The Videos' Story

How I Got Started Shooting Philosophy Videos

In Spring of 2011, while still teaching at Fayetteville State University, I began using lecture capture -- videoing my class lectures, then editing them and uploading them into YouTube.  The first class that I started this with was the introductory level Core course, Critical Thinking.  I used a flipcam videorecorder, with a small tripod, and I'd simply place it on the desk in the classroom -- as low-tech as one could feasibly go.

My students loved it -- if they missed a class they could watch the video and find out exactly what we had covered, even down to what I put on the chalkboard, what questions got asked and how they were answered, the specific examples I used or came up with on the spot.  Many of my students who didn't miss class would also watch videos to reinforce what they had learned, go back over what they found difficult or confusing -- in short to deepen their learning.

The big surprise was how many other students -- and even people not in school -- were watching these videos not only in the United States, but all across the world.  They emailed me, commented on the videos, sent private messages in YouTube -- and actually still continue to do so.

Back then, YouTube only allowed private users relatively short videos -- at first 15 minutes, and then 20 minutes in length -- and I started experimenting with uploading other videos.  When I gave a talk or workshop, I'd record until the camera battery ran out, and then divide those early videos into 20 minute segments.  I also started shooting my first videos without a live audience -- the Dr. Sadler Chalk and Talk series (a tongue-in-cheek title, since the educational experts were saying back then, as they still do now, that "chalk and talk," i.e. lecture in front of a blackboard, was dead, bad pedagogy, unable to engage viewers).

The real credit for getting me into this line of work -- taking a chance on it -- is due entirely to my then-fiancee, now-wife, Andi Sciacca, who urged me to give it a try, and overcame all of my numerous objections -- and they were numerous.  And, as it turns out, practically all of them were wrong or misguided. . . .

The Next Stage:  Marist Class Lectures

After I relocated to New York, and started teaching for Marist College, I decided to keep on producing course videos, now assisted by my thank-goodness!-tech-savy wife and collaborator.  In Fall of 2011, I taught, and we edited video series for Introduction to Philosophy and Ethics courses.

If the Critical Thinking class videos had drawn a lot of views -- and comments -- from lifelong learners and students all across the globe, these new straight-out philosophy videos garnered an even stronger response. I think in part that this was due to the fact that I was now being filmed teaching texts and thinkers, introducing students to material, to ideas, to approaches which I felt very passionate about.

Then in the Spring 2012 semester, we continued producing new videos, this time a sequence from my new Ethics courses.  A number of these are composites of material from two class sessions taught back to back, but using different examples, going more into depth in one class about one subject, then another subject in the other class -- cutting, editing, fusing them into one longer teaching video.  This was an opportunity to do things in a more planned, thoughtful way

As my classes continued in the following semesters, I decided to do two things.  Each time that I taught Intro to Philosophy, I changed all of the readings, and picked a theme, the first time "Dialogue and Dialectic," and the second time "Love, Friendship, and Desire".  This allowed me to develop a much larger repertoire of one-hour Into to Philosophy videos (67 total).  It's not a complete curriculum, of course, but it covers quite a bit of the history of philosophy.

When given the chance, I also taught what used to be a staple class for me at a previous position -- Religion in America -- and I filmed every one of those classes as well, this time, dividing the lectures into roughly 20-40 minute videos -- 52 in total.

The second thing I did was something a bit different.  In the Ethics classes, I was covering the same material for which I'd already filmed what felt to me quite satisfactory lectures.  We'd been kicking around the idea of doing shorter videos, focused on one philosophical idea, distinction, or argument, so I started structuring my class lectures and discussions to provide material for those -- and thus Core Concept videos were born.

Expanding the Channel

I've continued shooting Core Concept videos -- but after a while, I realized that I wouldn't be able to get to everything I'd want to discuss in class sessions, so I began filming at first in empty classrooms, and then in our home office, after we purchased a chalkboard for me to use.  There's now over 120 videos in the Core Concept series, and I'm likely to keep shooting them for years to come.

Our experience with lecture capture and YouTube suggested something else -- which dovetailed very neatly with the increased volume of requests from viewers who liked my class lectures.  One of the constraints I've chafed under as a professor is the iron-clad time limitations imposed by the 15-week (really closer to 12 or 13 after you count all the days off, snow days, sick days, etc.) semester format.

It always forced me, both at the start of the semester, and as it proceeded and we lost a session here, a session there, to carry out a kind of triage -- who would I keep in, and who would have to be left out?  How long could we feasibly spend on a text?  Giving an extra day to one thinker means cutting another short, or out entirely.  But, what if. . .  there were no such limits on the amount of material that could be taught?  With YouTube, I could produce a course as long as I wanted, going into as much depth as I thought needed. . .

I polled my subscribers about which thinkers they most wanted me to produce videos on -- and the top 4 thinkers were Sartre, Heidegger, Hegel, and Marcuse.  That got me to thinking:  Sartre and Heidegger are both in the existentialist movement, and I also really like Kierkegaard, Marcel, and Nietzsche. . .  what if I did a course on Existentialist Philosophy and Literature?  So, that is what I did -- or rather started -- originally thinking I might do 30 or so lectures covering 10 main thinkers.  It's since expanded to 47 course lectures, and I've got about another 50-60 yet to go.  It also spun off into a monthly lecture series, Glimpses into Existence, at the Kingston Library.

As time went on, viewers kept on asking for other videos -- and there has been a constant cry for videos on Hegel.  I'd shot two very introductory Hegel videos in my Intro class, and I decided it was time to do a Hegel series.  But that put me into a bit of a quandary -- if I was going to approach the work of his that I like the most, the Phenomenology of Spirit, I'd want to really do it well.  But, what was I supposed to do?  Shoot videos covering the whole of the work, paragraph by paragraph?  Wouldn't that take years?  Again, I'm very fortunate to have a wife and partner who does not see that sort of investment of time and energy -- creating free video content -- as liability, but as an opportunity.  And so, we decided I'd begin the Half-Hour Hegel series.

There's a number of other video projects and series that I've been working at over the last two years -- the 10 Shorts series, in which I respond to viewers questions, the Philosogeek Reflections on the Technosphere series, more personal talks about my Philosophical Development and Commitments, even a recent Happiness Happens Month series -- but this is already getting to be a long tale. . .  and there's more yet to tell . . . .