Video for Learning

I went to a poster session called Creating a Free, Online Library of Video Resources for Everyone. I met Rushton Hurley, who is a former teacher and principal, who created Next Vista for Learning. Next Vista is a free, online video library with work using the Creative Commons license. The advantage is that all videos are made by students and teachers. The great part of it is that the videos can be downloaded therefore not requiring the bandwidth of a streaming video. I spoke with Rushton for a while and spoke with him about the challenges of providing streaming content to students. He said he is looking for people to add videos. All content will be prescreened by educators. When we spoke, Rushton was focusing on three library collections: Light Bulbs; Global Views; and Seeing Service.
The Light Bulbs section includes videos where a teacher or student is presenting a content topic in an engaging, fun way. The videos are to be short focusing on a single module. For instance, he has a video of a math instructor teaching mean, mode and median. The goal is to be short clips that a teacher can use to supplement their instruction or use for a lesson introduction or summary. The goal for students is to allow them to have the content presented in another way and that is available to them outside of the classroom.
The Global Views section includes videos that feature students presenting other cultures and other countries. The videos can be used to generate discussions and allow students to showcase their work. The Global Views video library collection aims to help prepare students to be global citizens.
The Seeing Service video library collection includes videos highlighting the good work students are doing in their communities. The videos can be used for discussions, to generate project ideas or even part of a project requirement. It is a great way for students to inspire one another.
I was impressed with Rushton and the Next Vista project. He truly believes we need to incorporate more visual learning to engage our students. He also believes that with the wide variety of tools available students and teachers can create quality videos. Rushton sees the Next Vista website as an open source alternative to expensive, commercial sites. He believes that together students and teachers can offer the same quality content as vendors. He hopes to have a collection together and online for the fall, by NECC 2007 his goal is to provide access to 200 student and teacher made videos.
Personally, I think it is a great idea and if you are creating videos at all then to check out this site and contribute videos. Who knows more what is needed to teach students – video producers or teachers and students? If you have some videos to contribute I strongly recommend adding them to this online collection.