Using multimedia to enhance teaching, learning and research

On 11th April 2024, I gave an invited presentation for the Association of Learning Technologists (ALT) and Learning on Screen (LoS) on the use of BoB, sometimes known as Box of Broadcasts. Regular visitors to this site will not be surprised to hear that I have been enthusing about BoB; I found it to be an exceptional resource and there’s even a section of this blog dedicated to sharing ideas about how to get the most out of the tool.

In the talk, I discussed why multimedia (in this case BoB) can be an excellent asset for teaching, I considered some of the reasons why academic colleagues have been reticient to utilise audiovisual resources and I shared some of the ways that I have employed TV and radio on my own work. Finally, I gave some practical tips on ways to share resources with students and/or colleagues, and outlined some of the potential for BoB to be a “boundaries collection” for analysis in much the way Nexis and Factiva have been used for examination of print media.

Below you can find a video of the talk and subsequent Q&A (50 mins) and also my slides from the presentation.

How the use of multimedia enhances teaching, learning and research from Chris Willmott

Massolit: Education videos for schools

Over the past couple of years, I’ve been invited to help make education videos for a company called Massolit. The name is taken from a Soviet-era novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, where Massolit was a place where writers would meet up. The aim is to provide “stretch and challenge” content for both GCSE and A level students. Lectures are broken down into bite-size chunks of approximately 8-15 minutes (rather like we were doing when teaching during the pandemic switched to online delivery). At present there are more than 9000 lectures available, split across 16 subject areas.

So far I have made three lecture series for them. The topics are the ethics of Animal Research, Maths for Biologists, and Transhumanism (at the time of writing, this third topic remains in the post-recording editing process).

Massolit operates on a subscription model, so the full lecture series are behind a paywall. However, you can access taster installments of my contributions via this link.

Conflict of Interest declaration: I have received payment for production of these videos (but not for this blog post).

Why are measles cases on the increase?

This episode of Incident Report will be available on BBC iPlayer until at least the end of January 2025

There are a flurry of news stories about a rise in numbers of cases of measles in the United Kingdom, and further afield, e.g. Why is measles making a comeback in the UK? , Measles outbreaks cause alarm: what the data say, and ‘Clusters’ of measles are appearing in three regions of the UK. It was against this backdrop that I watched the Measles outbreak: Why now? episode of Incident Room on iPlayer. I thought the 20 minute explainer was very helpful, and therefore that I’d flag it here. In the programme, health reporter Smitha Mundasad interviews three others for their insights into the current rise in measles cases.

Using BoB & TRILT for Academic Research

BoB (sometimes referred to as “Box of Broadcasts”) and TRILT (the Television and Radio Index for Learning and Teaching) are powerful online repositories relating to broadcast media in the UK. Primarily designed for teaching, TRILT has extensive records about millions of programmes, and BoB provides means to stream more than three million TV and radio recordings.

For a number of years, I have been working with final year undergraduates to explore the potential of BoB and TRILT as tools for academic research, primarily on the representation of different aspects of biomedicine. This led into a PhD position for Holly Large and further refinement of our methodology. That approach is now sufficiently mature that we were invited to produce a “how to” guide, and to present this at a launch event. The guide:

The guide is now available at this link [EDIT: 28th February 2024: I am aware that this link is not currently working, as the Learning on Screen site has migrated to a new address and not all resources have yet been carried across. The links to slides and video below are, however, working].

The launch event, organised by Learning on Screen, took place in London on 23rd September. In addition to our presentation (see below), there were also talks by Prof. Kathy Conklin (School of English) and Dr Walter van Heuven (School of Psychology) on the potential use of subtitles and transcripts of television broadcasts to investigate the relationship between language exposure and language processing, and from Dr Giles Bergel from the Visual Geometry Group at the University of Oxford, who considered future uses of visual AI tools combined with BoB.

Following a panel discussion, the event finished with a wine reception.

The slides of our presentation are available here. A video is available via this link and below:

Slides:

Video:

How to Use BOB and TRILT for Research from Learning on Screen on Vimeo.

Dissertation drafts: A prime candidate for video feedback

I cannot imagine that there are many involved in the delivery (or receipt) of Higher Education teaching who have not had their experience profoundly altered by the Covid pandemic. After two years, and as aspects of pedagogy start to return to “normal”, what are some of the changes that we are going to keep, despite the fact that they were originally forced upon us?

For me, a strong case has been made for the use of video when delivering feedback on a long piece of writing, such as a final year dissertation.

Talking students through their project draft is always a milestone moment in the academic year (we offer students an entitlement to one read through, but only one read through of their text). In the past, dissertation feedback meetings have often involved me talking a student through potential changes for 60-90 mins. I would normally have provided them with a photocopy of my annotated version, but the process was typically more one-way and didactic than most project meetings over the course of the year.

The why and how of teaching ethics to bioscience students

In July 2019 I was involved in a session on The Why and How of Teaching Ethics to Bioscience Students. I was a panellist, along with Professors Lynne Sneddon (from the University of Liverpool, UK) and Prof Ros Gleadow (from Monash University, Australia). I recently became aware that the session is available on YouTube.

My short talk on our approach to ethics teaching in Biosciences at Leicester starts about 16 minutes in (here), but listening to the session afresh I would encourage you to listen all the way through.

Introducing the BoB Collection

Regular visitors to this site will be aware that I quite often blog about the BoB, the amazing collection of TV and radio programmes for use in education. I was struck recently that these posts are listed in chronological order, which is not always appropriate. I have therefore started a separate page where BoB-related materials are listed in a more systematic way. To access these resources, just click on the new “BoB Collection” tab at the top of this page.

 

Introducing: “Getting Started With BoB”

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented focus on the value of online teaching resources. Regular readers of this blog will be aware that I am a long-standing enthusiast for a variety of digital tools for University education. In particular, I have been a champion for “BoB”, sometimes known as Box of Broadcasts. This tremendous collection of more than 2 million copyright-cleared TV and radio recordings for educational use has never quite achieved the levels of awareness and acclaim that i deserves.

Following a recent presentation about use of BoB for final year dissertations, I was invited to write a one-page “How to” guide. This is something I will certainly do in the near future. However, that invitation galvanised me into doing something I had thought about for a while, namely producing some introductory videos on using BoB. I have therefore made an initial set of four videos under the title Getting Started with BoB. The videos, available on my YouTube channel are:

1. Unlocking the potential of TV and radio broadcasts in education looks at logging in, and offers a quick tour around the main features of BoB, including the interactive programme guide.
   
2. Using the search tool does pretty much what it says on the tin. Use of a search tool may seem pretty self-explanatory, but there are one or two specifics of searching in BoB that I felt would benefit from clearer explanation.
   
3. Making clips one of the great features of BoB is the ability to pick out the extract that is most important for your teaching, learning or research. This video shows how to do that.
   
4. Adding clips to your playlists finally (in this first set of videos) an introduction to the “playlist” facility within BoB – helping you, and others, find those nuggets of gold again next time you need them.
   

 

UPDATE: It turns out there are also a set of official BoB “how to” videos available via this link. The two sets have slightly different emphases and are complementary.

Biology in Broadcast Media

Back at the start of the lockdown, I noted that it would be a good time for University staff and students to make more use of various online resources, notably the Box of Broadcasts archive of TV and radio programmes (more than 2 million in total). I was therefore delighted to respond to a request from Learning on Screen to curate the Biology section of a new teaching resources collection they are developing.

I have started by the new list by including a variety of programmes which I had previously identified as part of the Biology On The Box project, Over time I will add more news items and other classic documentaries. Of course if you have any suggestions or requests for inclusion then do please let me know. Similarly, I know that they are seeking academics willing to curate collection for different disciplines so, if you think that might be you, do get in touch with Learning on Screen directly.

[Note: the link in the above screengrab is not live. If you would like to access the playlist, click here.]

UPDATE (24th April): rather than start a fresh post on this theme, I add here that Learning on Screen made a promotional video about the playlist (see https://vimeo.com/407951233) and they also asked me to host a two-hour “takeover” of their Twitter account. I have make the latter thread into a PDF file, which can be accessed via this link.

 

Time to call on BoB for help?

[Post updated April 24th, see additional notes at bottom – including details of new playlists, and free trials of BoB]

The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has forced a radical rethink regarding so much of “normal life”. The cessation of face-to-face teaching at universities is just one of the areas in which people are having to investigate workarounds to usual practice. One of the interesting observations over this past week has been the sudden adoption of technologies which have been around for a while, but have never quite found the level of engagement that they deserved.

If you are a UK academic or student, I would like to add another example into the mix – the online TV and Radio repository BoB (https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand sometimes known as “Box of Broadcasts”).

BoB has been around in a variety of formats for about a decade. It currently has over 2.2 million copyright-cleared broadcast programmes available to stream, and over 120 universities and colleges are subscribed – if you are at a UK university you probably have access already but never knew it!

I am a massive enthusiast for BoB, and for the related Television and Radio Index for Learning and Teaching (TRILT). For full disclosure I am a Trustee of Learning on Screen, the organisation that runs both resources – but that role stems from my enthusiasm for their potential not vice versa!

I have written several articles and run workshops about ways BoB can be used in teaching. Rather than repeat myself now, here are a couple of pertinent links:

1. An article Boxing clever in Times Higher Education from 2014 (link)
2. A seminar Do you know Bob? Adventures with technology-based resources for teaching (and beyond) which I ran in in April 2019 (link)
3. Another talk As seen on TV: Using broadcast media in university teaching from December 2018 (link) – there are inevitable overlaps between this and (2) but they were tailored for different audiences, so probably worth looking past the initial similarities – the “back end” of the two talks are rather more diverse.
4. My work in this area was also written up as a case study (link)

In the recent past, Learning on Screen have started to develop subject-specific playlists. A few of us have also tried to co-ordinate disciplinary blogs, which allow for more description of the content and discussion of potential applications. As an example, see our Biology on the Box site.

These are tricky and uncertain time, but I’m hoping that when we get a chance to look back after the storm, the appropriate rise of online tools for pedagogy will be one of the plus points to emerge from the tragedy.

UPDATED (24th April): As the lockdown has continued and with the increasing realisation that emphasis on online teaching will persist for a much longer period afterwards, Learning on Screen have started a series of disciplinary playlists as the cornerstone of the development of more teaching resources. The lists themselves are within the members-only site (via this link).

I was asked to curate a Biology in Broadcast Media list (see this link, again within the members area I’m afraid). Learning on Screen made a promotional video (open access) about the playlist (see https://vimeo.com/407951233) and they also asked me to host a two-hour “takeover” of their Twitter account. I have make the latter thread into a PDF file, which can be accessed via this link.

Introduction to the other playlists can be found on the Learning on Screen Vimeo account (here). Where you can also find a video (here) about other current developments, including free trials of BoB until July 2020.