Educational Entomology Videos: Starring Good Teaching Strategies (and a Cockroach)
By Lauren Marsh
A perfect storm of technologies has given rise to a video deluge. It's easier than ever to create and edit videos and distribute them to people far and wide via iTunes and YouTube. People watch those videos on desktop computers in dorm rooms, apartments, and offices or download them to devices such as mp3 players and cell phones. The videos that people pass around via e-mail or post on their blogs tend to be short and funny with casual "hey kids, let's put on a play" production values. This sensibility has already influenced news, entertainment media, and advertising. Stephen Kells, an assistant professor of entomology, believes it could have a positive impact on teaching and learning as well.
Kells is in the process of developing an online extension course on structural pest management for managers. He plans to create a series of short (under three minute) videos to introduce each topic, for a total of twelve videos. Students will be able to subscribe to the videos as podcasts or download them from Kells' Web site. Kells wants to be sure "they are portable and can be viewed in a number of formats that the student can select, based on their system capabilities." The purpose, he explains, is to help orient students in the course, to pique interest in a topic that will be sustained through the lecture that follows, and to provide a preview that will help them get the most out of the lecture. Most importantly, he wants to excite them. He hopes his prototype, which offers an introduction to the class, will get students "sitting up in their chairs."
The first video of the series begins with a voice intoning: "So you want to know why—why you should participate in this course?" What follows is a fast-paced montage of still images, PowerPoint slides, and video clips of vermin that scuttle around to a driving rock-and-roll beat. The narrator poses a series of questions and promises that all of them will be answered in the class. The video primes students for the learning experience and asks them to reflect on their own motivations. But Kells also takes this opportunity to show students a side of himself he might not reveal in a lecture format. He comes across as a funny, perhaps slightly goofy, guy who is very into bugs. His enthusiasm is palpable and this is what he most wants to communicate to students who are considering a class or a career in entomology.
As to developing videos, Kells uses images from his lecture PowerPoint slides and shoots the video himself. The music he uses comes from companies that sell "royalty free" music clips for use in media so that he complies with copyright regulations. His biggest challenge is presenting ideas in a compelling way suited to a video format. Once he decided that the success of the series didn't depend on creating a polished, professional-looking product, possibilities really opened up. For instance, when he needed a video clip of cockroaches, he knew where to go—he took his hand-held camera into a steam tunnel and got the footage. It might take him half a day to actually assemble the video and do the voice over, but he's constantly thinking about how to utilize sources around him. His influences include MTV music videos, YouTube videos, cartoons, animated films, even Monty Python sketches—all offer examples of good editing, timing, camera angles, humorous asides, and a casual, if skillful, approach to production values.
By using humor to catch students' attention, and digital technologies that are integrated into their daily lives to reach them, Kells hopes to motivate students to engage learning in a more sustained way. And that's no joke.
