Media has the very complex ability to communicate messages with its audience. As such the use of all the forms in required by an educator to get the message out to the learners. Whether that mean through text, audio, video or other form. This week there is one form of digital resource that stands out in my realm of teaching and learning. Through the use of video, both text and audio are coming across with the added benefit of moving picture, or embedded experience of others.
Photo Credit: Kirill Kniazev
Video holds the amazing ability to showcase something that an educator may not be able to complete in their classroom, due to safety hazards or limited resources available. As the article from last week refers to, it should be noted that a prime example for video could be the showing of an experiment that would otherwise would not be possible in an elementary school due to personal injury concerns.
https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/chapter/9-5-3-video/.
It should be clarified that an experiment like the one listed below, would not necessarily be permitted in a school, but through video can still be shown to students when talking about oxidization of metallic elements.
Video is also an excellent digital tool to use for presentations and explaining what a student understands. This can be saved and used again as an example or target for future students. Representing something using materials that would not traditionally be used, would be another great example of video production to showcase learning. This allows students to be creative and work with mediums that would not be easily viewed in the classroom. This assessment tool can become an asset in the daily classroom.
However, with all the technological improvements of video, it is still important to note that video will not be able to replace lived experience of students. Students are not able to smell, feel, taste or encounter exactly what is being portrayed in a video. It is worth mentioning that video use should be a supplemental learning and teaching tool, but should not be the sole learning/ teaching tool. Although the video may be able to show students something they may not have been able to see otherwise, moderation and curation is required to get the most bang for the buck with students.
Lastly an educator must account for the space that will be used in saving and creating a video. In many cases the video production will automatically record at a moderate quality. It is important to know that the lower the recording quality, the lower the clarity. In opposition to this, the higher the quality the easier it is to see the details. That being said, there is only so much space for the storage of said videos. This year I ran into an issue with students recording videos for a project, and the inability to get the video on my computer easily. To make a long story short, the video had to be saved in a cloud based folder, and had to be downloaded to view it smoothly. This was the case because of the internet speed at the building. The second part of the problem was storing thirty large videos on my computer as space was quickly depleted.
Overall I would recommend using video as a supplementary resource or assessment tool in the classroom. I would caution that video is very data heavy though, and may cause some unexpected hiccups.
krammerblog 
Adam, I agree using video to much can be negative. When used to reinforce or demonstrate something that might enhance the students learning it can be very beneficial. Thanks for sharing your post!
Stephanie
Thanks for the post Adam. I agree with you, that there are positives and negatives like any tool. For me personally video works well helping students and myself to understand. Lorraine
[…] when instructors use a variety of tools as it makes class content more interesting but I agree with Adam who wrote about the downfalls of relying too much on one. He spoke mostly about the use of too much […]
Fantastic post Adam! I really enjoyed reading your perspective. People are such visual learners and video is a great supplementary resource can enhance and deepen our understanding in ways that lecturing and direct teaching can not. I liked how you pointed out that there is a downfall if we rely on it too much. Excellent point.
I agree, that ‘lived encounters’ are also really important… a good reason to look for balance of a blended classroom. 🙂
I agree that no video can account for student experiences. I could see myself using video as an assessment tool for student understanding. But I come back to the part about time. Is there enough time to instruct students and give students enough time to create a quality video and still cover what we need to?