Mobilizing Faculty into the Future: Using Online Technology as Teaching Tools

Methodology 1 - Purpose:
The objective of this study was to determine whether having students critique their classmates’ video productions
online was more effective than critiquing them face-to-face. I was particularly interested in discovering whether
students would be more forthcoming and honest in their critiques if they could do them anonymously. I also wanted
to know if student producers would find that getting feedback from the entire class was more useful than being critiqued
by only one or two students in the classroom setting. My expectation was that students who received a broader
range of perspectives on their work would be better prepared to improve their subsequent productions.
Methodology 2 - Process:
I posted student videos to YouTube, created rating forms in Google Drive, and used a Blogger site to post them. I restricted
access to the YouTube videos and the Blogger site to members of the class. I kept student feedback anonymous
to their classmates, but not to me. I used the rater identities to check whether students completed the assignment
and to ensure that the feedback they provided was constructive.
Students critiqued each others’ projects using both a Likert scale (1 to 5) and qualitative feedback, explaining their
reasons for the ratings that they assigned. Students were asked to provide feedback on their classmates’ storytelling,
lighting, audio recording, shot framing and composition, shot variety, audio and video editing and graphic design
skills (see the Sample Rating Form, above). I gathered rater feedback through Google Forms, and then distributed it
to student producers after stripping the rater identities from the reports.
I used the rating forms (and open-ended student comments) to award bonus points to the highest-rated videos. This
motivated students to produce their best work, and to develop a critical eye when viewing others’ work.
Methodology 3 – Practical Issues:
Learning to create the questions for Google Forms was a bit of a challenge. I also had minor difficulties figuring out
how to make the YouTube videos and Blogger pages private. I had a particularly difficult time copying the formatting
from one Blogger post to another, but worked around it by copying and pasting the HTML itself.
I learned that uploading videos to YouTube can be a tedious and time-consuming process. But I was able to speed the
process up significantly by first converting the videos in QuickTime (Web format) before uploading them.
I discovered that Google’s help files are not particularly user-friendly. But the answers to most questions can be
found by searching user forums online.
Methodology 4 – Effectiveness:
This idea worked well. I have implemented a version of this assignment into each of my subsequent production courses
because it saves valuable classroom time for instruction and answering students’ questions. This method also made
it easy for me to award bonus points as a motivational tool.
Students doing the anonymous online critiques were much more enthusiastic than students had been in prior semesters.
Raters also said that they enjoyed the convenience of doing the critiques via social media.
I found that students were also much more candid in their comments when doing them online versus a face-to-face
setting. Student producers reported that having a variety of opinions on their work was very helpful. I also discovered
that producers were more receptive to my critiques of their work after having first reviewed their fellow students’
comments.
I was very pleased by the quality of student productions. I found that producers took one another’s feedback seriously,
and used it to improve their work on subsequent stories.
Methodology 5 – Disadvantages:
Using three separate applications in combination is a bit clunky, but it accomplished my purposes for the project.
This is because I felt that the commercially available software was simply too expensive for our smaller university’s