I am conflicted about using video in education for several reasons. The two most important are that it is so hard to do well and so difficult to present well.
Shooting the images, recording the sound and editing them are very complex skills to learn, they take a long time to execute, and there arenʼt many sources of good and clear instruction.
Viewing and hearing a video is often difficult for a variety of reasons - quality of the video and audio, speed of the download, the platform it is listened to and seen on, and, when projected, if the room is dark. In all situations, there needs to be decent sound.
Some of the examples of video that are recommended as good ways to teach are bad models to follow.
One of these is Lynda.com, where the videos are often so wordy and unfocused that they are difficult to follow and the transcripts are not useful without images. A well-ordered text tutorial with still images, usually screen shots, is a much better way to do what Lynda.com tries to do.
Another is TEDTalks, because they are too short (a little less than 20 minutes) to present abstract, complex ideas, they are usually reduced into a sermon or peptalk (and at times factually wrong - like Ken Robinson). Since they are mostly talk, text is a better way to present the information so how long it is less important and it can be read critically at the readerʼs pace.
What the visual part of videos does best is teach manual and physical skills, like cooking, home repair, knitting and other crafts, different types of exercise, dissection and surgery. In these the visual information is very helpful in teaching the students how to use their hands and body, to follow a series of steps or a checklist, and see how it is done. There needs to be a text provided with these so it can be referred to when the skills are used again later.
Some issues to look at when using videos for teaching in place of text, with or without illustrations, are:
– How much more time does it take to watch and hear the information in a video than to read it?
– How easy is it to go back and review the material presented?
– How easy is it to search for a word, a sentence, a name, a chart or a diagram that was shown?
– How difficult is it to edit, update or correct a video compared to text document?
–How many specialized skills do the different media require to produce and edit them? Are they available? How much will they add to the cost?
If you want to understand in more detail the difficulty, subtlety and complexitiy of editing sound and image, read: The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film by Michael Ondaatje