VIDEO UTILIZATION STRATEGIES

Preview each program carefully to determine its suitability for achieving the lesson's objectives and the students' learning outcomes.

Select Segments that are most relevant to your lesson topic. Often a program has a great deal of information that cannot be digested at once; in that event, it is useful to show the program in segments so that its content is more easily understood.

Lights on During Viewing indicates to students that the video is an integral, active part of the lesson and that they are responsible for its content, as well as any pre-viewing or post-viewing instruction that may be given to them by the teacher.

Provide a Focus for Media Interaction. Provide students with a specific task to complete and/or information to identify during or after viewing of video segments. Teachers should introduce videotape segments with a question, things to look for, unfamiliar vocabulary or an activity that will make the program's content clearer.

Conduct Introductory and Culminating Activities. Integrate the video into the overall learning experience by framing the lesson with experiential components. Activities should be done prior to viewing videotape segments to set the stage, provide background information, identify new vocabulary words or to introduce the topic. An additional activity should be done following viewing to reinforce, apply, review or extend the information conveyed by the program.

Pause while viewing to:

• Check the students' comprehension.
• Ask questions.
• Have students record information, make predictions, analyze what they've seen.
• Examine a chart, formula or image on the screen more closely.
• Have the students draw a diagram.

Eliminate either the sound or the picture, if appropriate. For example, a segment may feature outstanding cinematography and/or graphics, but may be accompanied by narration inappropriate for your students. In such cases, turn down the volume and provide your own narration. Another strategy is to eliminate the sound and have your students describe the images they see. Alternatively, you can isolate the soundtrack by covering the monitor and have your students guess what is happening based on the narration alone. These strategies can be expanded with closed captioned programming: turn down the audio and have the students follow the action by reading along, or leave only the captioned text visible to reinforce vocabulary and improve reading comprehension.