embed online videos in instruction is perhaps one of the more pressing needs of college faculty members as well as those in other educational settings. The uses we report here as a starter or ender for instruction is but one example. Once created, such videos can be reused and replayed many times as well as mixed and mashed-up with other content. Their uses are only limited by the creative imagination of instructors, students, and technical support personnel.
The use of online video and other online resources and materials can supplement a traditional course or perhaps push it into a blended learning format. Ways to empower learning by placing students in the role of cool resource provider or online video presenter is just one way to foster student learning engagement and retention. Ideas related to anchored instruction through the use of visual media were not as pervasive two decades ago when initially designed at Vanderbilt. However, with thousands of educational videos available in YouTube, TeacherTube, Google Video, and other online video repositories, their use will be increasingly common. And such use meshes well with learning approaches and preferences of students of the twenty-first century.
Anchoring instruction with online video content can happen at any moment—at the start of class, at the end, or whenever deemed necessary or advantageous. It can also happen when surfing the web before class, in the midst of a class presentation, or when accessing content with a mobile phone after class. Equally important, it is useful in face-tocourses as well as blended and fully online ones. What is perhaps most important is for instructors to begin to reflect on the power of such online video technology, to experiment on their use, and to share their results. Anchored instruction is now a tool we all can use in nearly any lesson to make it come alive.
Online videos link many Web 2.0 technologies and associated pedagogies in instruction. They provide the context for learning and perhaps an advance organizer prior to the start of a lecture. They can be anchors as well as enders for instruction. Increasingly instructors will be relying on shared online video content in their teaching arsenal.
While research on anchored instruction in the 1980s and 1990s clearly demonstrated the power of the method, it is only now that most instructors can actually take advantage of it. We are fortunate to live in such times. While the Web 2.0 presents many rich and exciting learning possibilities, as shown in this