Shorter Is Better: Findings of a Bite-Size Mobile Learning’ Pilot Project

Abstract

Affordances of contemporary communications technology challenge the unquestioned assumptions and rationale of lectures. Furthermore, as students have changed their patterns of engagement with learning, universities have begun to reconsider their tradition of offering students lectures. These circumstances have prompted a group of teachers in one department to develop an alternative lectures: the bite-size mobile learning initiative. The initiative involved replacing some of the lectures with short video recordings of course material, “video-clips”, that could be watched by students at their convenience then elaborated and used to stimulate discussions in subsequent tutorials. We found that close to one-half of all respondents agreed or strongly agreed that video-video-clips worked as a learning tool, either alone or in combination with the tutorials; however, only 35% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they enjoyed watching the video-video-clips. The overwhelming majority of respondents agreed on one aspect: shorter is better.