Author Archives: Stephan Caspar

Video interview

Media Training Simplified.

Here are six ways to ensure you’re prepared for an effective interview or piece to camera, whether for television, radio or podcast. Follow these simple guidelines and you’ll do just fine. Don’t forget to smile and greet the journalist, they’ll guide and help you, but having some understanding of the process will certainly help everything run smoothly.

Choose your content carefully – focus only on the key messages, you want to answer questions but remember to keep to your agenda and stay on point.

  • Keep it short and punchy – short, snappy sentences show that you’re confident and provide good editable material.
  • Practice makes perfect. If you can record yourself (webcam etc), great – but a mirror or a willing friend will do!
  • Don’t panic – speak deliberately and don’t rush. Looking great on camera!
Avoid alcohol the night before the shoot and stay hydrated on the day you are filming – hydrated skin looks like healthy skin!
Clothes:
  • Wear solid colours – stripes, checks and small patterns can strobe on camera
  • Wear pastel colours – White looks too bright and Navy and Black look too dark
  • Avoid clothes that are glossy or shiny – these can look odd on camera
  • Be smart, but be comfortable – “perhaps bring a few options of clothing
  • If you have the option of contact lenses or glasses, try to wear contact lenses as they don’t reflect the light
Jewellery:
  • Avoid glossy or reflective jewellery

Don’t wear too much – it can be distracting and make too much noise on camera (the worst offenders for this are rings clanking together and beaded necklaces rattling.

Make-up:
  • Everybody that will be on camera should wear at least a small amount of makeup. A little bit of powder will dull any reflection from the additional lighting
  • For people that normally wear make-up (eye shadow, blusher etc), follow the lead from the clothing section – pastel colours and nothing glittery
Body Language:
  • Remember to smile – smiling when you are presenting helps you to relax
  • Don’t slouch! Try and relax – shake out the nerves if you need to!
  • Gesture if it’s normal to you in every day conversation.
  • Move (but not too much!), don’t make eye contact with the camera lens unless you’re talking directly to the audience.
  • Vary your pitch, speak up and speak clearly and don’t rush your sentences

Try to relax as best you can. It’s so basic to prepare and not just rely on your subject expertise, you might get questions you don’t expect, you might even find your interviewer playing devil’s advocate. It’s alright to show some passion, but don’t get cross or impatient, these emotions will be amplified on camera or on the radio. If you’re not sure of the question, then ask the interviewer to repeat it. If you’re not sure of the answer, then take a second to compose it in your head. Don’t wing it, if the interviewer is straying from your subject area then tell them that you’re not confident in answering or that it wouldn’t be appropriate to comment. They’ll adjust and ask you something else.

Ask your colleagues and friends to listen or watch the interview when it’s aired or broadcasted. People who know you can be helpful in pointing out opportunities to improve the way you come across. You get better by doing it more, you’ll understand the activity that is happening around the interviewer, you’ll be able to help them and that’s sure to help you tell your story or present your ideas in the clearest, accessible and engaging way.

Digital Badges for Media Development

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In recent months I’ve been running workshops and giving talk to educators and researchers who are interested in creating media to support their teaching or research projects. Sometimes it’s neither one or the other, it’s both. Digital Media is an effective way to tell stories about your work, for public engagement, to support funding bids as well as supporting your teaching.

The workshops have been well-recieved and I’ve had a very positive response, however it’s difficult to trace the work that my learners and attendees go on to create. I’ve long been an advocate of digital badges, having first used them when teaching graphic design in Further Education, so it seemed a no brainer to use them to reward and capture some of the outcomes from these workshops.

705d54b01f2c136a7d22050a8e28bbff_13Learners can apply for a digital badge depending on which course they attended, they need to submit evidence, for instance a link to a film or podcast and they will receive a digital badge to display via linkedIn or elsewhere. I’m hoping it will be effective in terms of capturing more work and sincerely hope that it will useful to educators and researchers evidence of professional development.

I’ve used Credly for simplicity, but having started I realise it’s not an entirely ideal platform. So I’ll keep you up to date with developments and hope to post up some of the work that I receive.

Building better learning objects.

10 ways to ensure your digital media is effective every time.

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This short guide provides an opportunity for academics and expert contributors to think about the media that they create for courses, whether that’s video, audio podcast, illustration, photograph or in some cases text. It’s worth exploring why some of these learning objects are effective and why some just aren’t and how you can ensure the video or other digital object you make will encourage repeat views and listens.

Learning is made up of multiple moments that fizz and sparkle, cables wired, tiny lights and circuits completed. One of the joys of teaching is in breaking down big learning objectives into smaller outcomes. In class we see sparks become roaring flames, but online it’s harder to know whether we’ve done enough, whether we’ve created learning objects that are effective and engaging.

Here are ten tips to help you get the best from the media you create as learning objects. This might be similar to the support you recieve from a learning designer or media team who will encourage you to plan and incorporate the following suggestions into your course.

Make a connection with your audience.
Think about the people who might be viewing or listening, do you seem approachable? are you smiling? You’ll be amazed when I tell you that I’ve had grumpy academics, hoping that this is all going to be over soon, come across quite poorly. Perhaps the first few words you say might include a “hello!” or a quick introduction, it’s vital that you get the audience on side from the outset. Academics are sometimes reluctant to put their personality on show, but teaching is performance.

Set your learning outcomes.
You might want to let your audience know what you’re hoping to achieve. You want to avoid sounding like an online manual, but you should set the objective. For instance “We want to explore the idea of time travel, so that you can better understand what incredible physics would be involved.” Put the big questions out there on screen, in writing if necessary.

  1. Put your learners first.
    What role do you want your learners to take? As they watch and listen the should start to think about the part that they’re going to play.
    Great course presenters and academic leads think about the value the learners will bring to the course, if you’re only in broadcast mode then you can’t be sure they’re properly watching or listening.
  2. Give us us the goods
    If you can share the passion you have for your subject, then you’ll engage and inspire in equal measure. Paint your picture with broad strokes but don’t forget the details. Learners love what they can take home and sometimes little gems provide moments can trigger memories later and aid retention.
  3. Illustrate your point.
    One of reasons to choose a video is that it gives you the opportunity to show rather than tell. It’s much more interesting to show an example, demonstrate or examine something. If you can support your ideas and theories with strong examples that your audience can understand and relate to, then you’ll increase engagment. Remember, it’s not just about video; skilled podcasters can paint pictures and carry the listeners through a new experience.
  4. Let your audience reflect.
    Keep bringing it back to them, help your learners relate and reflect on their own practice. The connections they make are invaluable, every time an idea can be applied and absorbed even in the abstract can carry the learner onwards. It really is all about them. This is as close in a closed broadcast to something approaching a learning check.
  5. Put yourself on the line.
    Learners love personality and individuality, they want to hear distinctive voices and they want to find their own voices in considering whether to agree or not. Get them off the fence, encroach on their comfort zones and they will respond with good questions, create discourse and discussion. There will be a buzz around your course.
  6. Listen to the experts
    Let the people around you guide and help you. If you are working with a media team, then let them support what you’re trying to do. Use them as a sanity check or to hear how things sound. Learning Designers and Content Producers are looking at the big picture, how your contribution will fit into the course. Remember it’s a team game.
  7. Sum up your outcomes
    Make sure there’s a wrapper around the learning, whilst you should put yourself on the line (no.8) you should reach a conclusion. This frames the video or learning object in it’s own right. You need to scaffold learning, build upon each idea and outcome, but your object should equally be able to stand alone, you want to be the go to destination for the best answer.
  8. Leave them wanting more.
    Your students should know that there’s more to come. They might want to get in touch, especially if you’ve created channels to comment and feedback. Each learning object tells part of the story, a well-designed and well-written film, podcast, image, post or other digital project should keep the learning alive, the flame should keep burning.

 

The media created for blended or online courses has to deliver a moment or several moments of learning, each distinct and accessible. In the classroom, we might make small adjustments as we deliver, taking in the mood, seizing an opportunity, we can be agile and spontaneous when we need to be.

At the heart of every brilliant course is the learner, so keep thinking about how they will engage with the encounters that you create for them. Remember to use the people around you and make sure to take a deep breath before starting.

First published on Medium/dotsandspaces

A digital first approach to curriculum design and delivery

Does a digital first approach offer institutions and individual educators a compelling story to support change both in their own practice and in the delivery of their teaching & learning?

 

Standard Presentation – including workshop element.

Abstract:

Everyone from the “British Government to Starbucks is restructuring for the digital age”; a digital first approach is fast-becoming this ubiquitous phrase, from marketing to journalism to government, business strategies are being reformulated and planned to lead with a digital strategy, not just as a desire but as a first principle, as a progressive way to engage with audiences and users. Perhaps educators could benefit from being digital first, to better engage with learners, researchers and those in enterprise?  

The following paper explores how we as educators might adopt the language of digital strategists to facilitate change amongst our institutions and whether parallels can be drawn in the way those in Marketing, Design or Journalism  tackled a changing landscape and those in Education.

A digital first strategy does not denote “only-digital”, instead it ensures an understanding of online or web accessible content, digital audio file, digital video or other digital media, that is enhanced through analogue means, for instance public talk, print literature, performance, seminar or object. In this way we see parallels in the adoption of flipped learning or blended delivery, with an emphasis on a changed approach to curriculum design and delivery. Digital suggests a new landscape, one of experiential design, agile project management and iteration, big data, MOOCs, journey mapping, social connectivism, hacking and mashing.

Learning design that implements the digital first principle could offer an opportunity to create a course that is blended, flips learning, uses contact hours more effectively; takes every opportunity for active learning; backed by consistent learning objectives, stretches and challenges, employs a variety of assessment tools and builds on two-way feedback. In this paper we will focus on Curriculum Design and Delivery as an example of where a Digital first approach could be readily adopted.

An educational institution might adopt a digital first approach for many of the same reasons a newspaper or marketing agency might, for instance it might see it as a progressive approach, an effective method of packaging “change” or it could be a recognisable and accessible concept that those in education can adopt just as easily, a common narrative for change, tackling head on the need for digital literacies and digital confidence as highlighted by ALT and JISC.

Workshop:

Delegates attending this session will explore how they could adopt this approach within their own institutions, addressing affordances and challenges. A proposed activity would include the opportunity to create a process for implementing a digital first approach to curriculum design. How would you begin? What would you need? What would a course designed in this way feel like? Using the The Post-it® Plus App to capture ideas, delegates would take the first steps to implementing this new approach.

 

References:

Bracken, Mike. ‘Government As A Platform: The Next Phase Of Digital Transformation | Government Digital Service’. Gds.blog.gov.uk. N.p., 2015. Web. 29 Mar. 2015.

Boag, Paul. ‘Higher Education & Digital Transformation’. boagworld.com. N.p., 2015. Web. 29 Mar. 2015.

Conlan, Tara. ”BBC News Should Learn Lessons From Buzzfeed In Digital Strategy”. the Guardian. N.p., 2014. Web. 29 Mar. 2015.

Laurillard, Diana, and Maren Deepwell. ALT Survey On The Effective Use Of Learning Technology In Education. 1st ed. ALT, 2014. Web. 29 Mar. 2015.

Learning In A Digital Age. 1st ed. JISC, 2015. Web. 29 Mar. 2015.

Media for Public Engagement

Prologue

I wanted to capture some of the preparation I took for a short talk. The first iteration of this post was a series of notes and links that I thought would be useful to the audience if they wanted some further reading. The talk went something like this.

Talk on Public Engagement

Public engagement is about telling stories about you and your work. There are many excellent people who are exploring storytelling and what it means in today’s digital age. They’re good enough to avoid phrases like “digital age” and provide meaningful insight into how people are enjoying themselves, learning new things and talking to each other. It’s not just the internet either, there is much supposed old media that is still enjoyed and produced, and the skills, talents and crafts employed in creating them hold more value than ever.

Whether researchers have an obligation to talk to about their work I’m unsure. When they do however, it’s sometimes because audiences are crucial to the success of their project. There has always been a requirement to record the work and publish, but in order to engage with the public you need think about the best way to capture and communicate your ideas, theories and concepts.

Why capture anything?

Science works because you have a theory or an idea, a hypothesis that you want to explore. You gather evidence, you present findings and you either prove or disprove your theory. Sometimes this means a step forward, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes evidence that quashes a hypothesis is a step forward. The evidence tells the story, nothing else should matter, but it does. Again, whether that’s reasonable or not I can’t say, I’m being honest if I admit to telling stories about scientists that isn’t always about the science.

One of the ways I’m trying to make amends is encouraging the research community to take control and gain a better understanding of storytelling, media production and audience interaction. It’s the only way to ensure accuracy, clarity and integrity in the long term.

In this talk we discussed different ways to engage with audiences and who they might be. This next section reflects the experience of creating media, telling stories and getting feedback. There are some ideas, suggestions and links to people who know far more than me and say it better.

Meeting our audiences?

It’s important to identify your audience so that you can think about the voice you use, although I’ve always encouraged people to be clear and accessible even with audiences that are very familiar with the area, including peers and colleagues.

  • research community
  • key stakeholders
  • general public
  • enthusiasts/crazies
  • peers/your mum.

At a recent conference Prof. Stephen Heppell let us know that the average number of people who will read your thesis is 1.8, so he inferred that’s your supervisor and someone who couldn’t be bothered to read the whole thing.

The recent addition of an impact measure in research grant applications has led to a rise in public engagement projects. Some researchers are becoming much more creative in their approach to public engagement and curating projects that are designed to engage and endure, provide up to date news and live interaction, important connections and serendipitous evidence, legacy and artifact.

It’s important to keep an eye on trends, for instance thinking about the importance of creating mobile first content; content that is sharable and syndicates across your channels. It’s also important to engage in face to face and social interactions and think about old media and whether that still has some relevance to you. Remember, digital first doesn’t mean digital only.

Connect

One recent trend is the use of newsletters and mailouts, email is still a great way to get your news in front of people, response rates are still better in the evenings and early mornings, Mondays are still a good day. However, it’s important to manage address lists, and tools like MailChimp or Sendy are good at doing this. I like using Eventbrite to manage events but there’s a great deal to be said for Twitter and Facebook which you can use to generate interest.

Content Creation

There’s an art to not to keeping things to yourself. There are many ways to deliver content and each has their champion on the web. Take photos, write articles, make films, draw and sketch, design and publish data, tweet, like and favourite, comment and applaud, produce audio podcast, present models and run simulations, broadcast through live streaming, perform, talk and demonstrate, make things, print objects, do stuff.

Make shareable content

Stories are told from person to person, so content should be open and accessible, if you reproduce content from elsewhere then you should credit and thank them, if you create content yourself, then you should publish under a creative commons license. I personally believe that you should publish work under a licence that allows people to distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work.

The mode of information is the same, but the mode of distribution has changed. We don’t have all the answers, but CC lets me choose my flavor and helps me take advantage of the things working against me.
Jonathan Worth

Important considerations

  • Be interesting — This isn’t as easy as it sounds. Real oddballs think it’s normal when they do the things they do, doesn’t everyone write songs about an explorer in search of a lost welsh speaking tribe of native americans?
  • Be quick on the draw — use your smart phone to take photos, capture sound and images, film and capture ideas. As I write this I’m thinking I need to call on your common sense, it’s great having a camera with you at all times, but it’s not great if it means that you can’t switch off from email and twitter every now and then. The wonderful Doug Belshaw takes a digital detox from time to time, powers down for holiday and play.
  • Find your community, find out where they hang out and go and introduce yourself. I like twitter for this, common groups and chats are written into my profile. (that’s not my hand…)
  • be honest.

Note

use a url shortener goo.gl ow.ly tinyurl

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WjD15haHWp1QfwS4Hx8otuvLKrtGPASm9Np675iWqNw/pub
or
https://goo.gl/d5QBxI
http://ow.ly/PJvDU

Channels

Video
Youtube
Vimeo
Vine
Periscope

Make good decisions.

Professionals make good decisions, as soon as they hold a camera to their eye they start to make decisions which ensure they capture the shot they want. It’s the difference between them and us, but it’s ok, we can learn to make better decisions. Here are some examples:

  • Choose a suitable location — find somewhere uncluttered, relevant, and interesting.
  • Consider the lighting — use natural light, use the light behind you, make sure it’s even or create your mood intentionally.
  • Be quiet — always use headphones to monitor and listen to your audio, it’s amazing what you’ll hear. It’s ok to shoot in a noisy location if the context is right (they might have to shout a bit), but if a background sound is distracting or painful, then move, go and find somewhere better.
  • Review your footage, check that you got what you wanted to get, be polite and show your contributor.
  • Rehearse and prepare, use questions, don’t simply record lectures, instead try to make films. It’s common that a lecturer wants to read out something they’ve written, a paper or a talk, but why not demonstrate and illustrate your ideas, let’s go to the lab, head out on a field trip, create intimacy and interest.

Conclusion

Currently the content we’re creating to support Public Engagement is some of the most rewarding and successful. I often boast that I have a fantastic job, seeking out and meeting some of the most fascinating and interesting people there are. I’m able to mine a deep seam of projects, from stem cell research, transport, medicine, sociology, natural sciences, chemistry, audiology — the list is growing.

My challenge to researchers is to create content that speaks to audiences, that informs the education agenda at the University, that connects to communities locally and nationally. We often think that different voices are needed when sometimes a clear, crisp and confident tone can be heard by many people. I would encourage and implore creativity in terms of public engagement, to form projects that stand the test of time, that leave people informed, educated and entertained. You’ll find that great connections with partners, people, artists, schools and friends can lead to projects that stretch and challenge — you, your project and your plans. It should be rewarding and fulfilling for everyone involved.