Lesson 7 - Choosing Media

5.2. Presentational Skills

Video can be used to:

• Demonstrate experiments or phenomena, particularly:
• Where equipment or phenomena to be observed are large, microscopic, expensive, inaccessible, dangerous, or difficult to observe without special equipment (see 
  )
• Where resources are scarce, or unsuitable for student experimentation (e.g. live animals, human body parts) (see 
  )
• Where the experimental design is complex (for example, 
  )
• Where there is an element of risk or danger in conducting the experiment (
• Where the experimental behavior may be influenced by uncontrollable but observable variables
• Illustrate principles involving dynamic change or movement (see 
  )
• Illustrate abstract principles through the use of specially constructed physical models, for instance, 
• Illustrate principles involving three-dimensional space, for example, see 
• Demonstrate changes over time through the use of animation, slow-motion, or speeded-up video (see an example of how Haemophilus influenzae cells take up DNA, from UBC)
• Demonstrate correct procedures in health, safety, repairs, and maintenance (for an example, see 
  )
• Substitute for a field visit, by:
• Providing students with an accurate, comprehensive visual picture of a site, in order to place the topic under study in context; for instance see 
• Demonstrating the relationship between different elements of a system under study (e.g. production processes, ecological balanc brady’s EMRe); for example, see the 
• By identifying and distinguishing between different classes or categories of phenomena at the site (e.g. 
  );
• To observe differences in scale and process between laboratory and mass-production techniques;
• Through the use of models, animations or simulations, to teach certain advanced scientific or technological concepts (such as theories of relativity or quantum physics) without students having to master highly advanced mathematical techniques; see for instance ‘
  .’
• Bring students primary resource or case-study material, i.e. recording of naturally occurring events which, through editing and selection, demonstrate or illustrate principles covered elsewhere in a course
• Demonstrate ways in which abstract principles or concepts developed elsewhere in the course have been applied to real-world problems, for example,
   in the University of British Columbia’s Master of Land and Water Management
• Synthesize a wide range of variables into a single recorded event, e.g. to suggest how real-world problems can be resolved
• Demonstrate decision-making processes or decisions ‘in action’ (e.g. triage in an emergency situation) by:
• Recording the decision-making process as it occurs in real contexts
• Recording ‘staged’ simulations, dramatization or role-playing, as in the scenarios in Ryerson University’s Therapeutic Communication and Mental Health Assessment Program
• Demonstrate correct procedures in using tools or equipment (including safety procedures)
• Demonstrate methods or techniques of performance (e.g. mechanical skills such as 
  , sketching, drawing or painting techniques, or dance)
• Record and archive events that are crucial to topics in a course, but which may disappear or be destroyed in the near future, such as, for instance, street graffiti or condemned buildings (see 
  )
• Demonstrate practical activities to be carried out by students, on their own (for example, see 
  )