An international short video contest without textual contents as a tool to synthesize learning

Abstract

In our present context, it is necessary to supply our students with skills and capabilities to fit in the 21st century companies, and to design new activities that potentiate not only their knowledge, but also their capabilities of autonomous work, of better interpersonal communication and of becoming highly qualified professionals. New technologies have revolutionized teaching methodologies. The fact that almost all students dispose of a smartphone, allow this device to be incorporated as an educational resource. We decided to test the possible training effects of a video-recording and editing activity. This exercise, will motivate the students to review and synthetize the contents of the subject matter, and present information in a proper way to be concise, clear and self-explanatory. To achieve this, we proposed an international video contest to students from two universities and two vocational training centres. In total, 36 contest entries were submitted on time. After video submission, authors were sent a self-administered questionnaire online to comment on the experience. In view of the results and the good perceived attitude in the classroom, we conclude that the realization of these short videos and the format of international contest is well received by students as an interesting experience, which makes them reflect on the contents of their own degrees, and allows to work different capabilities of the students.