Chapter 9-10, Question 2

Why is it important to preview and evaluate videos? What tools should you use to be sure a video is communicating the intended message to your students? What are alternative learning systems? How might they enhance traditional education?



It is important for educators to preview and evaluate videos for several reasons. The video should be deemed a significant enhancement to the lesson during which it will be shown. If it has nothing to do with the lesson in question, then perhaps another video choice should be made. The educator should also be screening the video for inappropriate material. Pornographic footage, excessive vulgarity, and the like should all be considered inappropriate for a classroom environment. The video should also be screened for other, more minor things that could be inappropriate for the classroom.

To ensure the video in question is conveying the intended message to one's students, an educator should watch the video, keeping the lesson in mind, and use his or her common sense to decide whether of not to show a video to the class. Of course, this will require the educator to understand both the intended message and what the video actually communicates.

From what I can gather, alternative learning systems are those systems which do not include traditional methods of learning (i.e. a traditional classroom setting, with an instructor lecturing). That being said, potentially anything else would fall under distance or alternative learning systems. Specifically, methods such as internet chatrooms, message boards, forums, etc. would be alternative to a traditional system of learning.

In light of the Information Age, the current potential of alternative learning methods should be considered nearly limitless. The ease with which information is dispensed through the medium of the internet and other technology-based methods methods of learning, creates an environment wherein ingenuity and intuition can produce almost anything. With such a powerful tool at a creative educator's disposal, nearly anything is possible.