USING SCREENCASTS AS SUPPORTING TOOL IN THE BLENDED LEARNING

Current University students get in the habit of using short, simple and direct language, as well as watching audiovisual media to search information, both personal and academic. At the same time, the work of teachers as facilitators involves the use of methodologies of cooperative learning, complemented with the Web 2.0 environment, which allows the adoption of e-learnig tools such as Moodle. Faced with this situation, we consider the appropriateness of creating specific videos about complex issues of the program, as additional support for students.
­­­
We live in a globalized world, where the use of ICT is widespread. Actually, learners tend to consult audiovisual material in order to obtain every kind of information. We could find a wide variety of reasons and causes to understand this growing tendency such as the limits posed by the reading and writing of information through social networks like Twitter, or the discomfort of the virtual keyboards of smartphones, tablets... Everyday examples are the massive use of Youtube, the large transit of photos and videos on Facebook, Instagram... Therefore, when a doubt arises, students make use of the search for videos on the Web that, aparently, is going to resolve their questions. However, Internet has millions of files so that it can become a daunting task and without guarantees of what is displayed has academic rigor.

In our view, learning platforms as Moodle, are a great vehicle to guarantee the access to audiovisual archives of academic content to students -provided by us, teachers- through a tool the students feel deeply familiaryced with. These videos are a highly recommended support material to the bibliography and documentation provided by the teaching staff. Our experience from previous courses reveals the massive use of this material, and this brings us to the determination to continue and consolidate its production. Teacher and student produced videos can be a fundamental tool in the cooperative teaching-learning process, as it reinforces the positive interdependence and the sense of individual responsibility.

This article aims to point out the appropriateness of the use of certain type of videos as a tool for teaching support in university-level courses. We are going to explain the work experience of three professors of the University of the Basque Country, teaching "Computer Management" within the Degree in Business Management.