I have to say I admire those who can just read an article or listen to a lecture and understand it immediately. Unfortunately, I need some type of visual: a graph, a picture, a video, etc. It doesn't matter what it is so as long as I can see it. It helps information "stick" in my mind. I will never forget the first time I saw video of astronauts in space or of the floods in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
Video is also a powerful learning tool. Teachers have used it in the classroom for decades. What has changed since my days in K-12? We no longer have VHS tapes (sad, I know). We now have DVDs and flash drives and the internet and... Video is all around us. We access YouTube from not only our laptops, but from our mobile phones (I'll discuss mobile learning in November). Here is a video of Salman Khan's TED Talk about using video to reinvent education:
Khan seems to have summed up many of our R685 weekly topics in one: Open Educational Resources, Shared Online Video, Participatory Learning, Personalized Learning, and more. The availability of video gives educators options for helping their learners learn. I recall our teachers back in high school having us read a book and then watch the video of it. For instance, with Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, we read the book all semester in class. At the end of the semester, we watched the movie and then wrote a paper about the similarities and differences between the book and movie. Reading the whole book was a bit daunting, but watching the movie was a breeze (hey, it summed it up in two hours - can't get better than that!).
Video is also powerful in helping learners watch live explorations and expeditions. Although the Naulitus 2011 Live Expedition has ended for this year, it had one of the most amazing videos of live feed from a submarine. Watching video of shipwrecks and new underwater species was irreplaceable as a learning experience. Those with a fear of water can join in without having their fears come as an obstacle. Learning is powerful!!
Indeed it seems natural to believe that learning through utilities that are dominated by visual effects such as pictures, slides or videos is more enjoyable and makes difficult concepts easy to understand. This is especially true for instances in which the students are required to 'imagine' things after reading a text to properly understand the underlying concept.
ReplyDeleteTowards this end, introduction of educational videos is very promising. For one, it allows students to directly "watch" a topic and second, it is indeed more fun to see 'motion picture' than static text! This is a very easy thing to do especially in today's Internet-ready era.
However I also believe that this tool should be considered as an "addition" rather than "replacement" to other education tools, and only then the learning will be truly enriched!