Use of screencasting to facilitate engineering course delivery

Abstract

The use of technology to enhance learning opportunities is increasing and interventions such as screencasting can have benefits in providing the student with a flexible learning resource. Within this study, a screencast tutorial was produced for engineering students to teach the process of modelling laminated materials within the commercial finite element software, ANSYS. The effectiveness of the screencast was assessed using an anonymous online questionnaire and small focus group discussion. Overall, feedback from students was positive and found that the majority of students preferred to use a dual learning approach by using the screencast along with an accompanying PDF step-by-step guide. It was also evident from both questionnaire and focus group responses that the instructor–learner interaction was still regarded by the students as an important aspect of the course delivery; especially for teaching advanced concepts when using finite element software.

Using Screen-Capture Technology to Authenticate IT Online Learning and Assessment

“…Another example was the research published by B. Brereton and K. Dunne [20] who studied the impact of screencast tutor feedback on veterinary nursing students' learning. The engineering teaching field has also witnessed some research, for example, the research published by P. R Hampson [21] assessed the effectiveness of the screencast tutorials which have been produced by the author for engineering students to teach the process of modelling laminated materials within the commercial finite element software. These research attempts were accompanied by major developments in video playback devices that encouraged the emergence of studies dedicated to integrating these devices in teaching and learning.…”