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4 | Ausgabe 05 | 2018 | 2. Jg. Connecting
Action. Cut. Learn.
An example of international online cooperation
J
J The EDIT Educational Video Challenges as an example of video production by teacher students
crossing borders.
The role of video in education and
therefore in teacher education as well
is continuously gaining importance.
Terms like e-education, flipped class-
room, digitalization, etc. dominate
educational discussions all over the
continent and in many areas of the
world.
The concept of the ‘flipped class-
room’ bears enormous possibilities
for the use of video. When the trans-
fer of educational content takes place
at home, school time can be used for
practicing and exercising. Additionally,
the “flipped classroom” concept could
boost e-education activities by giving
the online tools relevance, as oppo-
sed to widely used “digital exercises”
which sometimes “force” educators to
didactical regression due to technical
limits. Usually learners face difficulties
when practicing on their own. Making
it possible for them to internalize the
content at home at their own speed
while making teacher assistance availa-
ble when they are practicing could be
of great advantage for differentiation
and individualization in European
classrooms.
In informal education video tutorials
have become an often used resource for
all kinds of activities and tasks. Every-
day problems like sewing on buttons,
turning the main water switch off or
tying your tie are being solved by the
use of video tutorials available on plat-
forms like YouTube or Vimeo. Con-
tradictory to this, the use of video in
formal education is still rather limited
in its application and varies between
different countries and regions. Also in
European teacher education curricu-
lums learning to use video as an educa-
tional tool has not been implemented
to the extent which would reflect its
possibilities.
This is one of the reasons why the Päd-
agogische Hochschule Oberösterreich,
Austria and the Oulu University of
Applied Sciences, Finland have deve-
loped a project of International coope-
ration in educational video production
to promote the impartation of video
production competences in European
teacher education institutions.
Started by those two universities the
“EDITEducational Video Challenges”
grew fast and now involve 12 universi-
ties from 10 different countries across
the whole continent from the UK to
Israel and from Finland to Spain.
A low-threshold and flexible organiza-
tional structure makes it easy for uni-
versities to join. A steering team with
members from all participating insti-
tutions is responsible for the planning
and the realization of the yearly events.
The EDIT Challenges are carried out
in a Hackathon style, taking up the
tradition coming from computer pro-
gramming where the task is to solve
programming problems in a limited
amount of time. A website designed by
Pädagogische Hochschule Oberöster-
reich provides all rules and criteria, as
well as tutorials, definitions and trai-
ning for the participants.
Besides artistic quality and technical
merits the educational value of a video
is the main assessment criterion for
the international jury with at least one
member from each participating coun-
try.
The definition of „educational value“
is the result of a discussion process
among steering team members of the
various countries. Parts of that pro-
cess have been recorded as panel dis-
cussions which serve as a guideline to
participating student groups and jury
members and are provided via the
project‘s website.
Every submitted video has to include
a description formulated by the pro-
duction team stating what it considers
to be the educational value of the clip.
After the four day production period,
students and teachers at the partici-
pating universities reflect together on
the relevant criteria and select a limited
amount of videos for participation in
the international competition.
The international jury then decides on
the winning videos based on a clear cri-
teria catalogue developed by the stee-
ring team. That catalogue again puts
the main focus on educational value.
The EDIT Educational Video Chal-
lenges are sponsored by the online
digital story telling platform “wevi-
deo” and cooperate with the “Media
& Learning Association” based in
Leuven, Belgium. “Wevideo” provides
a good tool for further development
of International online cooperation
within the EDIT project and is there-
fore an important partner by allowing
collaborative projects run by people
not being at the same location.
The winners of the 2018 competition
will be invited to the 2019 Media &
Learning Conference at KU Leuven
and will present their video and pro-
duction process there within the con-
ference program.
Various surveys following the EDIT
challenges show that students feel that
they have learned a lot in a very short
time and that their competence in edu-
cational video production has impro-
ved.
Christian Kogler, MSc ist
Medienpädagoge und Mitarbeiter
am Institut für Internationale
Kooperationen und Studienprogramme
an der Pädagogischen Hochschule
Oberösterreich.
“Learning to use video
as an educational
tool has not been
implemented in teacher
education curriculums
to the extent which
would reflect its
possibilities.”
Link
Details about the EDIT challen-
ges can be found on the website:
Foto: Privat Foto: Christian Kogler