Developing a Digital Media Teaching Repository – Technical Considerations

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Developing a Digital Media Teaching Repository – Technical Considerations
Jorge Reyna, Joanne Orlando and Gary Morgan
School of Education
University of Western Sydney
Australia
j.reyna_zeballos@uws.edu.au
j.orlando@uws.edu.au
g.morgan@uws.edu.au
Abstract:
Recent reviews conducted of teacher education in Australia suggested a failure of courses to bond theory with
practice and to provide extensive practical teaching experience to students. In this regard, on-line lectures
using integrating technologies such as Digital Video embedded into e-learning systems (Blackboard) for
online discussions have the potential to overcome this issue as they allow students to connect, contribute and
collaborate within the subjects, developing practical skills that will enhance their future teaching practices.
The School of Education, University of Western Sydney is strategically committed to further developing
learning environments using a Digital Media Repository (DMR). Academics will be able to embed learning
objects such as videos, images, slidecasts and Virtual Reality content to support ‘next practice’ learning
environments inside the University’s e-learning system. This paper reports the first stage of implementation
of the DMR including setting up of video editing stations, filming equipment, user interface portal, hosting
server and filming protocols to capture classroom practices in schools around Western Sydney area.
Introduction
A consensus has been found amongst the Academics that there is dissociation between theory and practice at the
School of Education. A strategy to address this limitation needs to be developed in order to provide sufficient exposure of pre-
service teachers to real examples of good classroom teaching practices to overcome this gap. This separation has been described
in Australia (Buckingham 2005) and internationally (Schon 1987; Stigler and Hiebert 1999; Smith 2000). At this stage, in a pre-
service teacher’s career, it is essential to develop reflective practice and cultivate the ability to see beyond the immediate needs of
the moment (Rhine and Bryant 2007).
In this regard, digital video and the Internet create a new world of possibilities in education. Digital video makes it
possible to capture and edit an hour of teaching footage into short segments and to compress it to upload inside Blackboard/
WebCT e-learning systems for further discussion. Pre-service teachers can use these short video segments to stimulate critical
thinking in a timely manner. It has been reported that increased collaboration among pre-service teachers helped them to handle
stress, develop confidence and increase self-esteem (Kamens 2000).
Advantages of using video in education have been described as a powerful tool to demonstrate situations that cannot be
explained adequately, showcase effective teaching methods, promote dialog on critical issues in the field, help to apply theory to
practice, and to create enthusiasm and confidence in the viewer to implement new strategies/approaches (Dymond and Bentz
2006). Additionally, video provides a natural medium for enhancing the sense of context and realism in case studies. It can
capture the complexity of classroom interactions and allow students to replay events as many times as they need and absorb
important features that escaped them on first viewing (Jacobs, Kawanaka et al. 1999; Stigler and Hiebert 1999).
A study conducted at the School of Education, Edith Cowan University (Newhouse 2007) concluded that the use of
digital-video-based case study analysis supported students in linking theory with practice. Students demonstrated much better
understanding of the pedagogical theory and related this more authentically to their own practice and that of experienced
teachers. It has been reported that the use of streaming video for teaching foreign languages and English as a second language is
an effective methodology to teach students teaching methods, and assist them to generate new ideas for teaching in the area of
languages (Dhonau and McAlpine 2002). Other authors have reported a positive outcome using videos in educational
environments like teacher education (Brophy 2004), preparation of elementary science teachers (Abell and Cennamo 2004) and
linking on-line video to improving teacher community knowledge (Fishman 2000).

Given the positive use of video in educational settings, we sought to use digital video technology to overcome the gap
between theory and practice in our school and we decided to develop the Digital Media Repository (DMR) as a pilot project at
the School of Education. The main purpose of the DMP is to capture examples of best teaching practices that are stored in an
online library to be accessed by students and academic teaching staff to support student learning. We believe that giving access to
footage of real classrooms to our students can provide opportunities for contextualisation and knowledge transfer. This approach
promotes self-directed learning, increases motivation, activates learners to find their own solutions and has a positive effect on
self-confidence (VideoAktiv 2008).
DMR was selected as a useful tool for bringing theory and practice together as it was considered by management,
academic staff and technical staff as a useful resource to meet the needs of the diverse student body in the School of Education at
UWS. Seventy-three percent of students attending the University are widely spread throughout the Greater Western Sydney
Region, home to almost 10% of the Australian population. One third of the region’s population was born overseas. Half of the
world’s languages are spoken there. A large number of refugees have settled there and the region has the largest urban population
of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in NSW. The region encompasses many of the most seriously disadvantaged areas
of metropolitan Sydney. Half of our students are the first in their family to attend university. The classrooms are heterogeneous,
including students who just finished high school or a TAFE (Technical and Further Education) course, and mature age students
with a wide range of computer skills. In many cases, the students have tight schedules due to full-time work and full time studies.
The Greater Western Sydney Region has been identified as an area of great opportunity, diversity, challenge and growth for
future educators.
Conditions prevalent in the Greater Western Sydney Region challenge academics to develop alternatives to help
students to link theory approach with practice. Challenges lie in a large numbers of students having English as a second language
and for those who are recent immigrants to Australia having limited or no experience with schooling in Australia. Additionally
students are often juggling long employment hours in jobs with full-time study, therefore constraining their hours they have
available to be on campus. It is anticipated the DMP has the potential to overcome these limitations described. Students can be
working from home or any location as long as they have desktop computers or ubiquitous devices to access the internet and
reflect on authentic examples of common school practices via on-line video sharing. It was also anticipated visual footage of
‘real’ teaching and learning in Australian schools and education setting would support and extend oral and text based
explanations of theory and practice in education. It was also anticipated that a library of footage was also enthusiastically
considered by teaching staff to facilitate sharing resources and expertise across the various courses (early childhood education,
primary education, secondary education and Special education) the School of Education UWS currently offers.
Objectives of DMR
Reflecting the benefits anticipated in using digital video in the teaching and learning of courses in the School
of Education, UWS, the DMR has two broad and interdependent objectives, pedagogical (1) and technical (2),
respectively:
(1) Developing a library of authentic, ‘best-practice’ examples of teaching and learning practice in schools and early childhood
education settings. The library include a range of genuine classroom interactions across a variety of literacy, equity, diversity,
Indigenous, inclusive, curriculum, physical education, etc. and incorporate into the units as reflective practice. The footage will
be used to support teaching and learning of courses in the School of Education, UWS.
(2) Setting up of video editing stations, testing and evaluation of filming equipment, designing the user-interface portal,
implementing a hosting server and developing a filming protocol for before, during and after recording of footage.
First stage of the DMR underway
The establishment of the DMR at UWS is currently underway and this paper presents the first stage of the project in terms of
technical objective of the project. Critical to developing the technical objectives was the DMR committee. Uniquely, this
committee included management, academic and technical staff from the School of Education at UWS. The multidisciplinary
committee included an Associate Head of School from the School of Education at UWS, Heads of program and academic
teaching staff from Early Childhood, Primary and Secondary Education and also Technical Officers with expertise in e-learning
and ICT.
A set of desirable technical aspects of the DMR were developed during and from the outcomes of DMR committee
meetings. It was anticipated there were particular technical features that needed to be prioritised in the DMR in order to address
both objectives of the project. It was anticipated the DMR would encompass the following desirable features:

Desirable technical features of the DMR
 Support a wide range of video and audio files, MS Office and Open Office formats as well as image and
animation formats.
 Easy interface to upload content, encouraging academics to develop their own content.
 A media player to play video and audio that is compatible with PC, Macintosh, Linux and ubiquitous devices.
 Once the source is uploaded, the ability to describe and tag the media to make it searchable inside the host.
 Ability to see media usage statistics, to track students and units that are using the resource.
 Embedding options for video resources allowing the media to be used in context (inside Blackboard e-
learning system).
 Easy download of media resources for viewing offline if required.
 Integration with social bookmarking tools like Digg, del.icio.us and twitter,
 Media can be available via an RSS feed or as podcast if required.
 Ability for academics to organise content into albums and share with specific users/groups
An important focus of the first stage of the project was the DMR committee organising and undertaking the filming of
teaching and learning in schools and early childhood education setting. Technical and academics staff worked together, in
different roles, to initiate and undertake the filming. The academics developed with their teaching team (many of whom were not
on the DMR committee) several scenarios of footage they would find useful to include in their teaching. This often directly
related to subjects currently taught within their course as well as other footage that could be relevant across any teacher education
course such as a teacher demonstrating and talking about classroom management. In their discussion of the the scenarios,
technical officers on the DMR committee discussed the best way to record such scenarios in the classroom, bieo editing, and
compression and also the user interface portal and hosting of files.
The flowchart below (Figure 1) explains the workflow of the technical aspect of this stage of the project. As can be
seen from the figure
Figure 1: DMR Project Workflow
User Interface Design of DMR
Figure 2 to 5 contains the proposed interface design portal which is currently under construction.

Figure 2: Login Portal inside the University’s website.
Figure 3: Main Screen with 3 categories of content: Early Childhood, Primary and Secondary respectively.

Figure 4: Program Screen with a simple interface, using icons as navigation to the different sections.
Figure 5: Video Screen with features like share, embed and download.

Video Editing Stations (VES)
The School of Education has two campus locations, Bankstown and Penrith. One Video Editing Station (VES) was
located on each campus. We decided to use Macintosh computers to edit video as technical staff at the school had previous
experience with Mac computers. In each location, an Intel Based 24” Imac was set up with Final Cut Studio 3 (Apple Inc.) and 1
TB scratch disk + 4TB Raid backup system (LaCie Pty Ltd). We choose FCS3, as it can be integrated with Final Cut Server
allowing direct upload from VES to our server and as it comes with 6 programs including Final Cut Pro, Compressor, Motion,
Color, Soundtrack and DVD Studio Pro. We found FCS3 suits our needs (Figure 1).
Our team were new to FCS 3 software, so training on how to use basic features was required. The school purchased
training DVDs from Lynda.com and 2 technical officers conducted self-training. We are currently using Final Cut Pro to
download the video from the camera and edit, Motion to create titles/credits and Compressor to prepare the file for internet
upload. The interfaces of these programs are intuitive and the different applications are integrated. This means that, as an
example, if you need to create a strap line into a specific segment of the video, you select the segment and right-click to open it in
Motion. Inside Motion you can create titles and credits and then they render automatically into your Final Cut Pro file. Rendering
occurs on the background and reduces the time, making the process more efficient.
We believe FCS3 was a good choice for our projects, and getting started with the basic editing features took only a
couple of days for the technical staff. The results in terms of video quality and compression were outstanding.
Hosting Server for files
Our current server allows us to host 20 MB video files size. For a better understanding of compression settings, see
Figure 6 below.
Figure 6: General compression rates for video
Output size
Bitrate
File size
Comments
320x240 pixels (*)
400 kbps
3MB / minute
For broadband connections
Windows Media or
QuickTime
480x360 pixels
700 kbps
5MB / minute
Hard drive playback
Windows Media or
QuickTime
720x540 pixels
1000 kbps
7.5MB / minute
DVD
MPEG2
(*) These settings will give us the capacity to upload 6-7 minute long videos using our current server.
It is possible to limit the DMP videos to 6-7 minutes so they are able to upload inside our server and embed in
Blackboard, but this may cause congestion of traffic and may slow down our server. For this purpose, we are currently
considering the possibility that the UWS E-Learning Unit buy a server to host the DMP files and use the video component inside
the Blackboard e-learning System. This is a long process and it will take at least a year before it can be achieved. We believe this
could be functional by the end of 2010. For the time being, videos will be used by academics in lecture theatres as DVD content.
At the moment we are hosting videos (which do not involve children) on the Vimeo Plus server, with excellent results.
We organised channels like Early Childhood, Primary and Secondary and also albums for each of our units and uploaded the
content there. Then we password-protected the videos and used the embedding code to put the videos in context inside the
Blackboard e-learning system. We disabled the feature ‘download this video’, and so far we have received excellent feedback
from our students. They believe the addition of videos make the units more interesting and engaging.

FILMING
Filming Equipment (FE)
As filming will be done by technical staff with camera skills, we decide to purchase semi-professional video camera
models. After research on different brands and features we purchased two Canon XM2 Standard Definition and one Sony
FX1000 High Definition cameras. Additional accessories like long-life batteries, microphones, DV tapes, lights and tripods were
purchased. Video carry-cases were purchased as well to protect equipment and to facilitate transport to different locations.
Protocol on filming classrooms
Academic staff contacted school Principals with an introductory letter about the DMP and its importance for future
teachers in our School. The DMP was passé though the UWS Ethics in Research committee and reflecting the requirements of
that committee, permission letters were distributed to parents/guardians of the students who will be involved in the filming. These
permission letters asked for consent from parents for their children to be filmed in classrooms and stipulated that the footage will
be used on the UWS secure server for teaching and learning activities exclusively. We offered the schools to provide a DVD with
the footage captured and also still images that can be used by their teachers to reflect on their own practice.
Upon receiving a confirmation e-mail from school Principals, academics filled out a filming request form and
submitted it to the Technical Team Leader via e-mail (interactive PDF). This includes details like school name, location, filming
dates and also a basic storyboard on what will be filmed. Upon receiving the request, we programmed the filming date, making
sure the equipment and filming crew will be available on the requested date. We made sure all the permission forms had been
completed and signed prior to shooting the video.
Practical considerations for shooting/editing classroom video
In this section we will cover some of the tips we found useful for shooting classroom videos.
 Preliminary planning is essential. Starting with a well thought-through scenario and knowing what we need to show
and how to achieve it is crucial. Make sure that an academic is present on the shooting day, to fill the role of Producer.
 In order to produce professional-looking videos you need two top-quality video cameras, one for the teacher and one
for the students. This gives both perspectives, and it is desirable to reflect on how students respond to the teacher’s
instruction to make the video more engaging for pre-service teachers.
 Quality audio is crucial, so it is preferable to use external microphones. Use unidirectional microphones to pick up a
teacher talking and omni-directional mikes to capture a wide sound-field.
 Use a tripod as much as possible, as hand-held camera video-shooting produces larger files after compression and
exaggerates even the slightest movements. Avoid hand-held video filming wherever possible.
 Try to avoid zooming in and out, as the footage will not compress well. The same applies to panning from side to side.
 If using DV tapes, make sure you buy the highest quality and never reuse a piece of tape.
 Cut out footage that is not relevant to the topic of the lesson, otherwise it could be confusing and students will have
difficulties keeping their attention on the video. In general terms, a 10-20 minutes lesson can be edited down to about 5
minutes.
 Add titles at important segments of the video to provide structure to the video and make it easy to understand for the
students.
 Still images can be included to emphasise certain parts of the video and help students to identify key parts.
 Film as realistically as possible and avoid using special effects, as they may distract viewers and the video may lose
credibility.
 Finally, it is good practice to test the video before the final-edit stage with test users. Observe if the users react the way
you expect and check if they retain the content that is important.
Progress of the DMP
To date five Schools have been filmed between September and December 2009: Mount Pritchard Public School,
Banksmeadow Public School, Holy Cross Primary School, Bankstown West Public School and Milperra Public School. We now
have footage from Early Childhood and Primary and we are planning to record in secondary classrooms in May-June 2010.
At the outset, we tended to record a lot of footage just in case we were missing something but we soon came to the
conclusion that this makes editing more difficult and time consuming, as an academic needed to be next to the video editor to
ensure the key pedagogical parts are featured in the final video. Later on, we were able to identify, with academics, specific tasks
to record and the amount of time spent recording decreased considerably.

Teachers and students were very keen to participate in the DMP and it was a rewarding experience to visit schools,
meet the teachers and students, and film their learning activities. We also conducted interviews with the Principal and teachers,
the questions being set by academics. In general terms it was an easy task, as all of them were articulated and video post-
production was minimal.
Additionally, we carried an SLR camera in every School and made sure to take images of crucial moments like students
performing a specific task on their own or working collaboratively other students.
The experience was positive as it brought academic and technical staff together and gave both groups a better
understanding of technology and pedagogical approaches. We also developed a strong relationship with the schools and we will
be able to come back in the future to do more video filming. We also believe that the experience was positive for the children, as
they knew they were being filmed to demonstrate good practices to future teachers and they did their best.
In summary, the first step of the digital media has been almost completed with an exception of the hosting server for
videos. We have the equipment and protocols working and we are keen to move to the next level, which is to make these
resources available for our students and to gather information on how the DMP will enhance their learning activities and give
them practical skills for use in their professional life.
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