Annotating and commenting on videos with Davinia Pastor Pastor

In a Nutshell

Subject: Hispanic Studies 207: Cultures of Inclusion and Exclusion

Class Size: <12 students

Class Type: Discussion

Problem: Repetitive classroom routine, increasing student participating

Solution: Using VideoAnt as a space for student discussion outside the classroom.

Davinia Pastor's students learn through annotation using VideoAnt

Problem

Repetitive classroom routine and lack of student participation

Professor Davinia Pastor Pastor’s Hispanic Studies “Culturas In(Ex)clusión” (Cultures of Inclusion and Exclusion) course focuses on social problems in Spanish speaking countries. Pastor wanted to provide students with opportunities to actively engage with the Spanish language while interacting with the media-rich course materials. She also wanted to give students who felt uncertain about their Spanish language abilities more opportunities for participation outside of traditional class discussion.

Solution

Through VideoAnt, students were able to annotate curated YouTube videos relating to course topics with comments and respond to classmates’ posts in Spanish.

This allowed them to interact with the content as well as one another. Students who felt less comfortable speaking in Spanish had time to think about their answers before responding. In class students spoke about the answers they had posted on VideoAnt and compared responses which changed up class dynamics. Professor Pastor found that students more passionately engaged with the questions presented through VideoAnt than in other formats prior to this discussion.

Lessons Learned

Bringing VideoAnt into the classroom gave Professor Pastor the confidence to explore digital tools and gave her students new ways to engage with course content. Pastor found there to be some limitations to VideoAnt: the video doesn’t stop when students reach the embedded question or answers are not anonymously made. Additionally in a larger class, students might have to be put in smaller groups not to overwhelm the commenting section of VideoAnt.

Resources

VideoAnt is a University of Minnesota web project and is the backbone of this DIY. You can get a free account at https://ant.umn.edu/.
YouTube: To get the most out of VideoAnt, you will need to join it to a YouTube account, which comes as part of the WM Apps suite from Google. Faculty members and staff can request a WM Apps account by contacting IT at support@wm.edu.

VideoAnt is super easy to use, but here’s a tutorial to get you started:

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