Developing ICT

Video

Just about everyone has access to a TV and video, so the potential audience is vast and its expectations high. Video can make abstract ideas concrete. It presents material in an interesting and accessible form and can be re-run as often as necessary.

Video allows:

• places and people to be experienced that it would otherwise be difficult or impossible to see;
• the imagination to be stimulated, questions raised and ideas for reflection posed to help people develop speaking, thinking and performing skills;
• viewers to be given the opportunity to hear other people talk about their thoughts and feelings;
• beliefs and values of self and others to be explored through real or fictitious stories and situations.

In encouraging better work see videos – RE and non-religious - for analysis to show how the story line is developed, the features of video production employed and how they are used. Students could usefully note and discuss the features they found to be effective.

Video is a flexible medium so ways of working together as a group using different production skills may well have to be considered. Explore the potential for presenting a broad range of aesthetic experiences - music, art, literature and drama, for example - as well as interviews either in the local community or further afield.

If the video camera doesn't have adequate built-in editing facilities, separate editing equipment will be needed. If this isn’t readily available don't give up before enquiries have been made about borrowing it (or another video camera) from another school, local resource centre or try tapping parental resources and expertise.