Kaltura + The Social Media Classroom: Idea for a Collaborative Video Production Framework

Ever since I moved to the faculties from the central unit where I had been situated for the last 7 years, my brain has been experiencing a never-ending explosion of innovative ideas. Virtually every day I have a wacky new thought.

This is due in no small part to the fact I spent many years contemplating the theoretical possibilities for online learning – and researching emerging opportunities and practice – yet had minimal opportunities to actually implement anything. So there is a massive backlog of projects I’d like to rediscover and revisit.

Importantly, I think, in at least a few cases the time spent contemplating theoretical applications has led me to connect ideas and expand their scope into something more mature and holistic.

The framework

In terms of collaborative online video, my current thought is that we could take Howard Rheingold et al’s epic Drupal-based Social Media Classroom and add an underlying Kaltura video production layer to it. Both systems are based on open source architectures, and incorporate well articulated open source community idealism.

For a project that would aim to foster a collaborative, particpatory ethos I think the elements are absolutely crucial. They introduce the notions of “us,” “we” and “ours” and not just “me,” “I” and “mine.”

In many ways I also think the two systems naturally go together when it comes to learning. The SMC is designed to offer learners and mentors collaborative spaces to work, think, reflect, discuss and share together – essentially engage in the fundamental elements of the learning process – using an underlying content management system (Drupal) that’s built to be extremely customiseable and extensible when it comes to organising and categorising content and afford users and extraordinary amount of freedom and flexiblity.

Meanwhile Kaltura is a powerful work-horse in its own right that provides the engine to drive and support the requirements of the video production process – from in-browser mash-ups and editing to encoding and transcoding, streaming, embedding and a variety of other activities.

Importantly, the one element that Kaltura needs to complete the equation is a front end – a website – which Rheingold et al’s Social Media Classroom could deliver in spades.

Why is this needed?

Why is this needed? Well from observation most of the use of video I’m seeng in education focusses on its consumption and viewing – rather than its creation. So there is a largely undeveloped or under-developed sphere of use that I think is worth exploring in far greater detail.

People freqently say that you don’t truly know or understand a concept until you can effectively explain it or convey its meaning to others, and video production projects could be seen to implement this idea in practice. Not only that, but the depth and possibilities in video would allow for the exploration of the concept or theme from many different lenses or levels – from explicit straight-forward documentary style pieces, to surrealistic works that reveal the concept through inference, allusion, tone and mood.

I’m not an expert when it comes to film though, or use of video in an artistic sense. So I have an enormous amount of reading an research to do. Any recommedations or experiences people are willing to share would be greatly appreciated.

What about UNSW TV?

One obvious counter-point I’ll need to contend with is “What about UNSW TV?” – which is the current enterprise level video solution for the institution.

My thinking here is this situation need not boil down to a decision of one system versus the other. They are designed for two different purposes, and I believe could sit nicely along side of each other in a production continuum. Ultimately I see UNSW TV becoming a polished and sophisticated delivery system for hosting and streaming high quality videos, whereas the project I’ve described here is intended to support the creative processes that produce the high quality videos.

This is an important distiction to make, because TV doesn’t support the production process – only the final products. Yet there is a distinct need to support the initial stages which is not currently being met by any system on campus.

I would suspect that many videos that emerged from the Kaltura/SMC system would not go on to UNSW TV and that’s ok – the system is more about the creative process than its output – But some of the videos would need a longer term home, and this is a role that UNSW TV could very easily fit.

Ideally transfer of final videos from Kaltura/SMC to UNSW TV could be facilitated by development of a “Post to UNSW TV” plugin or something like that. In any event I think it could and should be seen as at least one viable destination for the finished products.

Anyway that’s about as far as I’ve gotten in this whole train of thought. Any comments, criticisms, suggestions, or recommendations on existing projects or research papers would be greatly appreciated.

Posted via email from Mike Bogle