ANALYSIS OF THE EDUCATIONAL VIDEOS

Introduction

In this report we will compare three videos that teacher students in Estonia and Norway have made. We will look closely at educational dimensions, technical dimensions and dimensions concerning “English as a second language” of the videos called “Healthy waffles”, “Computer parts” and “Cooking lesson”. We are going to compare the positive and the negative aspects of these three videos. At the end we are going to compare them with each other to find, which one is the best and why it is so.

Educational dimensions of the videos

The educational goals of these videos are to teach new topics and vocabulary, to develop cooking skills and to introduce computer parts through videos. The educational aims were approached by showing the activities and vocabulary to pupils, also by speaking. Videos are built up so that pupils have passive role because they are just watching the moving picture.

The videos are suitable in all three learning phases - evocation, learning and reflection. In evocation phase videos can be used to get the attention of the pupils and to warm-up the lesson. Most of all videos are suitable in learning phase because videos contain new topic. In reflection phase videos can be used as a repetition of a learnt topic.

Favourite educational video was “Cooking lesson” because it was concrete, not long and simple for pupils to watch. “Cooking lesson” contained phonetic symbols under new vocabulary which help pupils to pronounce words.

Technical dimensions of the videos

The technical quality of the videos is rather jumpy. The issues emerge in the quality of the sound. It is problematic to perform home-made videos with a decent quality and the ones attained it, deserve to be praised. The video named “Computer Parts” had a terrible sound with many words hardly understandable. Watching a learning video, it is important to have as few distractions as necessary. A hand behind the puppet, a speech of a puppet, which is not synchronized or television running as a background are avoidable pitfalls. The “Cooking Lesson” had the best quality of all the videos.

Dimensions concerning “English as a second language”

The three videos were very different in the way of exposing English as a second Language. 

The video “Computer Learning” is a bit funny - unfortunately the speaking of the movie is almost impossible to hear - if you manage to hear all the speak you will recognize that you actually have to know a lot of the language before you get the meaning.

The video “Cooking Lesson” is very useful in the teaching of English - but you have to have the instruction of making pancakes in front of you, because otherwise you don´t know how much of each ingredients you need to put in the dough.

The video “Healthy Waffles” starts with a funny an inspiring intro but considering the misuse of English it is needed to point out, that the video did include some grammatical mistakes and incorrect pronunciation.

All three movies are useful in the teaching “English as a second Language” but in different levels.

Conclusion

In conclusion, video “Cooking Lesson” is the best because it is not too long and the speaking is easy to understand. The video also show us how to prepare a pancake dough in a more concrete and clearer way than in “Healthy Waffles”. They speak quite slowly and it is easy to understand what they are saying. It is also great that they use transcription.

In “Healthy Waffles” the speaking is sometimes too fast and hard to hear. They also film the mixing a bit too long and the video tends to be a bit boring. The context of the video is great, but it does not help when the sound and the pronunciation is poor. It will be hard for the pupils to understand everything they say.

The video “Computer Parts” was an informative one but the sound was a bit poor, and there was some background noise that disturbed.

Written by Arne Hustad, Kadri Küttis, Kim Degn, Maarja Kurgpõld, Therese Aas