Group 2 Technology - Video

To demonstrate my competency in a Group 2 Technology - Video I created a very short video in Windows Movie Maker on the topic of Rainforest Destruction. It includes a voice recording, images, music and animated slides. I have referenced the images used and the music at the end of the video.

The voice recording, I will mention here, unfortunately cuts of the last word (eco-system) so in future, I would make sure you could hear all words clearly.

I have also used this video in my Glogster (see http://heidislearningspace.blogspot.com/2011/07/glogster-week-4-activity-reflection.html)

I am going to analyse the use of videos in education using a PMI Analysis:


Positives

• Appeals to auditory and visual learners
• Easy for students to make their own videos with software such as iMovie and Windows Movie Maker. This software provides scaffolded learning (Carrington & Robinson, 2009, p. 18)
• Videos can be become a "reusable elearning resource...they can, for example, be used by a number of instructors teaching the same course or by instructors teaching different but related courses" (Waterhouse, 2005, p. 66)
• Easy sharing of videos on sites such as YouTube

Waterhouse (2005, pp. 114-115) summarises below key advantages of short video clips:

• - Introduce the instructor of a course, a guest speaker, or key points in a new topic
• - Summarise key points
• - Hear or see highlights of a guest speaker's presentation
• - Enhance course materials in music courses
• - Teach pronunciation in a foreign language course
• - Demonstrate hazardous processes and procedures, for example, firefighting methods and techniques
• - Capture activities that are physically inaccessible to students, for example, expeditions and field trips to remote locations
• - Re-create real-life situations, either through role playing or by capturing actual events
• - Hear from acknowledged experts who make brief comments or express opinons relevant to topics covered in the course
• - Clarify abstract concepts insensible to human perception, for example, the propagation of sound waves or the mechanics of nuclear fusion or fission

Minuses:

• Privacy issues
• Students/educators may not reference correctly leading to legal/ethical issues such as copyright infringement
• Video recording devices can be expensive
• Safety concern with students accessing inappropiate material online
• "Embarassing photos and videos are common-weapons of cyber-bullies, and students are as likely to target adults as they are fellow students" (Brooks-Young, 2010, p. 81).
• Students can become bored with mono-tone presentations
• Files can be large or bulky and rely on bandwith

Interesting:

• "A survey released in June 2008 by Nielsen Online shows that kids ages 2 to 11 watch an average of 118 minutes of online video each month, and those ages 12 to 17 average 132 minutes viewing online videos per month" (Brooks-Young, 2010, p. 79) .
• Videos are now interactive such as BluRay movies which have interactive commentary throughout the movie

How would you aply these to your teaching context?

I would apply videos in the classroom first and foremost to both engage visual learners and to concrete understanding of concepts. For example, if you were teaching about antartica and talking about the extremely cold climate, the vast array of ice, and the type of animals that made it their habitat, you could then follow these discussions with a video making this information visual.

I do believe it is beneficial to both be told about information and then to see it in action, and video is a great tool for this.

I do also believe video has its place and can't just be shown for no reason as this does not aid to learning.


Learning Theories Underpinned:

I believe videos are foremost a cognitive constructivism tool, in that they aid the individual's understanding of a topic by applying visual and audio stimulus.

They can become a social constructivist tool, when classmates construct a video together.


References:

Brooks-Young, S. (2010). Teaching with the tools kids really use: Learning with web and mobile technologies. California, US: Corwin

  

Carrington, V., & Robinson, M. (2009). Digital literacies: Social learning and classroom practises. London, UK: United Kingdom Literacy Association


Waterhouse, S. (2005). The power of eLearning: The essential guide for teaching in the digital age. Boston, US: Pearson Education, Inc.