Using Wikis and Screencasts to Learn ...

1. Required a high degree of ‘self-regulation’ to sift through the quality and usefulness of the instructional videos and tutorials available through YouTube. Accuracy and credibility is often cited as a key challenge with learning from online video tutorials hosted on sites such as YouTube, and this was also my experience.
2. Places the responsibility for leading and assessing the discovery of learning the software firmly upon the shoulders of the learner. This requires a high degree of self-regulation.
3. Resulted in no prescribed formal quiz or feedback as you might find in a more traditional form of Computer Assisted Instruction. This again would require the learner to regulate their own learning and practice.
4. Can be a passive experience.

Yet ... Screencasts afford distance learners the ability to

1. Work at their own convenience and location, and review the instructional materials as many times as needed.
2. Take a ‘just-in-time’ approach to self-paced learning, to use them when the situation or need arises.
3. See the result of an action by observing what happens on the screen in real-time and model expert behavior.

What I gained from this learning was the opportunity to ...

1. Test drive a new software tool that could be used in my workplace.
2. Reflect on the advantages (for example, dynamic and social learning experience) and disadvantages (for example, poor production quality, variation in granularity, and learning intentions) of using screencasts and wikis in distance education. And still today, I continue to evaluate re-use of 'open' learning content and curation of existing learning resources in my workplace. Setting context is essential to absorbing some of the challenges in content re-use.