Handbook on Digital Video and Audio in Education - ATiT

2.3. THE VALUE OF INTERACTION
<strong>Handbook</strong> on Digital Video and Audio in Education
Given the educational potential of the moving image, it is not surprising that film and
television had an impact on education, with many universities putting in place
multimedia support services or even building production studios in support of media
based learning and teaching activities. However, effective use in the teaching and
learning was limited due to a number of reasons: the lack of skills by the teachers in the
use of the media and the necessary equipment, the cost of media and equipment, the
unavailability of the equipment when and where needed, the complications with the
rights of the materials and finally the difficulties fitting media content pedagogically into
the lesson.
Moreover, as Rosenberg puts it, “the main reason why television did not become
everyone’s teacher was because it lacked the very essential quality of teaching: the
ability to interact with the learner” (2001:22). Thus, the advent of interactive video in
the early eighties (the various forms of videodisk, CD-I and CD-Rom) was met with some
enthusiasm. “The potential application of interactive video technology in educational and
training fields is virtually unlimited,” concluded an early report sponsored by the UK
Department of Industry (Duke, 1983:104). The key to interactivity was the linking of
computers to video technology, initially videocassette recorders (VCRs) and videodisks,
allowing control over the pace and direction of the video programme. This control
enabled self-paced learning leading, according to Palmer (1987), not only to time saving
and standardised results, but also distributed learning to a large numbers of students.
Interactivity in the original sense was not confined to computer-human transactions but
included:
Access - availability asynchronously and independent of location
Choice - a library of materials to view on-demand
Control - ability to start, stop, pause, skip and review material
Even with primitive early interactive video systems, there was educational potential for
searchable random access to previously linear video resources with facilities to freeze
frame, forward and reverse and select between multiple audio tracks. The materials
could support more user-centred and independent modes of study. Some systems also
allowed branching from decision points or tests along paths laid down when the
programme was designed (Parsloe, 1985). In a series of meta-analyses of educational
outcomes, Fletcher (1990) noted that interactive videodisk-based instruction fared much
better overall than the computer-based instruction in the well-known study by Kulik and
Kulik (1987). It was not until the early nineties that the combination of desktop digital
video and CD-ROM enabled the high levels of control and integration with other
computer-based learning materials we are familiar with today. The interactive features of
modern web-based media players can be used to promote “active viewing” approaches
with students (Galbraith, 2004).
2.4. THE VALUE OF INTEGRATION
Ted Nelson rightly said in 1987 that “the trouble with interactive media is that they all
tend to be closed objects that can’t be combined or viewed together (Whereas books
can quote each other and lie open at once on the same desk)” (1987: DM67). Although
video can be used on its own, on the web it can be interlinked with slides, supporting
texts, discussion boards, chat, resource links, self assessment quizzes and so on. This
can be done by adding interactivity within the media internally for example using Action
Script within Flash, or SMIL within other (streaming) media or even more frequently
nowadays as part of an organisation’s virtual learning environment (VLE) adding
9