education reading group will consider the value of short-form video in online education using a specific example from Careers education. There is much already written and believed about short-form video, so we’ll explore new and insightful perspectives from careers education.
The increasing accessibility of video editing tools like Canva, with its AI-enhanced capabilities, has opened up new possibilities for creating engaging, diverse content quickly and easily. This has major implications for how we design learning experiences and incorporate multiple perspectives into our teaching.
Senior Careers Consultant, Liz Wilkinson, will share her experience with creating super short videos for the Global Employability Skills project for the BSc Psychology. By using Canva she was able to quickly create engaging short video and, crucially, recruit a wide range of voices to provide content for that format. This demonstrates how short-form video can increase both the diversity of role models and accessibility in educational content.
Liz will show us some of the benefits she found from her approach, and invite us to consider how this might help us in our own practice.
Questions
We invite you to think about how short-form video could be applied to your own practice and consider these key questions ahead of the session:
- What is the educational value of super-short videos? What are the downsides?
- Can we use short videos to recruit a greater diversity of speakers?
- Can the relatively low time commitment of short-form video help us include a wider range of voices and perspectives in our educational content?
- How does the diversity of speakers affect learning?
- How might the way students interpret a concept (such as career advice) change based on who delivers the message?
- How can we ensure that short-form videos remain both engaging and accessible?
- With tools like Canva, creating videos is easier than ever. How do we balance creativity with accessibility to ensure all students can engage with the content?
- What can we learn from marketing techniques to enhance our educational videos?
- Are there techniques we could borrow from fields like advertising to make our videos more compelling and effective for learning?
Resources
To prepare for the session, here are some short readings and videos to spark your thinking on this topic:
1. CAST (2024) Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Guidelines 3.0
These guidelines emphasise the importance of representing a diversity of perspectives and making content relevant and authentic to learners. Short-form videos align well with UDL principles by providing accessible, engaging, and visually varied content that can represent a diversity of perspectives.
2. Keller, J. M. (2016) Motivation, Learning, and Technology: Applying the ARCS-V Motivation Model
Keller’s model focuses on motivation in instructional design; critical for making short videos effective. The ARCS-V components (Attention, Relevance, Confidence, Satisfaction, and Volition) offer a useful framework for designing content that engages students. We may wish to add another C = community (thinking about how other people affect the motivation of learners, e.g. fellow learners, friends, family, role models, etc.)
3. Stanton, T. (2015) Bill Law’s Community Interaction Theory – Theories Every Careers Adviser Should Know
In this blog post, Staunton discusses this career theory exploring how a community of voices (teachers, peers, role models) influences career choices. Short-form videos can help us provide students with relatable role models and expose them to a broader range of career narratives.
4. Seidel, N. (2024) Short, Long, and Segmented Learning Videos: From YouTube Practice to Enhanced Video Players
What about when short form won’t do, when we need to explain concepts in more depth? This paper looks at segmenting as an alternative. A study on the effectiveness of different video lengths in online education.
5. AXD Agency (n.d.) The Future of Education is Short-Form
This blog post discusses trends in short-form video content and its potential for transforming education. AXD is a copywriting & content marketing agency based in Manchester, UK.
6. Lassoff, M (2023) Research and Goldfish: Best Practices for Determining Video Length
This Linkedin article by Mark Lassoff explores best practices for determining video length, drawing on research around viewer attention spans, including the “goldfish myth.” It challenges the idea that shorter videos are always better and emphasises that the optimal length depends on the purpose and content. Engaging content can hold viewers’ attention beyond short formats, provided it’s relevant and well-structured. Lassoff also highlights the importance of balancing engagement with educational goals when producing online videos.
7. Career Marcr for Career Professionals (2019) Careership Theory
Sumamrising Hodkinson & Sparkes’ Careership Theory (1997) which proposes that all career decisions are pragmatically rational within the habitus of the individual and are limited by their horizons for action (what they can see from where they stand) and their available social capital. Part of the role of careers education is to expand individuals’ horizons by introducing them to different environments which expand their habitus and extend their horizon). This links to the use of short-form videos in education, which can expose learners to varied career models and perspectives efficiently.
We hope this session will inspire you to think about how short-form video can enrich our online education offerings by expanding diversity, enhancing student engagement, and making content more accessible to all learners.
List of topics discussed at previous meetings
