Education to Benefit from WebClip2Go

 Blog

There are so many ways that the COVID-19 crisis of the last few months has made things challenging, sometimes completely changing the game. Marketing messages are a particularly complicated area: if you mention this crisis, you’re merely joining the chorus of platitudes filling the airwaves, but if you ignore it, you seem callous.

At WebClip2Go, we’ve encountered a particular difficulty. Our product is actually perfect for ‘current conditions’. However, if we lean on that point too strongly, we seem callous and opportunistic. If we don’t bring it up at all – well, not only have we missed a trick, but we’ve also failed to put a potentially very potent tool in your hands; one that could make adjustment to ‘the new normal’ much easier.

So you know what, we’re just going to tell you why WebClip2Go is a hugely beneficial tool in times when remote working and learning, online shopping and social distancing are all at the forefront of our minds. And then, well, you can do whatever you like with the information.

There are three key areas where WebClip2Go has the potential to revolutionise your practices – both ‘in these unprecedented times’, but also in slightly less trying times too. The first, education, will come as no surprise. But online retail and news distribution might open your eyes to something new.

So keep your eyes peeled over the next three weeks as we discuss the benefits of WebClip2Go in each of these three areas.

Week One

The benefits of WebClip2GO in the field of Education

The benefits of WebClip2Go in a world of closed schools is perhaps the most obvious starting point. Almost overnight, educational institutes and individual teachers – not to mention the students – have had to become perfectly fluent in the use of a wide variety of online platforms. Zoom, Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, Edmodo…. All are popular options for online, real-time collaboration.

And actually, as they stand, they are fantastic bits of software; facilitating an incredible level of interaction between student and teacher. We really only have one problem with them: their fundamental concept!

Real-time teaching works in person. Teachers and students come together, and interaction is natural. But if you think keeping the attention of 30 students was tough in a classroom, try it when they are all individually in their home environments – screaming baby sister the first minor distraction, screen in front of them the second major distraction. Cute stories abound on the internet about 10 year-olds who have already learnt to film and loop footage of them paying attention, so that they can secretly do what they like without the teacher knowing.

Now make it an international school, where the students returned home and are in different time zones. Are you sure you’ve got the attention from Tracy who is logging on at 11pm?

Now add the two other siblings who are competing for bandwidth (and maybe even screen time) to access their own live-delivery lessons. Throw in a  little bit of lag, stutter or background buzz to make things really difficult.

The truth is, very little meaningful learning can get done this way. And it isn’t just teachers and students who are frustrated – a recent article from a parent despairing at the home-schooling situation described it as ‘trying to be the PA to the world’s tiniest CEO – organizing a constant stream of meetings and engaging in endless technological troubleshooting’. And their child was five!

We believe strongly in the benefit of pre-recorded teaching content. There are certainly times for real-time interaction, but it shouldn’t be the backbone of the teaching strategy, it should be used as a form of monitoring – identifying how effectively video-based content is being processed and absorbed.

Pre-recorded content gives students (and their families) the ability to work out a timetable that suits them, operate in an area of greater concentration, and revisit content at their own pace as required. It provides – counter-intuitively – for a much more personalized approach to learning: because even in cases where the teacher is ‘interacting’, they’re not really interacting with the individual student specifically – they’re engaging in basic tasks like classroom management.

Pre-recorded content allows pupils to take value from the content presented at their pace, in a way that is meaningful to them. Imagine – even as an adult – the luxury of pausing a conversation to check on the definition of a term, or do some background reading on an avenue of discussion that has particularly caught your attention. This is even more true when teaching content is broken down into ‘learning nuggets’ (a philosophy we strongly believe in, and which you can learn more about through trusty old Wikipedia.

OK, so if we’ve sold you on the idea of pre-recorded video-based learning content as opposed to interaction-based video conference learning, the next obvious question is: Why WebClip2Go?

Our answer is simple and based on four key facts:

The standard of video produced is professional quality

But

It only takes *one* person to create it! (pretty key for social distancing…)

And

That teacher can learn how to use the full system in just two hours

And and

Once they’ve learnt it, they can literally produce a professional quality video in just 15 minutes.

For teachers, who simply don’t have enough hours in the day, this is an unbelievable benefit. Reusable, professional quality content, developed in minutes.

We won’t go into the specifics of quite how this miracle is achieved just here, but if you’d like to understand our magic a little more – this article (last month’s blog) shows exactly how the process works.