Over the last few months, I participated on an Educational Technology Services “hot team” that focused on researching the educational significance of grassroots video. If you don’t know what grassroots video is, check out our white paper, which gives a good summary.
You can also watch the embedded YouTube video below. The grassroots video hot team produced a grassroots video designed to share its findings.
I like the concept of a highly accessible and easily modified video format and its use in the classroom, but I am concerned with its ability to disrupt. The few times when the camera was utilized in our Philosophy 298H course, I noticed a significant decline in the amount of student activity. Perhaps, if it is introduced at the beginning of the semester and used routinely, this would not occur. But, the presence of a camera at random and infrequent intervals (especially if a special point is made to note it) you can only expect the flow of classroom discussion to be obstructed.
That is not to say that I do not advocate the personal and non-obtrusive use of such technologies by students wishing to record the class for their own purposes. I have often thought about recording class discussions so that I could examine my notes in context. Students might even then exchange clips to their colleagues who did attend so that they might stay “in the loop.”