Author: Audrey Foust, Assistant Instructional Designer

Audrey is an Assistant Instructional Designer at Spring Arbor University. She draws from her experience as a former High School English teacher to research best practices in curriculum and instruction. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time outdoors with her husband, reading, running, and cooking.

Creating eLearning Solutions Using OBS Studio

eLearning problems; eLearning solutions

This blog post is written in collaboration with Kyle, Instructional Media Support.

Last Fall, Kyle and I tested five different instructional technology tools, and we have been eager to use these technologies to assist with eLearning team projects. In January, Tara, Lead Instructional Designer and assistant professor at Spring Arbor University (SAU), asked for help clarifying expectations for a major group presentation assignment in her History 221: Black Experience in America course. She needed to communicate the links between the expectations outlined in the syllabus and rubric to a sample presentation provided to students. With these requirements in mind, we chose OBS Studio to best support Tara and her students.

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Instructional Technologies for Presentation and Organization: A Technical and Pedagogical Perspective

This blog post is written in collaboration with Kyle, Instructional Media Support.

In this post, we’re excited to introduce and discuss four instructional technologies useful in eLearning environments: Descript, OBS, Coda, and H5P! Originally, we began exploring these technologies from a purely technological perspective. Tara asked Kyle to review the tools to understand them from a technical point of view: how do these technologies work? What are their practical uses and limitations? 

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Introducing Our New Media Assessment Rubrics

Instructional media (images, video, and audio content) helps students visualize topics, practice skills central to a course, and allows them to interact with content in a variety of ways. At its best, high-quality instructional media “engages students, aids student retention of knowledge, motivates interest in the subject matter, and illustrates the relevance of many concepts” (Mateer, Ghent, Porter, et al., n.d.). Our eLearning team at SAU takes high-quality instructional content seriously, and we are currently developing new ways to determine the quality of media used in our courses.

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Collaborative and Social Learning Tools for eLearning

Authentic engagement between students and instructors is immensely important in eLearning. That being said, both collaborative and social learning are the heart behind any virtual course. Not only that, but researchers at the University of Calgary Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning describe these modes of learning as an “opportunity for students and instructors to engage in shared efforts to search for meaning, understanding, and solutions to complex problems or concepts” (Anselmo et al., n.d.). Thankfully, the rapidly-developing sector of collaborative and social learning tools allows us to provide these opportunities for authentic engagement.

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Authentic Self-Assessment in eLearning

Self-assessment is an incredibly powerful tool to foster self-reflection and growth for all—and it’s especially important for college students. More students take a greater number of courses and programs online. And overall, online learning is generally more self-paced. Students need to build and hone self-assessment skills to help them track their progress and set goals for future weeks, months, years of assignments, projects, and exams.

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