Recorded Group Presentations

Tools used: Blackboard Collaborate Ultra and Canvas Assignments (optional: Kaltura Mediaspace)
Activity length: Full semester project

Group presentations can be used to help students develop their collaboration and communication skills. Allowing students to create recorded presentations gives them the opportunity to focus on content mastery without the added pressures of public speaking in front of a live audience. Digital presentations also help students to develop essential 21st-century skills like collaboration, communication, media literacy, and flexibility.

Preparation

First, clarify your presentation expectations. Keep in mind that the goal of a recorded presentation is not live, public speaking skills, but content mastery and communication of understanding. It is helpful to develop a rubric that outlines specific criteria for evaluating projects.

To improve accountability among all group members, you can use a team charter to outline expectations, identify responsibilities, and set deadlines. Create a template for your team charter and share with student groups for them to cooperatively complete and submit with their acknowledgments.

Design the project into several stages. Task students with milestones, such as: submitting a topic for approval, collection of primary resources, an outline of the presentation, a draft recording of the presentation (this could be shared with peer groups for feedback), and the final recorded presentation. Dividing the project into segments helps keep students on track, allows you to offer formative feedback, and helps students improve their presentation skills and content mastery.

Facilitation

To record group presentations, you can create new Blackboard Collaborate Ultra sessions, for each student group. When setting up these sessions (or rooms) you want to set the default attendee role to Moderator. Provide students with resources, or other training opportunities, to learn how to use the Blackboard Collaborate Ultra tools and how to record and locate their recording. Students will need to know how to do the following: upload and share files, share applications/screen, share camera, and starting/stopping the recording.

Tip: There are many resources available at Software Training for Students

Advanced Options

Allow students to download recordings (in Blackboard Collaborate Ultra settings)> and encourage them to edit and remix their presentations. Some students may prefer to use video editing software to finalize their presentations (suggested to keep advanced techniques optional, unless they are a state course learning goal). They can also use Kaltura MediaSpace to auto-caption (requires editing for errors) their presentations and share more easily in Canvas. For peer feedback stages, groups can share a simple hyperlink to the recording, or they could embed their recording into a discussion reply using the Kaltura integration in Canvas Discussions.