Assessment 1: Embedded Task 2

The following blog entry is in response to Assessment 1: Embedded Task 2

 

 

Media in the Classrom: Video Technology 

http://microgestio.com/imgs/cursos/2283ztvqo04-use-of-audiovisual-language-in-classroom-projects-advanced-video-editing.jpg

The presence of media in our lives is experienced every day, primarily as forms of entertainment or advertising. However, the use of audio, video, and image media in our school classrooms has the potential to enhance the learning experience of students (and teachers) by allowing a concept to be expressed and interpreted in a range of mediums and styles. There have been numerous times when I failed to understand my highschool teacher or university lecturer explain a concept to me for 1 to 3 hours, but after getting home and watching a fifteen minute youtube video I have a very comfortable grasp of what I was meant to have understood earlier.

It is known that different personalities can corresspond with different learning styles; meaning that while some children may excel at learning from a particular teaching style, others may not. Other children may understand the information and concept if it was simply communicated to them from a different approach. Four general learning styles and their corressponding personality traits are illustrated below:

https://smartprimaryed.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/learningstyles.jpg

Video Technology

Teaching with educational video media can allow students to learn and understand information in new ways and at new depths. Based on the above image demonstrating the four fundamental learning types, an educational video experience has the ability to target and engage all four types:

1. Visual - representing information through visual cues, animations, and demonstrations
2. Aural - a voice-over explaining information or creating dialogue
3. Read/Write - written text within a video and spaces to write information in interactive video
4. Kinesthetic - activities to complete, answers to physically select in an interactive video

The capability of a single video to simulateously engage with these four different learning styles allows the learning and processing of information to engage a wider audience equally. The youtube clip below is a demonstration of how teaching a concept can be enhanced and communicated through an educational video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd6nLM2QlWw

Technology has the ability to be paused (to allow time for information to be processed and for an additional explanation), rewound to any point, fast-forwarded to any point, and replayed. The ability for the speed setting of a video to be set allows a student to watch the video at a slower speed, or a faster learner to watch it at a faster speed. However, videos are not like blogs in the sense that they can be easily edited with a few clicks, or authored by multiple people from different locations. Privacy settings can restrict the video from being viewed by certain groups or people, and the same goes for whom can comment and share a video. 

Video media is incredibly easy to use as a viewer; needing only a capable device (smartphone, tablet, computer, television) and the media content (DVD, blue-ray, USB, or internet connection). This includes manipulating video settings such as speed settings, definition quality, and from which point you wish to watch. Creating and editing a video can be difficult for a beginner and will require several hours to learn the process. However, if you wish to reflect on digital artefacts, it can be quite simple to create and share a single recorded video from your smartphone. A video call is another technology in which video media is used. It does not involve creating a video to share, but instead creates a temporary space online for two or more users to communicate in real time via a video connection; as illustrated below:

https://blogs.skype.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/11.jpg

In my experience as a highschool student I have witnessed how the power to create your own media being abused, such as creating image, audio, and video with offensive or inappropriate content. When creating, sharing, and viewing video media there are legal, safety, and ethical protocols which must be established. Several basic standards which should always apply are outlined below:

• Appropriateness of media content being shown to a certain age audience; following Australian codes of practice
• No footage which includes students should ever be created or shared without the official consent of the neccessary parties invovled (student and parent). 
• Representation - ensuring a school or companies name is not inappropriately shown or represented.
• Video creators must be informed of copyright and plagarism issues, and taught how to correctly reference outsourced information and media
• Video creators must be made aware of certain ethical responsibilities they agree to when first creating their personal blog: no posting inappropriate content and no suggestions of bullying. 

The growing use of video technology creates oppurtunities for students to engage in learning in unique ways, and due to the large variety of ways in which a video can be created and the complexity involved, students are encouraged to collaborate and network with one another. By creating, sharing, and giving feedback on such media content, they are becoming consumers and creators of knowledge, and more importantly discovering their own strengths and communicative styles.

The SAMR Model

As discussed last week, the four concepts which define the SAMR can aid teachers in integrating technology into the classroom to enhance the learning experience. To align with the theme of this weeks topic, below is the SAMR model explained in a youtube clip (educational video technology):





The possibilities of educational video technology reflected within the SAMR model can help to discover creative and innovative proposals how it can be communicated effectively within the classroom. Practical examples are outlined below.

1. Redefinition - Science students are required to collaborate in groups of four to create a twenty minute documentary on any relevant topic. Students are encouraged to learn from watching other documentaries, but are given complete freedom in structure, content and presentation style. All submissions will be uploaded to a private youtube account (under control of the teacher) and every individual students is required to comment a question on the video from another group (with answers also being required from the group). All documentary assignments are required to be submitted into a local competition (if available). The highest graded submission will be posted on the school's website.
2. Modification - Science students are required to submit an experimental report on a self-created experiment. The report includes all typical features, however, a complete video of all experimental trials must be produced including an audio narration of the events taking place.
3. Augmentation - When introducing a new topic, the teacher plays a video in which multi-choice questions are proposed. The teacher pauses the video at different times to allow students to indicate their answer choice, and when the video is resumed, statistics are provided on which answers are typically selected most, along with an explanation and demonstration as to how the correct answer is justified.
4. Substitution -  The teacher begins to play a youtube video by 'Khan Academy' in which the author of the video spends fifteen minutes introducing a mathematic topic (such as graphing linear expressions) and demonstrating five examples of increasing difficulty. In this case the teacher could achieve the same task but is substituted by the video lecture.