Making Videos to Engineer Students During the Norwegian Higher Education Reform

Abstract

This paper is written in order to share the experience of the author recording videos to the students in mechanical engineering at Stord/Haugesund University College in Norway during the Thermodynamic course of 2012. The aim of the author was to create an additional tool to the students and motivate them to learn topics in the course which traditional were considered difficult for a group of students. Nowadays the students, “digital natives”, spend a lot of time connecting in internet and grew up around computers at the same time lecturers “digital immigrants” use traditional tools (like books) to share knowledge. The experience of the author, who participated as an online student, in an online course offered by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) during spring 2012 is described. During the course, the author got familiar with the different digital tools that were used by lecturers in the online course by MIT, and it was possible to analyze the course design as a lecturer’s perspective. The author used a video screen capturing software and recorded three videos to the students who attend the Thermodynamic course in fall 2012. Videos are using intensive in online courses by MIT and the use of videos by other colleagues in Norway. The main idea with the videos was to create a multimedia learning tool that could be used in the virtual learning environment (VLE) supported by internet. During the Thermodynamic course the author tried to measure the student’s interaction and perception regarding the videos, this is partial described in the paper. Some aspects regarding the results in the learning approach of the students are described, commented and compared with a previous course during 2011 however this section must be read as the author’s experience not as a conclusion of how videos can help to engineer students to get a learning outcome. At the beginning of the academic year of 2012 all the colleges in Norway are involved in a higher education reform as a result of the Bologna Process and at the end of the paper the author share his personal impression regarding how digital technology can be used by lecturers to meet the learning outcome goals to the engineer students according to the Norwegian higher education reform.