This week’s lecture touched on videos, and I would specifically like to dive further into how this medium can support learning, or more specifically its relevance to education.

I think fundamentally, any sort of image compilation tool will be more easily accepted by students than say reading from a textbook, regardless of the concept. This is solely based on that fact that we as humans have brains that respond quickly to visuals, and we can make stronger connections in terms of retaining information when we are able to associate facts with pictures. Building off of this, abstract ideas that may be difficult to understand without any prior knowledge can be layed out in a step-by-step sort of way, only focusing on certain details at once. Additionally, the topic of distant learning is incredibly pertinent right now with the necessary pre-cautions of covid-19, and thus video has been integrated into the majority of classrooms worldwide, for either connecting groups of people, or posting content for asynchronous courses that rely on self-study. The preceding is also important in relation to providing resources that anyone can access at anytime. For example, a student who needs to gain a better understanding of multiplication in math can simply look up help when they don’t have their teacher present. They can even stop, pause, skip, or rewind what they are watching to ensure that they are thoroughly aware of what is occurring, as time can sometimes be limited in a school setting. Lastly, video creation itself is a great way to promote digital literacy, as it requires children to become familiar with how a software functions and can be manipulated, a useful 21st century skill.

Taking a look at the opposing side, some downsides of videos for improving comprehension might include how:
1. There is a limited availability of open, high quality educational video options.
2. It is time-consuming for instructors to familiarize themselves with how to integrate video formats into their lessons, as well as design activities that work along side them.
3. Links, or technology in general, are not always reliable as they can eventually become inactive.
4. Without closed captioning videos are not necessarily inclusive/accesible to everyone.

As a group, we also explored the value of screencasts, and below I have attached a trial one of me teaching how to draw a stickman, that I made using the screen recording feature on my iPad, and the app Notability.

Trial Screencast