CoTech 2010-2011

Introduction

The purpose of this common report is to survey three educational videos: “Cooking Lesson”, “Computer Parts” and “How to Make Muffins” and to analyze these videos considering three aspects: educational dimensions, technical dimensions and dimensions concerning “English as a second language”.

„Cooking Lesson“

The main educational goal for this step-by-step video is to learn vocabulary realated to cooking and kitchen: a pancake, a bowl, a pan, an egg, milk, a whisk, salt, sugar, flour, oil, to crack, to mix, to add, to put, to preheat, dough, to pour, to cook, to serve, a salad, a cucamber, a tomato, a small cabbage, a knife, to cut. Also through this video pupils can learn how to make pancakes and salad. By showing pictures of the kitchen tools with the proper names and phonetic symbols pupils are able to connect words with meanings and increase their learning.

In this video, like in other cooking videos, the children can be both active and passive, it depends on the teacher. For example if pupils are in the kitchen, they can use the video as the recipe and they will be active. Also the while-watching activity can be activating. If the students just sit in the classroom and watch the video, then students will be passive.

The educational purposes were approached by showing how to make pancakes and salad, what pupils need for that. Also pronunciation, spelling and phonetic symbols were added.

The techincal quality of the video was great. This video had better lighting than the others I have seen, and the sound was really good. The focus was on the ingredients not on the people, so everyone can clearly see what to do. As subtitles, they were a little bit big and they took away a big part of the screen and they easily become the focus point.

This video is suitable in the learning phase, where students learn the new thing, beacuse the new words are introduced in this video.

There were any misuse of English. The pronunciation and the spelling were correct.

I think that this video is suitable for younger pupils. Maybe I would have added some music. I am a little bit sad beacuse there was no music and there was no humour.

„Computer parts“

Educational dimensions of the video:

The main educational goal for this video is to learn vocabulary realated to computers: a monitor, a screen, a mouse, a keyboard, a speaker, a hard disk drive, a microprocessor, a motherboard. Also this video teaches where you should go when something is wrong with your computer. This is why this video is suitable in the learning phase, where students starts to learn new words.

The educational purposes were approached by showing the parts of a computer and describing what role the parts have and how these parts work. Also pupils can hear the pronunciation and see the spelling of words.

When using this video pupils have passive role, but the pupils´ role depends also on the teacher. If the while-watching activity is activating then pupils can be active.

Technical dimensions of the video:

Technically there was one problem- the sound of this video was very quiet, it was almost impossible to hear what the puppet was saying. Also there should have been more action, and the ending was odd - "there will be a test". This is not a good way to end an educational video.

Dimensions conscerning "English as a second language":

The use of English in this video was excellent. It was not only a informative use of the language, it was also chatty and natural. But in some places there was too much speaking about one part of computer. There was no misuse- the pronunciation and spelling were correct.

In this video a puppet was the one with computer problems and this made the context in this video a bit more fun. But at the same time it makes the target group a little bit confusing, beacause the vocabulary was too difficult for younger pupils, but the puppet was too childish for older pupils.

The use of English in this video was excellent. There was no misuse. It was not only a informative use of the language, it was also chatty and natural. But in some places there was too much speaking about one part of computer.

Technically there was one problem- the sound of this video was very quiet, it was almost impossible to hear what the puppet was saying. There should have been more action, and the ending was odd - there will be a test. This is not a good way to end an educational video.

The background was plain and simple so that the computer parts were in focus.

„How to make muffins“

The educational goal for this video is to teach children the proper names for the kitchen tools and how to make muffins. Pupils can learn words like icing sugar, food colours, sugar, flour, water, baking powder, muffins, margarine, milk, eggs and different verbs.

The goal was approached by introducing the ingredients for the children and using a step-by-step video to make them able to do it themselves. Also pupils can hear the pronunciation and see the spelling of ingredients were added.

Like in other videos the activity level of pupils depends on the teacher.

The video was good, but there should have been more pictures and some music playing on the background. Maybe I would have added some music and phonetic sympols.

I think that this video is suitable in the learning phase, where students learn the new thing.

The techincal quality of the video was satisfying, spelling was mostly correct, but the pronunciation was a little strange. There was some misuses of English. For example the pronunciation and selling (food colours not food colouring)

The sound disappers sometimes, so it was hard to follow.

In the beginning of the video they told us, and showed us, the list of ingredients. This will gives the names, and the spelling of each ingredient. Here we would have shown a picture of the ingredient at the same time, so one could connect the name to something concrete.

This video is suitable for older pupils, beacus there were no text to read, only listening. The people in this video talked really slowly. Pupils that this video is meant for would handle another tempo.

CoTech – video production

A part of the CoTech project is to produce an educational video.

The initial point is to take one of the already existing videos and based on our choice produce our own video. The tasks includes that we are reflecting over the other video by pointing out the good and the negative parts of this production. On the other hand should the video suit to educational lesson.

We decided to reflect over the video about “adjectives and degree of comparison” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaecFKRLTOA&feature=player_embedded).

The video demonstrates that the producers have put a lot of effort in preparing the setting, in ordering the structure and in writing the dialogs and histories. The fact that the used adjectives are written in the video shows the focus on the topic of the educational video.

In some parts of the video it is a bit difficult to follow the dialogs and histories because of talking a bit too fast and unclearly.

One other thing we observed is that the relation between the content and the way it is presented not is adequate. We don´t think it is appropriate to explain difficult adjectives like savage and grumpy with for example Winnie the Pooh. These adjectives are rather for kids in the age of 10, while the setting up reminds more of 1.grade students. Expressed in other words, the presentation of the adjectives is too childish I comparison to the difficulty of the chosen adjectives.

For our own video we want to point out this contradiction by explaining a difficult mathematics formula by using items for small children.

By speaking directly to the audience, in this case the children, we want to build a relation to an educational situation.

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