A discussion of video capturing to assist in distance learning

This paper discusses video capture as a medium for transferring and reinforcing knowledge using Distance Learning (to be denoted by DL for the remainder of this paper). The area of teaching delivered is computer programming in particular, to the Object Oriented language known as Java, however the techniques introduced are not limited to this sub-discipline of computer science and can be applied to lectures on the theory of databases, formal methods and/or algorithms etc. The software used in this paper is Camtasia which can be applied to the traditional programming languages, including: Java, C++, Visual Basic, C and to the mark-up languages i.e. the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and to Javascript. The paper highlights ways of partitioning a teaching demonstration video into different components to achieve multiple views of a particular topic being discussed. This means that students and lecturers are able to view the demonstration repeatedly and more importantly whilst not in a lecture theatre. Once a video has been produced learners are able to follow lecture notes along with the lecturer's discussions at their leisure thus making this method of education a Distance Learning mode, capable of reinforcing learner knowledge. The authors have found that this continual exposure to the lecture material greatly enhances student comprehension, enjoyment and participation. These conclusions were ascertained by conducting experiments in which a comparison of student views (on lectures) were determined i.e. a comparison was made between students taking a class in which Camtasia was used with a class in which Camtasia was not used and the results of the questionnaire/survey are summarised in the conclusions. It was found that the students responded favourably to lectures delivered using the Camtasia environment as the programming ideas could be viewed repeatedly thus reinforcing their knowledge. This was mentioned by the majority of the students (in fact 72% of the students from a sample size of sixty students stated this) and it was felt by the authors that this statistic alone would make the creation and research into further applications of the Camtasia software a suitable, appropriate and worthwhile pursuit. In this paper many programming clips are included with the hope that this illustrates the versatility of Camtasia. The lectures delivered and consequently discussed were presented to a first year undergraduate class in Computer Science studying a variety of Computer Science disciplines including: Artificial Intelligence, Multimedia, Business Computing and e-Commerce. The paper commences with a discussion of two DL environments that the authors are associated with, highlighting points and facilities that are common to both, such as peer-peer discussions, lecturer-student discussions and chat rooms. The paper then goes on to include actual lecture material with associated screenshots using the Camtasia software. The screenshots commence with a demonstration of how to set up the JCreator editor on the University of Westminster server, followed by a demonstration of how the required paths must be set to enable the Java platform to locate all the required classes and libraries to function properly. This is followed by screenshots demonstrating the compilation procedure necessary to successfully run a Java program followed by screenshots on how to debug a typical Java program. In the "Time honoured" fashion the traditional HelloWorld program is also demonstrated and run.

This is further complimented by demonstrating the recursive add functon using the NetBeans editor. More advanced programming techniques are discussed later in the paper including: the creation of a singleton class with a private constructor and the illustration of the concept of inheritance in Java. Thus the programming techniques introduced are of the 00 nature (where the 00 denotes Object Oriented) subsequently after these topics have been introduced and discussed feedback from the students is obtained as to the success (or not as the case be) of the effectiveness of using such a method for the delivery of the afore mentioned topics. A discussion of a select few applications of each of these DL environments are also included. The paper reviews the advantages and disadvantages for both students and lecturers alike and the paper also considers many of the difficulties in the recording process that arose. Resource implications are also mentioned relative to the production, i.e. the recording, the delivery and the viewing of the demonstration. The paper concludes with comments from lecturers and students as to the suitability of Camtasia as a teaching method.