My First Semester Working at the Online Learning Center

I started working in the Online Learning Center at the beginning of the spring semester during my sophomore year at Pace. I wanted to work here because it fell under the umbrella of my major, Film and Screen Studies, along with my minor, Digital Media Studies, because it involves filming, creating digital media for informational purposes, and editing videos or content optimized for faculty and promoting the OLC.

Working here allowed me to expand my knowledge in all areas of production: pre-production, live production, and post production. I learned how to properly prepare and setup for shoots by creating a checklist, a shot-list, and going through a few rehearsals before I hear the word “rolling.” I even learned the basics and fundamentals of the TriCaster which is like the systems that the News and Talk Shows use when recording. During live-production, I learned how to transition smoothly and wait for proper cue signals and body language when recording someone live. I also learned how to maneuver with the controls and set up a shoot in the system with its proper content and added graphics and animations. There is not as much post-production involved as there is pre and live, but when there is, I mainly use Adobe Premiere Pro to edit and export Ads made to display outside of the OLC. We have made a few Ads the past few months, some being strictly digital and some where we had our finest actors of the OLC,showcase in front of the camera, what goes on when preparing for a shoot!

When the studio is not occupied, myself and other OLC staff do our best to improve the studio such as recording tutorials for future faculty. For example, I would spend time learning and mastering how to use the green screen on three different applications; Zoom, iMovie, and OBS, and then made personalized tutorials for when faculty may need a hand. I recorded three different tutorials for each application going step by step and featured it on the OLC blog where faculty can easily access it if in need of help. There are many transferable skills that I have learned while working at the OLC and cannot wait for what more is to come next semester in the fall!

May Update

Media Production in April

  • •  25 hours of consultations with faculty in Dyson, Seidenberg, Health, Law, and Pace Online.
  • • 19 videos (272 minutes total) produced for courses (Biology, Education, Finance), programs (Health), and special events (Pace Online Graduation).

Updates and Highlights

  • •  Brian developed the AV design and specifications of a new “Selfshot” video production station. The goal is to test possibilities for future OLC studio spaces located on the Pleasantville campus.
  • •  Professor Joanne Singleton and her team from the College of Health Professions (and beyond) were in the OLC all day shooting a series of interviews with a variety of healthcare professionals. They used the OLC teleprompter to stay on script, and relied on “Pawfessor Spirit” to maintain a serious-but-fun atmosphere.
On the calm-yet-energetic College of Health Professions set.
Editing Suite C became a make-up studio.
Editing Suite D became a hair studio.

Benefits of Online Learning and How to Execute Multimedia Learning Effectively- Drew

The OLC’s primary goal is to integrate multimedia learning effectively into Pace’s curriculum. With the ongoing COVD-19 pandemic, learning online has become a new normal. This blog post will detail the best ways to keep students attentive and engaged while attending classes online.

A 2003 study by Mayer, R. E., & Moreno R shows that humans learn more deeply from combining words and pictures than from words alone. Multimedia instruction is therefore defined as “presenting words and pictures that are intended to foster learning” (Mayer, 2009). The cognitive theory of multimedia learning makes three assumptions about how the mind works: there are two separate channels (auditory and visual) for processing information; channel capacity is minimal and can hold very little information for short periods; and that learning is an active process of filtering, selecting, organizing, and integrating information.

Multimedia content that doesn’t directly contribute to learning can overload and exceed the processing capacity of the cognitive system; this is known as cognitive overload (Sweller, 1988).

To support learning with video, you should be intentional about your design to reduce extraneous processing and manage the necessary processing of the material.

Listed below are methods that reduce the chances of cognitive overload in multimedia learning.

In conclusion, multimedia learning can significantly benefit students if done correctly.

Key takeaways: balance the two separate channels (auditory and visual) by using exciting graphics, music, and sharing helpful information.

Avoid overloading with unessential information that will lull students’ interest/ be easily forgotten.

 

April Update

Let’s look at what’s been happening in the OLC!

By the numbers:

  • •  5.5 hours of consultations with faculty in Seidenberg, Dyson, Health/CHP, Lubin, and Pace Online
  • •  Videos produced for courses, program orientations, and outreach
  • •  2 faculty members attended our Open Studio event

Other updates:

Highlights:

student assistant with dog assistant
OLC student assistants greet Pawfessor Spirit, assisting with video preproduction for Pace’s College of Health Professions.
student assistants work at computers
Drew and Lara working on developing graphics for Pace Online graduation livestreams.

OLC Tutorial: Screencasting

Curious about recording your screen while you talk? In this tutorial, OLC staff member Drew shows how to Screencast while using OBS:

For making live recordings of your online syllabus and materials, OBS is a fantastic tool that can help both teachers and students alike!

With OBS, you can record yourself speaking and click as you show your slides/ syllabus on screen. You can then upload that footage straight into Classes.

Here I am creating “scenes” in OBS.
Here’s my recorded screencast.

Do you have any interest in screencasting? Reach out and let us know!

Spicing Up Your Slides

Spicing Up Your Slides

On websites such as SlidesCarnival and SlidesGo, you can create colorful and vibrant themes for your presentations.

These slides are compatible with Google Slides, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Canva (if you aren’t familiar with Canva we have a blog post about how it operates).

Each theme comes with fonts, images, graph templates, icons, and more.

Here is how it looks once I have opened the theme above into Google Slides

First, you must make a copy of the document, and then you are free to edit however you please.

There are even have tutorials on how to use their software within different apps!

There are hundreds of free themes and additionally, there are subscriptions that give you access to more slides.

Insights from SXSW EDU 2022

I had the good fortune of virtually attending SXSW EDU events this week, including sessions on lessons learned from pandemic education, the hybrid university, the science of learning, and accessibility & inclusion. All of these areas touch on the value and possibility of instructional multimedia.

woman talking at podium
The online “channel.”

The Live Stream

One of the more interesting aspects of attending the conference online was seeing how they used their website(s) to organize, broadcast, and network content. And in what ways they failed.

The image above shows the web-based “channel” view of the conference, and I understand they also published live video and VOD (“videos on demand”) to TV apps (e.g. Amazon Fire, Roku, Apple TV, etc).

Online, they dedicated space on the right for “Chat” and “Q&A,” although in the 6 live sessions I attended, there was not much interaction. In fact, it was mostly used as a space to bring technical issues to the attention of the event staff (and I am certainly guilty of this!), such as:

  • – Looping ads and schedule issues (running late?)
  • – No or low audio.

Despite there being ample SXSW website presence, there was no other “channel” for solving these problems. Other attendees reported no response form the virtual Helpdesk.

Virtual Networking

Crickets. A total dud. For most of the week, the “Social Networking” link on any event brought you to a centralized networking website with a searchable A-Z directory. The plug-in that tied this app into the video platform was evidently broken until the last day of the conference. But it’s hard to know if it was used. Here’s an effort I made to say hi to a presenter:

social networking example

No response.

The Schedule

Overall I found the web experience confusing, with an unclear relationship between the pre-event website and the paid/login-only “SXSW EDU SCHEDULE” platform. However, the web-based tool to create my own conference schedule by “favoriting” sessions was helpful, as it became my go-to starting point each day.

Each event was coded (see below), but it was not always clear how or when a session would be accessible via video (or not):

the online schedule
“Live” events are live-streamed, and also available as video-on-demand (“VOD”).

I still am not sure what “online” means, because nothing about a session with only that code was online except the description. And it was not clear when “VOD” sessions would be made available, or for how long.

Final Thoughts

While claims of “moonshots” and “radical transformations” abounded, the main takeaway from many sessions was that the COVID-19 pandemic caused educators to use increasingly mixed modalities to support student learning outcomes, and that this was a good thing. As a recent meta-analysis shows, adding video elements to any kind of course can enhance learning outcomes.

App Review: Canva

At the OLC, I love to create new ads with fun graphics and texts using the graphic design software known as Canva. I learned about Canva back in January making social media digital promotional videos for the company Boosted, where I have an internship.

With Canva, I learned that you can make all different kinds of graphics, thumbnails, advertisements, instagram posts, and even presentations. Its variety of options range from making a corporate professional ad all the way to calm or silly videos. It’s even great for creating professional backgrounds for green screen users.

I was lucky to have access to the pro version, and I’ve used it to make advertisements for the OLC, videos for social media, as well as fun animated titles (and intertitle) cards.

screenshot
My Canva homepage!

Canva has the ability to let me pick and choose what kind of format I would like, whether it be an ad, a background, or an instagram post, and will let me adjust the size of it. Then:

  • – Under the templates tab is where I search for a themed template, or I can create one on my own.
  • – Under the elements tab, I can pull fun animated or standstill graphics and can choose from a variety of graphic options.
  • – Under the Uploads tab, is where I can upload any media of my own that I would like to use such as images and videos.
  • – Under the audio tab is where I can upload any music of my choice and incorporate it into the video anywhere of my liking.
  • – Under the Logo tab, is where I can upload any company logos and add animations to them if I wanted.
screenshot
A Canva canvas, with stock animations on the left.

If this software sounds helpful, I highly recommend it! You can try it for free, as Pace does not currently have a subscription. It has definitely come in handy for whenever I needed any easy way to create and animate animations, advertisements, and fun videos.

March Update

Groundhog Day
Six more weeks of winter?

February was our first full month of service! This post is a brief report on what’s been happening in the OLC.

By the numbers:

  • •  11 hours of consultations with faculty in Dyson, Health/CHP, and Lubin.
  • •  318 minutes of video produced for 2 courses

Outreach:

  • •  Webinar delivered in partnership with Pace’s Instructional Design team on “Creating Engaging Video for Classes” with 38 attending faculty.
  • •  Follow-up emails sent to 113 faculty across all schools and colleges.

Technology updates:

Highlights:

instructor at podium presenting
Professor Steve Rolandi recording a lecture for a Dyson asynchronous course.
webinar speakers
Brian (OLC) and Joe (Instructional Design) led the faculty webinar.
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