I'm a trustee of the British Universities Film and Video Council BUFVC promotes the production, study and use of moving images and sound and related media in higher education and research. We combined our December AGM with an information event. Get Creative - raising awareness of moving image & sound content in your institution was packed with excellent presentations from librarians, media resource staff and academics. All enthusiastic, knowledgeable and committed people, sharing their real experience of the impact of resources on improving learning for students. Of all the presentations, one in particular by Linda Irish and Hilary Pooley of the University of Manchester caught my attention as it used a recorded clip of a business academic talking about how she used the Simpsons episode Visit to Itchy and Scratchy Land to teach 'pester power'. Dr Anna Goatman of Manchester University Business School is the academic interviewed and I contacted her to find out more.
Anna uses some short cases or vignettes in her teaching, around a couple of pages long, but it's her use of video that she finds particularly exciting and given the interest in using video and other media in case teaching I thought it would be interesting to share Anna's thoughts:
"I have used a number of different television programmes to support 'case style' teaching. For example, I've used a couple of Alex Reily's programmes (Britain's Really Disgusting Foods and Secrets of the Superbrands) as the basis for discussions on marketing ethics and new product development. I've also used programmes such as I'm running Sainsbury's, Mary Queen of Shops, Inside John Lewis, Business Nightmares, The British at Work, Made in Britain, The Tube and Coppers as the basis for seminar and workshop discussions and tasks (as well as for examples in lectures).
I have found that often the advantage of video over written material is that students can watch the footage together in the room at the same time and then have a discussion or undertake a task. It seems to bring things to life more than a written case alone, and for undergraduate students who often have little or no work experience, it can help them understand the context more easily. I have also found that the quality of material from national broadcasters tends to be far higher than material made specifically for educational purposes, and this does seem to matter to the students.
There are also times when I have tried to combine a short written case with video material. For example, I teach a final year elective on Services Marketing and part of the course looks at public sector services, so students have a short written case to look at how service quality is measured in public sector services, but I have combined this with material from other sources such videos from BBC news programmes, and even comedy clips from programmes such as 10 o'clock live which often has a different perspective on current affairs. Sometimes this material is all provided to students in a lecture or seminar environment, but I have also used the VLE to provide additional material, or if I have used a video clip in a lecture or seminar, I may make the whole programme available to students online, so they can revisit it and gain a deeper understanding."
All of the off-air recordings that Anna uses are available to UK educational institutions under an initiative called Box of Broadcasts. BoB is a fantastic resource for UK teachers, making it simple and cheap to access the entire recorded output of all UK broadcasters for use in the classroom. Follow the link to get full details.
I have two questions. Firstly, given how easy it is to use this resource and the benefits it brings to teaching, why are media resources not used more often? Secondly, for copyright reasons the service is able to operate only within the UK - are similar services available elsewhere?
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