Capturing Archaeological Performance on Digital Video: Implications for Teaching and Learning Archaeology

Abstract

In 2009 we produced a series of edited video clips to demonstrate practical methods to archaeology students at the University of Sydney in Australia. The videos were made publicly accessible via YouTube and incorporated into teaching of an undergraduate archaeological field methods course in 2010 and 2011. Our paper outlines staff experiences of making and using the videos for teaching and discusses results of student questionnaire feedback about the videos and the course. The results provide insight into the effectiveness of different ways of teaching practical archaeology in a context of large class sizes and limited resources and the potential of using digital video technologies to communicate archaeology to students and other audiences.