Technology As a Tool - School Videos Enhance Your Lesson

The use of school videos within the classroom can greatly enhance the learning experience for a given lesson when you carefully select and prepare for the viewing. Sure, you may want to rely on videos from time to time to simply teach or entertain your students while you catch up on other things, but if you only use videos for this purpose, you are missing out on some key learning tools.

Videos often have the ability to not only be compelling,https://www.fetc.org/ but to teach ideas and concepts in a way that can be very exciting to students. This experience not only gives you and your students a break from the norm, watching school videos also introduces a different method of teaching that can be very effective.

Technology Advancements
Video has certainly come a long way from the traditional 16mm projectors used years ago. Now, technology allows for interactive engagement in the viewing experience unlike ever before. According to James Marshall of the Department of Technology at San Diego State, educational technology complements what a great teacher does naturally.

Dr. Marshall went on to note that with the ever-expanding content and technology choices available - from video to multimedia - there is an unprecedented need to understand the recipe for success, which involves the student, the teacher, the content and the environment in which the technology is used.

Students of Today
Students that come into your classroom today are considered to be digital natives in that they are used to graphics and clever visual images. As a result, many students struggle to sit quietly for a dry set of notes delivered by you. They delight in visual examples and as long as they move, they grab their attention.

To get the most out of the use of school videos, help your students interact with the video by stopping and discussing the ideas or images for a few minutes. This can lead to a better learning experience, and it helps to get the students' attention.

Arousal Theory
In his research, Marshall highlights that different people learn best in different states of arousal. Things that work well to get my attention may not be exactly the same for you. To arouse students, you need to involve their intellect, their emotions and even their state of physical activity.

Short-Term Gratification
Students today are not used to waiting for gratification; they expect it quickly. The use of school videos helps to meet the needs of short-tem gratification, while also taking students deeper to help them to learn the pleasure of a more delayed gratification. As video offers a fast and active learning mode, you can use it to lure your students into a more in-depth learning experience.