Short video as a powerful tool

Youtube has been around since 2005 and since then it has generated different kind of interests and communities. Youtube has been the company that made us realize the power of animated or moving pictures in a short length. If the plan is carried on properly, the shorter the video, the more powerful is its message and more meanings are generated. This is pretty much at the end of the storytelling sphere where you have on the other end the film format that extends to two hours or more to convey a story and a message.

In the digital age quality is not measured by length but how the content is expressed. In this segment I will showcase different short videos that were produced by former students and try to make a point that a short video is just as powerful too.

The following examples are from the project I did with Lennarth Bernhardsson, a Digital Media instructor from University West Sweden back in 2011. We wanted to uncover what makes “a great learning experience” and the students express their answers by creating a two-minute video or less.

 Learning is not only confined in the classroom setting, on the contrary it’s the experience you gain that makes your learning worthwhile. It’s true that you can never learn without guidance, but guidance being itself is only there to aid you in your learning experience. Our group believes that people learn best if they discover something and this something sparks their interest, the interest they gain will keep them motivated to learn and through enough practice will give them the skill they need to succeed. The video was directed by John Eric Uy.

 

Failing a class doesn’t always mean the end of the world. This video shows how one can turn little setbacks into learning experiences.

Next Time by Igoy Dimaano, Iya Del Rio, Kevin Caballas, Mark Moraga, Nicole See-Diet is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

 This was done as a part of a video and editing course at University West. We were to express a “Great Learning Experience” through the use of mostly only Creative Commons Material.- Linus Forsell

The three videos exhibited 21st century student outputs. It shows and demonstrates students today have a medium of their own blended with their own creativity.

Thank you Youtube for this wonderful digital invention. Everyone can create a story or tell a message and broadcast it in a platform that is accessed by the whole world. As most institutions recognize the power of video, even the Ministry of Education of Singapore has made it as a very meaningful tool to tell their citizens and to tell the world the importance of the teaching profession. Here are two videos they have made to tell that teaching is an important business and profession in the development of a nation.

The video Mrs. Chong was uploaded in 2012 in Youtube and the Why video was only uploaded this 2016.

Each of these videos of the Ministry of Education of Singapore is three minutes. But each is filled with insightful questions, narrative and reflections to tell. This is the power of the short video.

ICT Teaching

ICT Teaching as a combination of practice and a way of thinking brings us to a teaching dimension that is characterized by habits, dependency and conformity. This is all true if ICT is doing all the things we want to happen. On the other hand, it leads to frustration, exhaustion and detachment when the opposite happens.

So along the way I will be introducing some nurturing experiences that may give insight one way or the other to the practice of ICT Teaching.

 

 

ICT Teaching is.. a Way of Thinking

While technology is an instrument of how to perform new ways of doing things, the nature of technology is not technological as the German philosopher Martin Heidegger (Lovitt, 1977) argued on it. He claimed that its nature is coupled by freedom in the process that reveals its nature and is able to frame a fresh way of looking at things.

Having been in the field of teaching for many years and using ICT for effective teaching, I could not disagree with Martin Heidegger. Use of ICT in teaching has revealed important statements in my humble opinion. These statements are in itself part of the nature of technology that I have recognized in my long years in the field .

First, ICT in teaching is in itself a way of thinking.

Many studies had been made claiming the effect of ICT in teaching leads to better understanding, better learning. I am aware of those studies too. But this is how I explain the statement.

ICT brings forth not only a different modality of instruction and an effective, efficient way of teaching. ICT is a practice, a way of exploring different possibilities. In teaching, ICT creates a ball game of what-ifs, expanded discerning and more so, while some actions are intended for less or unthinking, more musings and deductions actually happen.

In choosing a particular application or platform or computing instrument for example, will this choice enable the outcome that is envisioned. What techniques or strategies would complement such choice? Will such selection and its usage invent a worthwhile impact? So while many assume that there is not much thinking to do with ICT on hand, it is the opposite, more pondering and deducing to be done.

 

Second, ICT in teaching leads to a whole different mindset of teaching and delivering outcomes.

Once a selection of an ICT solution turns out to be fruitful and has a perceived worthwhile impact, it then leads now to an evolving method of teaching. One, it creates a realization that delivering outcomes with the use of ICT would produce a new set of skills and aptitudes on the part of the learners apart from what is intended. Two, this generates another dimension of teaching, that is, teaching now requires a continuous upper hand of ICT to be more meaningful and to produce both planned and unimagined, positive possibilities.

 

Third, ICT in teaching exhumes a totally different evolution of education.

Technology creates a perception of vulnerability and control that we deem it as a standard, necessary medium now in teaching. Along the way, having the upper hand, we become consumed by technology, consciously or unconsciously. It creates a mindset that teaching could not be more effective without technology and that teaching is now difficult to perform without technology.

The evident dependency of teaching on ICT is now unveiled. “ICT in teaching” or “ICT with teaching” or “ICT teaching” becomes a coupled words, a compound term or an idiom to express ICT teaching is a new way of thinking, an evolving way of teaching.

Lovitt, W. (1977). Martin Heidegger The question concerning technology and other essays. Harper and Row Publishers, New York.