VIDEOPAPERS IN PROFESSIONAL ASSESSMENT AND LEARNING IN INITIAL TEACHER EDUCATION

1. VIDEOPAPERS IN PROFESSIONAL ASSESSMENT AND LEARNING IN INITIAL TEACHER EDUCATION Elisabeth Lazarus and Federica Olivero Graduate School of Education University of Bristol elisabeth.lazarus@bristol.ac.uk fede.olivero@bristol.ac.uk Elisabeth Lazarus & Federica Olivero

2. THE PLAN: 13.30 – 13.45 Introduction. Videopapers and the project 13.45 – 14.10 Reading a videopaper 14.10 – 14.45 Discussion and Findings 14.50 – 15.15 Creating a videopaper 15.15 – 15.30 Question time Elisabeth Lazarus & Federica Olivero

3. WHY “VIDEOPAPERS” – WHAT IS DIFFERENT AND WHAT IS NEW? The following approaches are already well established: • Use of video in teacher education (e.g. Sherin 2003) • Linking observations of more or less experienced teachers or trainees (real or virtual), with personal practice and experiences • Drawing on practitioner-orientated and research-based literature to underpin personal practice Elisabeth Lazarus & Federica Olivero

4. To provide scholarly and theoretical foundations for effective pedagogy To support practitioners to value their classroom experiences and use those experiences as a “text" to study and analyse in order to better understand their crafts TEACHER EDUCATION AND CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT:TWO TRADITIONS Academic research Teaching practice Different Discourses Bartels, 2003 Gee, 1996 Elisabeth Lazarus & Federica Olivero

5. Specialised terminology Propositions and prescriptions Stream of words Language of the classroom Sights, sounds and interactive features of the classroom Visual, oral and physical cues Academic Discourse Practitioners’ Discourse ? Lacks the vitality and engagement of the classroom May provide little opportunity to explore broad themes that inspire intellectual growth Elisabeth Lazarus & Federica Olivero

6. The dominant technology used to gain access to research is predominantly print publications. digital video embedded within a videopaper, in contrast, captures, preserves, and represents events in ways that connect with the world of the practitioner, a world where different forms of knowledge are continually being juxtaposed. • videopapersoffer opportunities for integrating educational theory and academic research with the excitement of classroom practice • videopapers contain the intrinsic features that belong to teachers’ discourse Elisabeth Lazarus & Federica Olivero

7. Use of videopapers …to share practice with others Beardsley et al. (in press) Nemirovsky et al. 2005 …to disseminate research Nemirovsky et al. 2001 Olivero et al. 2004 … as a tool for self-reflection and assessment Lazarus and Olivero Smith and Krumsvik ongoing Elisabeth Lazarus & Federica Olivero

8. WHAT IS A VIDEOPAPER? • Developed as part of the Bridging Research and Practice project at TERC (Boston, MA) to create an alternative genre for the production, use, and dissemination of educational research. (http://vpb.concord.org) • The project conjectured that teachers, researchers and other communities interested in education could use videopapers to make their conversations more grounded in actual events, more insightful, and more resistant to oversimplifications. • Videopapers are multimedia documents that integrate and synchronise different forms of representation, such as text, video and images, in one single non linear cohesive document. Elisabeth Lazarus & Federica Olivero

9. Video – synchronised with the text Navigation menu/tools Play buttons – synchronising text to video Closed captions Text Hyperlinks – to other pages in the videopaper or to external sources Slides – synchronised with the video Elisabeth Lazarus & Federica Olivero

10. THE PROJECT- AIMS, PARTICIPANTS AND METHODOLOGIES • To pilot the use of videopapers as a reflective learning tool for • PGCE students and its advantages/disadvantages over more • conventional use of videos, observation tasks and • assignments. • 14 volunteer MFL PGCE students with varied background in terms of • qualifications (BA, MA, PhD); experience of teaching; experience of use • of technology; native and non-native speakers of the language(s) they • were teaching (German, French & Spanish). • Videopaper used as an alternative assignment • Workshops, observations, interviews, completed videopapers. Elisabeth Lazarus & Federica Olivero

11. READING A VIDEOPAPER • What are your first impressions about this videopaper regarding structure, appearance and content? • What do you like about it? What do you not like? • Compare with other videos you have seen. • How did you go about reading the videopaper? (Where did you start? Did you read the text? Did you watch the video? In what order did you read the videopaper?) • Compare with the reading of traditional papers. • What would you say are the main potentialities of videopapers? • Which contexts you would see the use of videopapers? Elisabeth Lazarus & Federica Olivero

12. SOME FINDINGS • The process of reading a videopaper • Creating an a videopaper • The relationship between video and text • The relationship between creating a videopaper and writing an essay • Students’ perception of videopapers as a tool to support self reflection • Practical issues Elisabeth Lazarus & Federica Olivero

13. 1. Reading a videopaper “you’re not going to get the most out of it unless you’re using an optimum sequence but we’ve had to work out what the sequence actually is.” Catrin “it would have been helpful to have had a transcript or some subtitles…when you come to this from the start you’ve got to orientate yourself visually and orally.” Brid “I was very interested and I thought oh yes, I want to have a look at this and see what it’s all about. I wasn’t as intimidated as I would be if I’d approached a huge thick tome…” Liz “simple and approachable but sometimes a bit confusing” Patricia “ the idea of having choice is wonderful. But then it can also confuse. And we were trying to pick our way through. And yeah there are different ways of reading, but you’ve got to navigate yourself and it took us a while to actually work out what might be the optimum route.” Laura Elisabeth Lazarus & Federica Olivero

14. 1. What about the reader? “actually approaching this make me think about how conditioned we are as a reader to start from a certain place. Although we did concede that you often flick forwards to the conclusion after you’ve looked at the introduction (in a conventional paper)” Liz “if you think of websites and stuff you don’t really do that (read in a linear fashion). And that’s the same idea, like lots of information. And you don’t go A to Z on a website, you look through the things that you’re interested in.” Catherine “you could have a preferred reading which is what you would like the reader to do, but then you leave freedom to the reader as well to follow another path.” Aurelien Does the reader becomes a participant who can control what and how the text/video is read/watched? Elisabeth Lazarus & Federica Olivero

15. 2. Creating a video paper– Selecting clips “I had a plan in my head already. I saw the video and I had the plan for my videopaper in my head. The lesson, the issues…well the mistakes I made…and the issues I wanted to focus on. So it was very easy and it was kid of almost chronological.” Catherine “I almost did a kind of little lesson. My video is almost a sum up of the lesson. There was the objectives, the main activities, then the plenary.” Aurelien “But I thought I was quite hard…cos we couldn’t have that much video in…(one activity) caused chaos and I did not want to put that in, not because I didn’t want to show that I’d made mistakes but because it was just so messy it would have taken up lots of time in the footage…” Laura Elisabeth Lazarus & Federica Olivero

16. 3. Relationship between text and video “I think that’s (limiting the focus) maybe a better way…because then you can go deeper into the issues and we can pinpoint…you can show bits of video that go towards that and not show random bits like…” Brid “but the video ought to supplement the text really. Is the text the most important? Can we make a value judgements?” Liz “using the text to analyse what’s going on, rather than describing exactly what you’re going to see in the video anyway. Otherwise it’s a bit pointless having it there.” Liz “(the text is) an other dimension of (the video clip) in a sense.” Christine “Some clips are too short to really get a sense of the class – sort of feels like it’s just for the sake of it, seeing a classroom with students in it, and they don’t really get that continuation feeling.” Catherine Elisabeth Lazarus & Federica Olivero

17. 3. Relationship between video and text “The thing I really love about videopaper is that you don’t have to explain with words what was going on – it’s all on the video.” Aurelien “Yeah and you won’t get the comments of the people who assess it and saying no you’re telling the story. Cos you always get that – don’t tell the story, you know, analyse it.” Patricia” “But then I suppose you might see something different to someone else, because you were teaching and somebody else who wasn’t teaching might pick up something else … I don’t know - Catherine Elisabeth Lazarus & Federica Olivero

18. 4. Videopaper vs essay - Language and genre “I don’t see why you should make it less academic because it’s a videopaper. When you read academic… like people take it seriously…I do think that there are a lot of people who will…or would… take it less seriously. And I think it takes away some of what you’ve put in if you’re dumbing down all the language just because it is a videopaper.“ Catherine - “Not the kind of language but the amount of language.” Liz “So you were more discursive?Yeah, just because you know that maybe a few people are gonna read it and it will be read again so you don’t want it to be all just theory, you want them to see well, I did this and you know there are gonna be other teachers and they are like: Oh that was a good idea.” Brid Elisabeth Lazarus & Federica Olivero

19. 4. Videopaper vs essay - “seeing” and realism “You could actually see what you were talking about whereas if you were writing an essay, it’s quite hard, you know, you have to try and visualise the lessons…and it was great to take a break from typing and just have a look at the clip and you would watch it and think about this is what I’m gonna say.” Brid “In a videopaper you have much more freedom which can be very positive or negative if the reader feels like, um, not getting enough out of it because he doesn’t think on his own.” Christine “If you compare it to a normal essay it gives you a realistic dimension because it is not abstract any more; you’re not talking about behaviour management, big theories, here you have the reality, practice, it’s not just writing but connecting theories to the practice and the other way.” Liz Elisabeth Lazarus & Federica Olivero

20. 5. Reflective practice - Iterative process? FindingsIterative learning possibilities “I think that if you maybe do two, three or four of them and then you would compare them you could see maybe if you’ve improved or if things changed, if maybe because you’re in a different environment, in a different school, at a different time with a different class maybe you see ‘oh my God I managed so well with this group’ and if you look back at one example of a lesson we did and then you see that you actually lost some of the strategies and you found like; ‘oh I’m not doing this anymore’ or maybe you say ‘I left this behind because now I’ve seen that’s it’s not that useful or anything.’ So you would maybe go back and see how you changed so.” Christine Elisabeth Lazarus & Federica Olivero

21. 6. Practical issues Workshops, mutual and individual support seen as essential by all participants – Federica’s expertise was invaluable • Group 1 used VideoPaper Builder 2; Group 2 used VideoPaper Builder 3 - free software, easy to install – some of the students installed it at home as well; clips edited with iMovie or windows movie maker • VpB3 is much easier to use – 2nd group experienced fewer problems and time was used more effectively • Who makes the video recording? Experience? (camera position, use of locking devices etc) - influenced the final quality • In one case school made analogue recording of student and contingency measures were needed Elisabeth Lazarus & Federica Olivero

22. Some general comments Less experienced ICT users spent longer on film editing and building their videopaper – very proud of their achievement but in comparison produced text of a much more superficial nature. Video dominates. • Wanted to enlarge slide section and size of video • Quality of sound recordings variable • Transcriptions and subtitles could have been helpful Elisabeth Lazarus & Federica Olivero

23. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS • What to say and what not to say • Can the video speak by itself? • Can the text be read on its own? • What do you ‘see’ in a video? Role of evidence • Being able to ‘see’ as opposed to having to visualise • Freedom in writing a videopaper – What ‘genre’ • Videopapers allow for multiple perspectives Elisabeth Lazarus & Federica Olivero

24. CREATING A VIDEOPAPER • What is the focus of your videopaper? • How do you want the pieces (video, text, slides) to interact? • Do you wish certain pieces to carry more weight than others? • Do you want your readers/viewers to 'read' in a particular order? • What do you want to have your readers/viewers attention drawn to? • Who is the intended audience? Elisabeth Lazarus & Federica Olivero

25. OVERALL PROCESS FOR CREATING A VIDEOPAPER Filming – DV tape Converting into .mov or .mpg Editing (Windows Movie Maker) – videoclip .wmv & preparing additional material – images, screenshots .jpg • Creating/editing the videopaper (VPB3) • Videoclip • Text • Slides • Play/Page Link buttons VideoPaper Builder 3.0 (vpb.concord.org) Videopaper (any browser) Publishing the VP Elisabeth Lazarus & Federica Olivero

26. Video Text Filming Transfer video to the computer Edit clips (+ captions) max 5-8 minutes Choose size (320x240, 480x360) Save as .wmv movie Convert to Quicktime movie file or Mpeg Insert clip in VPB3 Creating text divided into sections HTML files or type directly in VPB References Hyperlinks to external sources or to other pages Elisabeth Lazarus & Federica Olivero

27. Slides Links Collect additional material Screen snapshots, power point slides students’ worksheets Lesson plans Java applats Scan material into .JPG file where needed Insert slides in VPB3 timeline They appear at pre-defined times while the movie is playing From text to video (Play button) From video to text (Page Link) From text to slides (Slide button) To references Elisabeth Lazarus & Federica Olivero

28. The work continues… • “Watching video affords the opportunity to develop a different kind of knowledge for teaching – knowledge not of “what to do next”, but rather, knowledge of how to interpret and reflect on classroom practices.” (Sherin, 2003, p.17) • “The intellectual work the videopaper demands arises from the fact that video, text, and slides must be connected in order for the narrative to emerge. This interconnectedness pushes the author to closely examine the relationship between the images and their text, to think carefully about exactly how to generate meaning from their media. The exactness of the medium demands that one makes precise choices in editing and concentrates on discrete themes in the video.” (Beardsley et al, forthcoming) Elisabeth Lazarus & Federica Olivero

29. WHERE NEXT? • Start small and be sceptical • Technical infrastructure (e.g. access to video cameras) Where next? • Expand study dependent on agreement of schools, parents, pupils and participants • Cross-subject cohorts (History PGCE) • Cross-disciplinary work (counselling MEd) • Videopaper as research tool • Videopaper as a new academic genre Elisabeth Lazarus & Federica Olivero