Monday, March 6, 2017

GoPro By James Schanandore, Ryan Stapley, and Jeff Kerkman



With the help of Jeff Kerkman, Education Multimedia Developer in the Information Technology Services Department, we used the GoPro 4K Action Camera to record a sheep brain dissection that students were required to watch before class.  With the benefit of the camera’s extremely high resolution, we were able to get excellent close-ups of the dissection of the sheep brain and clearly show minute structures and delicate procedures. The GoPro 4K Action Camera was secured to a boom and placed about 8 inches above the dissection area. 

Students have reacted positively to the video we produced.  They used the video as reference material during class and for study later after the dissection was completed. Students were able to see how and where to make a proper dissection cut along the brain and how to remove specific structures without damaging others. 

Implications for this particular work are that we can produce high quality tutorials for students to view outside and inside of class that are content specific to our class.  You can always find good videos online, but there is usually extra or missing information for our particular class.  Using the GoPro 4K Action Camera allowed us to easily tailor a video specifically to our course, which we can now distribute to our students.  With the advent of this pre-lab video and an additional pre-lab reading assignment, we hope that students will complete the lab material in a timelier fashion and allow students more time for in class activities and questions concerning course material.

Access to the sheep brain dissection video has been granted by Dr. Schanandore.

More information about the GoPro Action Cameras can be found at https://gopro.com/.

Submitted by James Schanandore, Ryan Stapley, and Jeff Kerkman