Journal 3

Article: “Video in the Age of Participation” by Glenn Bull, from Learning and Leading with Technology on iste.org (Feb 2007)

This article explains how convenient it has become to incorporate video into your curriculum now that there are vast Internet video storage sites where you can find a short digital video file that fits nicely into your lesson plan. I took a look at the videos on PBS and there were some good science selections. The author also mentioned some African waterhole video clips on YouTube.com which I looked at. Although, not exactly exciting and dynamic, these clips are far better then watching the National Geographic webcam for hours to see one animal. I tried the Discover Education Unitedstreaming site after I signed up for the free 30-day offer. I arbitrarily asked it for content about Newton’s Laws of Motion. Oh man! This site has 23 videos about Newton’s Laws of Motion!! It’s got all kinds of media presentations to include in a lesson. It’s got video segments, images, articles, audio (songs and sound effects), quizzes, events, lesson plans, and clip art. And it has it all cross indexed by subjects and keywords! But wait! That’s not all… It’s got all this stuff categorized by grade also. But, hey! There’s even more. I can do a standards search on it! After putting in grade 12 and the state, CA, I ended up with more than 100 items related to teaching the laws of motion to 12th graders. I am totally impressed. This is a great resource. And it seems as though this resource is being utilized by a lot of schools, since 200,000 teachers have attended the Discover Education Network (DEN) workshops.

Another Internet site with digital video and other media is Next Vista, which is teacher and student oriented. And there are new Web 2.0 services coming online like “tagging” in which users can tag the content with keywords so that others can skip directly to a relevant section of the digital content. Many of these new developments are making the video content more convenient for educators to incorporate into their lesson plans.

Question 1: How would I use this technology in my high school science class? This technology is a big win for science! Usually only very verbal or logical people would be turned on by science at an early age. Appropriate, targeted short videos could excite kids and give them a high level concept oriented understanding of the laws of physics and chemistry. But they are no substitute for direct experience, or experiment in science.

Question 2: What style of learning is involved in watching a video? The dominant one is visual, as it would be in a physical demonstration as well. If there is narration, then verbal is involved somewhat but I think that in a well designed video the visual overwhelms the verbal. Video watching contrasts with lecturing while using the whiteboard which is all verbal unless you draw good pictures on the board.