Year 2013 marked the rise of a new phenomenon in education— Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). It was backed by great optimism, that of much needed disruption in education system, worldwide. By the year 2017, the optimism has abated — only 5.5% of the participants that enrol into MOOCs, complete it.

However, there is no denying that MOOCs have changed the education landscape. Videos — the primary distribution format of MOOCs — have made high quality education freely accessible to anyone, anywhere.

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Advantages of video in teaching

1. Higher retention rate

Moving imagery and sound create a multi-sensory engagement leading to easier visualisation of concepts, compared to that created by monochromatic text in a textbook. Not only that, studies show that our brains process visuals 60,000X faster than text [Zabisco].

2. More learner autonomy

Every student is different, and an area where video clearly trumps traditional ‘one-to-many lectures’ is the freedom it gives to the learner to review and re-visit the material. Learners can watch the video lesson at their own comfortable pace, at any time and place they wish.

3. Cost effective & time efficient

Video not only serves as an inexpensive alternative to co-location, but also enables us to look in the past. Be it a virtual tour of a factory located in a remote town, or a glimpse of Nehru’s Independence day speech, video gives us access to both space and time beyond our reach.

Things to keep in mind while using video in teaching

The possibilities offered by new technology can appear overwhelming, challenging and unsettling to traditional teaching. However, technology has a habit of promising much, but without always delivering [BBC]. Hence, though video is a superior medium of pedagogy in several ways, its potency depends on multiple factors:

1. Keeping it short

As average attention span continues to diminish, it is becoming painstakingly difficult for students to concentrate on and extract value from a lecturer’s monologue. Hence, to maximise effectiveness, videos must be brief, focused and well segmented. A topic-wise breakup of video enables students to form stronger neural connections that result in longer retention.

2. Keeping it interactive

Undoubtedly, video diminishes the didactic interaction[Zac Woolfitt]. Hence, it is imperative to simulate discussions through a comment section on each video where students can learn from their peers, and teachers can clarify doubts.

3. Knowing your audience

A video lecture that simplifies and gives a fleeting overview of a subject might be worthless for a batch of experts who are looking for in-depth learning. Students at different points on the learning curve need to be catered differently. While, a teacher in classroom lecture can steer the discussion based on the realtime feedback, this is not possible in case of videos. Hence, ensuring that your videos are built for the intended audience and served to the target group is extremely important.

Conclusion

We live in a time when technological advancement is outpacing behavioral change. But we must remember that new technology by itself can never bring an overnight revolution. It takes conscious and arduous efforts on our part to combine the digital apparatus with our analogous selves. Just so with video as a mode for education, the onus is on the stakeholders to make it a success.

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ReClipped is a tool to annotate, collect, share and discover video segments from various online video platforms. We equip our users with the ability to better synthesise their video consumption.