Abstract:

Developing one’s own teaching streaming video could be an expensive and time consuming task, while using already available video could be easier and inexpensive. When searching for video clips for teaching purposes, you can consider television broadcaster on-line resources, or websites such as YouTube, Vimeo or TeacherTube, which can be very useful. For engineering education purposes, it could be useful to search in relevant Educational Digital Libraries such as NEEDS or MERLOT, where streaming video could be considered within the general category of digital courseware. However, high level technical and/or educational videos at these websites are very scarce.

As an example, we present a review on educational streaming video that can be used as teaching materials for thermal solar energy courses. The scope of the search is limited to thermal solar systems for the production of domestic hot water or space heating in buildings. Contents cover solar system descriptions, lectures, maintenance topics, self-made solar collectors, commercial videos and professional items. These materials could be useful, in e-learning and b-learning approaches, for Mechanical Engineering or Building Engineering courses interested in empowering the use of renewable energies in buildings, accordingly to the new European Union directive on Nearly Zero Energy Buildings (Directive 2010/31/EU on the energy performance of buildings). These videos can be integrated in many Learning Content Management Systems of any Faculty of Engineering.

Keywords:

Streaming video, solar energy, energy in buidings.