Harrie Boelens - Faculty of Social Sciences Leiden
Harrie Boelens is an assistant professor at the Institute of Psychology at Leiden University and teaches a course on the development of children's thinking. As part of his online lectures, he developed so-called knowledge clips, blending animated visuals with a voice-over to explain a part of the study material for the course.
With the help of a technician and free software (Screencast-O-Matic), Boelens made several knowledge clips of 7 minutes, based on material that originally took him 15 minutes to explain in class. Thus, the clips helped him save more time for discussion and questions.
Boelens argues that his knowledge clips may be especially suitable for explaining foundational concepts. He also believes the combination of animation and a voice-over is especially useful when the original content can be easily explained with visuals (pictures, diagrams, etc.). However, he does find it problematic that the use of online lectures seems to have a negative correlation with attendance. "When I showed this particular knowledge clip, only 18 out of 60 students were actually in the room", he says. "I'd rather have all of them in class."
