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Designing Video for Massive Open Online-Education:
Conceptual Challenges from a Learner-Centered Perspective
Carmen Zahn, Karsten Krauskopf, Jonas Kiener, Friedrich W. Hesse
tance to stimulate students’ knowledge, intensive reflection
and interpretation of historical sources, while watching or
reading of the sources is in most cases not sufficient for
deep learning. In this domain, we adapt a well-established
experimental paradigm developed earlier in our previous
research for studying collaborative learning with video tools
in different task contexts (Zahn, Krauskopf, Hesse & Pea,
2012). This experimental paradigm uses a history lesson
where learners are asked to analyze and interpret a historical
newsreel (about the airlift established in postwar
Berlin/Germany in 1948 by the Allied forces) by commenting
on scenes of the video in collaboration with a partner. To
accomplish this, students are provided with the video and
text materials on the historical context and the filmic style
of newsreels and are asked to integrate these aspects in
their analysis. The learning goal —and a special challenge
for the students—is to understand that the newsreel is not
only “showing” the history topic (Berlin 1948), but that the
newsreel itself is a history topic (i.e., a newsreel as an historical
means for propaganda). Or to put it in cognitive terms:
students have to integrate knowledge on both history content
and the filmic style of the newsreel. This goal is aligned
with criteria for the use of audiovisual and film sources in
German history education.
Method
Sample. Participants were 72 students (86% female, age
M = 20.49 years, SD = 1.9). For the experimental sessions,
the participants were randomly combined into dyads for
online collaboration (25 same sex, 11 mixed sex dyads)
and also randomly assigned to one of two experimental
conditions (design assignment n = 19 dyads, discussion
assignment n = 17). Data were analyzed on the aggregated
dyad level, as independence could not be assumed.
Random subsamples were used due to the time-consuming
procedure for the coding of written comments (content
analyses: 12 dyads for product related indicators,
and 10 for collaboration related indicators, respectively).
These subsamples do not differ from the whole sample
with regard to control variables (see results section).
Experimental Design and Procedure. We varied two different
task instructions assigned within a video-based online
history lesson: Students received either a discussion task
or a collaborative design task. In the discussion condition,
participants were asked to discuss the content and style of a
specific video (showing a historical newsreel, see below) freely
but thoroughly. In the design condition, participants were
asked to collaboratively design a hypertext-like document on
the content and filmic style of a specific video (showing a historical
newsreel) for an audience of peer students who intend
to learn about this topic. Please note: Both assignments aim
at constructivist, collaborative activities whose benefits
for collaborative knowledge construction have been addressed
in earlier studies. We assume both assignments
to be sensible ways of approaching the analysis and interpretation
of historical materials; we are, however, interested
in fine-grained effects of the instruction to discuss vs. the
instruction to design with regard to online-collaboration
and learning outcomes.
In a pre-test phase, participants were introduced to the
procedure and the task of the condition to which they had
been randomly assigned. They next completed a questionnaire
assessing socio-demographic variables, previous
knowledge of and interest in the historical content as well
as computer skills. In the inquiry phase which followed,
participants watched a historical newsreel. Subsequently,
they read texts on the historical context and general use of
filmic style and codes. To ensure that all participants would
become familiar with the video tool used in the study, they
were given time to practice briefly the use of the digital tool
on a sample video about an unrelated topic. During the collaboration
phase, participants in each condition first received
a detailed assignment description: Dyads in the design condition
were asked to design a hypertext-like product that
contains analyses and comments on the digitized historical
newsreel, so that other student learners could come to a
good understanding of both the content and the form of
the historical newsreel. Dyads in the discussion condition
were asked to analyse and comment on the video within an
online-discussion, again focusing on both the content and
the style of the newsreel. Then participants were given a time
limit of 45 minutes for their collaboration and were seated
in front of separate laptops without being able to monitor
another participant’s screen. Additional text information
on the history and newsreel was available in printed form
during this phase. In the final post-test phase, participants
completed measures tapping recognition, factual knowledge
and attitudes toward the task and the team work. In
the end, participants were thanked and released.
Tools and Materials. Participants were guided through
the experimental procedure by a web-based environment
created with ZOPE 3© (version 2.1), which presented all
materials and started additional applications automatically
(WebDIVERTM, Video player-software). The video used
in this study was a digitized version of a newsreel on the
Berlin Blockade and the Air Lift from 1948. It had originally
been produced by the Allied forces (US/Great Britain),
consisted of 95 single b-w-shots and lasted five minutes.
Collaboration in our study was situated in a web-based video
analysis environment called WebDIVERTM (see Figure 1).
WebDIVER is part of the DIVER system, a digital environment
for video collaboration developed by the Stanford
Center for Innovations in Learning (SCIL, see Pea, 2006).
It is based upon the metaphor of collectively “diving” into
videos, that is, several users can simultaneously watch a
digital “source video”, extract sequences or screenshots they
are interested in and then edit each of them by writing captions
and comments or rearrange them in sequence using
a drag & drop feature (Pea et al., 2004). Furthermore, a
selection frame allows for selecting details within an image
or sequence. The workspace consists of one or more source
videos and a Dive, as the authors term it (Pea, Lindgren &
Rosen, 2006). The dive consists of a collection of re-or-
Research Track |162