Next Vista Reflection

I think that I have come to a greater appreciation and understanding of how video can benefit education. After looking around in this website and seeing the various videos that help students to learn, I can see the endless values that video can do both for the student and teacher.


The three videos that I viewed were "Mean, Median, and Mode" from the light bulb section, "Santa Clara California" from the global section, and "This is for Me Video" from the seeing section. Below are my thoughts, reflections, and ideas of each of the videos.

Mean, Median, Mode Video (Light Bulbs)

http://s99.photobucket.com/albums/l292/nextvista/light_bulbs/?action=view&current=mean_median_mode.flv

Weaknesses:

- Instructor kept on coming in and out of the screen
- The whiteboard he was using was not big enough…all of his work was clumped together
- He repeated words too frequently like “average" and "in this case"
- His voice could have had more inflection and enthusiasm

Strengths:

- Lighting was decent
- Voice was clear
- The instruction was accurate and I feel a child could learn how to find the mean, median and mode by watching the video

If I was doing this presentation or video I would have referred to the mean, median, and mode collectively as central tendencies, not as averages. Also, I would have used a larger whiteboard as well as more colored markers.

____________________________________________________________________ Santa Clara California Video (Global Views)

http://s99.photobucket.com/albums/l292/nextvista/global_views/?action=view&current=Santa_Clara_CA_USA_01.flv

Weaknesses:

- Pictures were blurry and sometime skipped
- In the very beginning the audio was undecipherable
-The audio throughout was muffled and sounded like the microphone was too close

Strengths:

- The script was informative and had some dry humor in it - made me chuckle a couple of times
- Many images were incorporated
- I enjoyed the ending of “it’s not NY, it’s not LA” with the appropriate shots of each city
- I thought the video showed a variety of views to Santa Clara, from the school, to the library, to the amusement park, and then the Central Park.

With this presentation there is little that I would do differently except adjust the microphone and touch up the images through Fireworks or Photoshop. I also might try to incorporate some effects to the images entering and exiting in each clip. For instance a 360 degree spin, a fade in from the right, a scroll up, or a fade to black. I think that effects as well as the transition between images is essential in keeping a child’s attention.

____________________________________________________________
This is for Me Video (Seeing Service)

http://s99.photobucket.com/albums/l292/nextvista/seeing_service/?action=view&current=This_is_for_Me_New_Orleans.flv

Weaknesses:
- It was difficult to understand the two boys at times – their voices trailed off at the end of clips or there seemed to be an incorrect emphasis on certain words.

Strengths:

- Really enjoyed all of the different images (still shots, video camera recordings, live images of the narrators, outside views of the narrators)
- Liked the content of the video – it is refreshing to see some positive videos from teenagers
- Lighting and timing of the images were good
- Credits page at end wrapped up the video nicely

There is not too much differently I would do with this video except possibly rehearse my script more so my timing, pauses, and transitions would all be clean. That being said though, I really liked how the video told a story and was genuine.