simpleshow @ LMU University of Munich E-Learning Day

Flickering overhead projectors, thick scripts, lengthy frontal teaching – all those things do not fit to our modern learning habits. In today’s digital world we got use to obtaining information with just a few clicks – anytime, anywhere.

This is why at many universities “new media” play an increasingly important role, just like at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich. The LMU has recently dedicated a whole day to this issue and invited faculty and staff for an exchange where innovative concepts were presented for the use of new media in teaching.

You may wonder what simpleshow has to do with all this?
Well, as a partner of the LMU Center for Languages we were invited to present our joint research project. For more than a year we had been looking into the question if explainer videos provide a useful additional value to self-learning courses. In our pilot project “How to write a cover letter for English speaking companies” our main concern was the combination of linguistic and factual knowledge.

“Looking at the great success and the positive research results of simpleshow, we can state that videos work well in this style, presenting new content in a clear and compact way.” says Jan Ullmann, a researcher at the Center for Languages, collaborating with simpleshow. “The topic was a novelty for both sides: For us it was the first explainer video with animated paper cut-out, that we had created; for simpleshow learning languages with their medium was still new territory. In our cooperation we complemented each other wonderfully and were able to benefit from the respective competences of the other”.

On the E-Learning Day the cooperation and the results were very positive: “In a qualitative study it became clear that the simpleshow video was a strong impulse and meaningful input in the learning process of the students. The subsequent written language output has also shown strong evidence for the effectiveness of the simpleshow videos.” says Jan Ullmann summarizing the results. “Most notable here was the positive feedback of the students: the new medium motivates them to deal more in depth with the topic.”

In addition to the presentation of our own research topic, the E-Learning Day was a great opportunity to receive new impetus. In 8 lectures, speakers from different departments featured innovative projects and in the get-together thereafter, there was “talk shop” and conversations about new projects. Stay tuned for more research to come.

Find the keynote here (in German):
Explanatory videos in language courses
(Monika)