(Karmel Allison and Shreyas Cholia)
In this training module, we had the opportunity to try screensharing as a means of instruction. Screensharing, in which the instructor shares all or parts of her computer screen with the student, sits in between recorded video and live tutoring in terms of capacity for interaction and adaptation to the audience. So how did our screensharing experience compare to previous experience with recorded video and live tutoring?
Producing a recorded screencast takes a fairly large amount of effort. Based on responses from the previous session, it took participants anywhere from 3 to 15 hours, to produce a short 5 minute segment. Screensharing is much more efficient in this regard. Even accounting for preparation time, it should only take about 30 to 60 minutes to put together the material and conduct a live session.
We did find that screensharing was a less polished medium than recorded video. We encountered errors during the teaching session, which would have been cleaned up in the recorded video. While some errors are distracting, others can actually be instructive and can provide useful information to learners with respect to pitfalls and potential failure modes.
The interactive nature of screensharing also has some benefits. It can occasionally be difficult to maintain attention to pre-recorded video, while screensharing is more like a conversation. Screensharing also allows for immediate feedback so the instructor can tailor the level to the student based on responses to questions.
On the other end of the spectrum from recorded video, we have live tutoring. Whereas screensharing allows for more ad hoc content than recorded video, there is less opportunity for reading the learner’s reactions and responding accordingly in screensharing as compared to live tutoring. Though applications that make screensharing possible often allow for simultaneous video, the focus is on the screen of the instructor, and thus student responses are often confined to verbal questions or interruptions. In live tutoring, the instructor can more readily gauge the engagement, understanding, and cohesiveness of the audience via both verbal and visual cues. This can be especially advantageous when students are reticent to admit falling behind.
That said, there are many cases where screensharing is perfectly sufficient, and thus offers an efficient and convenient alternative to live tutoring. For example, in the paired session we did for this module, both participants had a basic familiarity with the topic being discussed. Thus, it was useful to see a quick example and implementation via screensharing, and it was useful to be able to ask specific questions, but live tutoring would have been overkill. In other words, expertise matters: with a Python pro learning a new library, screensharing is perfect, but if I’m trying to explain the new Mail.app to my mother-in-law, live interaction is necessary.