Lesson 12

The Power of Film, Video and TV in the Classroom

          The Film, the video and the tv are indeed very powerful. Dale (1969) says, they can:

·Transmit a wide range of audio – visual materials, including still pictures, film, objects, specimens and drama.

·Bring models of excellence to the viewer. – We can see and hear the excellence scientist like John Glenn, the excellent speakers the master teachers who lecture and demonstrate a teaching method for professional and development of teachers.

·Bring the world of reality to the home and to the classroom through “live” broadcast or a mediated through film or videotape.

·Make us see and hear for ourselves world events as they happen. 

·Be the most believable source

·Make some program understandable and appealing to a wide variety of age and educational levels.

·Become a great equalizer of educational opportunity because programs can be presented over national and regional networks.

·Provide us with sounds and sights not easily available even to the viewer of a real event through a long shot, close ups, zoom shots, magnification and split screen made possible by the tv camera

·Can give opportunities to teachers to view themselves while they teach for purposes of self-improvement – Teacher can’t view themselves while they teach but with videocam and tv they can view themselves while they teach after.

·Can be both instructive and enjoyable.

While the film, video and tv can do so much, they have their own limitations, too.

·Television and Film our one-way communication device.

·The small screen size puts television at a disadvantage when compared with the possible size of projected motion pictures.

·Excessive tv viewing works against the development of the child’s ability to visualize and to be creative and imaginative, skills that are needed in problem solving.

·There is much violence in tv. This is the irrefutable conclusion, “viewing violence increases violence”.

Basic Procedure in the Use of TV as s supplementary Enrichment

            For enrichment of the lesson with the use of tv, we have to do the following:

-Prepare the classroom,

-Darken the room. Remember that complete darkness is not advisable for tv viewing. Your students may need to take down notes while viewing.

-The students should not be seated too near nor too far from the tv. No student should be farther from the set than the number of feet that the picture represents in inches. A 24-inch set means no students farther than 24 feet from the set. (Dale, 1969)

·  Pre-viewing activities

-Set goals and expectations.

-Link the tv lesson with past lesson and/or with your students’ experiences for integration and relevance.

-Set the rules while viewing.

-Put the film on viewing.

-Point out they key points they need to focus on.

·  Viewing

-Don’t interrupt viewing by inserting cautions and announcements you forgot to give during the previewing stage.

-Just make sure sights and sounds are clear.

·   Post-viewing

-To make them feel at ease begin by asking the following questions:

1) What do you like best in the film?

2) What part of the film makes you wonder? Doubt?

3) Does the film remind of something or someone?

4) What questions are you asking about the film?

·Go to the questions you raised at the pre-viewing stage.

·Tackle a questions raised by students at the initial stage of the post-viewing discussion.

·Ask what the students learned. Find out how they can apply what they learned. Several techniques can be used for this purpose. A simple yet effective technique is the completion of unfinished sentence.

·Summarized what was learned.