How do you know what you look like when performing a physical skill?
This is a question I ask myself again and again on the golf course when the round ends up going south. Was it my elbow, my grip, am I shifting my feet, not keeping my head down?
For anybody who's watched an instructor demonstrate a skill I'm sure you know the feeling... 'Am I doing it correctly?'
Video on mobile devices has great potential to provide visual examples to learn from and feedback on performance.
We are fortunate to have a very progressive, committed team of Physical Education teachers who participated in an INSET day lead by the three digital literacy coaches. Here's what happened...
using mobile video to reinforce teaching
Here, we produced some short videos with teaching points included so that students could refer to the videos during the lesson on an iPod Touch when they may not have constant access to the teacher. These videos can be made quite quickly once you've got one set the way you like it, simply duplicate the project in iMovie and swap out the video segments and change the text.
using mobile video for peer feedback
A peer can be a really good coach when learning a new skill. The great thing about using peer feedback is that a lot of learning
can take place for the person giving the feedback as well, not just for the person performing. We talked a lot about being mindfully active and that's really what we're practicing here. Students shoot short segments of video (10 secs or less) on an iPod Touch, capturing only the action, and use it to help give feedback.
Having a video to "back-up" what you're trying to say can really help you make your point and we find that it also breaks down barriers that students may have. If they're shy, having the video immediately shifts the focus off of them and on to the person performing the skill.
A member of the PE department also brought up that video is great for capturing non-skill based
behaviors like cooperation, team-work, leadership, and focus.
using mobile video for self-analysis & goal setting 
We shifted devices to the iPad 2 here so that teachers could get experience with shooting and doing simple edits using iMovie on one device on the spot.
The idea here is that students could have a peer record them performing a skill early on and then do a self-analysis by using the voice-over feature of iMovie. They can edit the clips, split the clips and even capture stills at particular points in the video simultaneously pressing the home
button & power button while the movie is
paused in full screen.
using mobile video for assessing progress
Students can go further with the video they capture of their performances and take video at different intervals during a unit. These videos can be exported to their MacBooks to take full advantage of the editing tools available in iMovie for OSX. Using slow motion, reversing the video direction, and using picture-in-picture we can get a detailed view of different aspects of performing a skill.
The aim here is to show progress in specific aspects of a skill. The product is a video that can be a central part of a student portfolio for P.E. These portfolios can be shared with parents and could be used as assessment evidence. But mostly, it's really nice for students to be able to see how far they've come, especially if they feel like they're not being successful at all. The video can often reveal the progress they've made individually instead of what may be the tendency to compare yourself to the best person in the class.
- Nuts & Bolts: using mobile video
Creating videos - Making a bank of teaching videos can be a collaborative effort and once they're done, you can reuse them again and again. Also, you may want to consider having students produce them (Digital Media Team or Techxperts possibly?). Once you've done one in iMovie it's a really simple work flow to just duplicate the project and then insert the new video clips and text.
Getting Video On - Uploading videos to your YouTube or Vimeo channel and then emailing the link to the device (MS/HS
iPad iPod) is an easy solution but requires good access to wifi (which we found, could be a limitation in some teaching spaces). Alternately, you could ask the IT Dept. to upload a set of teaching videos to iTunes on the devices if you had enough lead time (1 week).
Shooting tips - Turn the device to landscape, keep it still by holding with two hands and bracing, think about the angle - side, back front... what's best to see the action?, capture only the action - not before and after, shoot SHORT segments - less then 10 seconds is often sufficient for skills and several short segments are easier to deal with than one long continuous shot.
Getting Video Off - from the camera roll send email to individual email accounts if segments are short and there aren't too many. Alternately, plug the device in to the laptop and import to iPhoto or iMovie. DO NOT upload to a personal Facebook or YouTube account as the account details you enter will stay on the device and the next person to use it will be able to also access your private accounts!
Deleting - Take time at the end of a lesson to make sure all media has been deleted from the camera roll. Actually have the students show you the camera roll so you can verify that it's empty as you collect the devices back in.
Editing - Making a clip shorter can be done on the iPods, but that's about all you could comfortably do. If you want to edit directly on the device, iMovie on the iPads is one option. To do advanced edits (slow-mo, reverse, crop, p-in-p) you'll want to ramp up to iMovie on the MacBook.
Publishing - We have a college Vimeo account that could be used to publish exemplar videos as well as highlighting the best in the eDunia. Individually, if students have their own personal YouTube or Vimeo accounts they can publish there or they can all use their college Picasa accounts. Video loaded to these sites can be embeded in Mahara and become part of their ePortfolios.
