VIDEOPAPERS:
HOW TO USE VIDEO, STILLS,
AND TEXT TO SUPPORT
TEACHING & LEARNING
Federica Olivero
Graduate School of Education
University of Bristol
[email protected]
Plan for the talk

Part 1. The concept of videopaper & current
projects (1.30 – 1.40)

Part 2. Reading a videopaper – hands on +
discussion (1.40 – 2.20)

Part 3. The use of videopapers for the
development of practitioner skills. Some key
findings (2.10 – 2.30)

Part 4. Creating a videopaper (2.30-2.50)
Part 1.
The concept of videopaper
Current projects
Why videopapers?
What is a videopaper?
What can you do with it?
Two perspectives
Academic research

To provide scholarly and
theoretical foundations
for effective pedagogy
Different
Discourses
(Bartels, 2003)
Discourses
(Teaching) practice
are “ways of behaving,
 To support practitioners to
interacting, valuing,
value their classroom
thinking,
believing,
experiences
speaking, and often
 and use those experiences
reading and writing
as a text to study and
that are accepted as
analyse in order to better
instantiations
understandoftheir crafts
particular roles (or
types of people) by
specific groups of
people”. (Gee,1996)
Practitioners’
Discourse
Academic
Discourse
Specialised terminology
Propositions and
prescriptions
Stream of words
?
Lacks the vitality and
engagement of the
classroom
Language of the
classroom
Sights, sounds and
interactive features
of the classroom
Visual, oral and
physical cues
May provide little
opportunity to explore
broad themes that inspire
intellectual growth
Tensions




Intrinsically complex nature of teaching and
learning
Need to “freeze” intriguing moments to deconstruct
and learn from.
Tension between theoretical discussions and
uncertain reality of the classroom.
Need to keep teachers engaging in the two lines of
Discourse rather than allow one to predominate …
… through development of reflective practice &
exposure to theory-driven research
Some questions

What tools may enable the different
“communities”

to express and re-represent themselves and
their ideas?



Reflection on practice
Professional development
and successfully engage with one another?


Collaboration teachers-researchers
Ways of representing the research process
Videopapers ....
as opposed to dominant print publications
 offer opportunities for integrating educational
theory/academic research with the excitement of
classroom practice

contain the intrinsic features that belong to
practitioners Discourse
•
capture, preserve, and represent events in ways that
connect with the world of the practitioner, a world where
different forms of knowledge are continually being
juxtaposed.
What is a videopaper


hyperlinks
video

slides
text
multimedia documents
that integrate and
synchronise
different forms of
representation such as
text, video and images,
in one single non linear
cohesive document.
Nemirovski, Cogan-Drew, Di Mattia et al,
Bridging Research and Practice, 1998
Current videopaper
projects
Bristol
and BECTA (UK)
Boston (US)
Bergen (Norway)
Goteborg (Sweden)
•To represent and disseminate research and
practice.
•As an assessment tool.
•For sharing good practice – mentoring.
VP as ‘product’
•For reflection and self-reflection.
•For development of practitioners’ skills.
•Collaborative research process.
VP as ‘process’
Part 2. Reading a videopaper
Two examples:
Kate’s videopaper. Mentoring – History
PGCE programme
Catherine’s videopaper. Reflecting on
practice choosing one issue (motivation)–
MFL PGCE programme
The videopaper assignment (MFL)







Select a focus for your videopaper
Choose one lesson to be video-recorded
Collect materials from the classroom and from your teaching
Review the video
Edit video from 50 to 5 minutes
Write text/commentary to the clips
Consider the wider literature if relevant

Put video and text together (in VPB) and create PLAY buttons
Supplement with still images

Publish the final videopaper & submit (on a CD)

Questions for discussion






What are your first impressions about the
videopapers regarding structure, appearance and
content?
What do you like about it? What do you not like?
How did you go about reading the videopaper?
(Where did you start? Did you read the text? Did
you watch the video? In what order did you read
the videopaper?)
Compare with traditional videos and traditional
papers.
What would you say are the main potentialities of
videopapers?
Which contexts you would see the use of
videopapers?
Part 3. One example: The use of
videopapers for the development of
practitioner skills
with
Elisabeth Lazarus, Kate Hawkey, Marina Gall,
Sheila Trahar, Maria Daniil
‘Videopaper projects’ in Bristol
involve …

student teachers learning to teach within the
initial teacher education programme

Modern Foreign Languages, History, English and Music.

educational practitioners learning the skills of
counselling to support their students

postgraduate students and new university staff
learning teaching skills

teachers and educational practitioners learning
research skills and integrating them in their
practice.
‘Videopaper projects’ in Bristol
involve …

student teachers learning to teach within the
initial teacher education programme

Modern Foreign Languages, History, English and Music.

educational practitioners learning the skills of
counselling to support their students

postgraduate students and new university staff
learning teaching skills

teachers and educational practitioners learning
research skills and integrating them in their
practice.
Objectives

To investigate the possible applications of videopapers as a tool for
communication and representation of professional learning, in
particular to support reflection on practice, and for assessment of
the development of (new) skills.

To compare and contrast the use of VideoPapers with the more
conventional use of videos, observation tasks and assignments.

To investigate the possible applications of videopapers as a tool
used in mentor training, including distance-learning models of
training.

To evaluate the produced VideoPapers against the criteria for
assessment in order to understand whether and how this tool is
suitable in each particular context, in what ways it differs from the
conventional written assignment and whether new assessment
criteria are needed.

To compare and contrast the participants’ experience (across
programmes) of producing a VideoPaper.

To investigate the use of videopapers as a significant element of an
emerging new professional development portfolio.
Types of videopapers produced





(i) Practitioners reflecting critically on the
development of their counselling skills;
(ii) Student teachers reflecting on their
lesson planning, teaching and evaluation
skills;
(iii) Postgraduate students and new staff
reflecting on their teaching skills;
(iv) a University supervisor reflecting on her post
lesson feedback skills;
(v) Master’s students writing up their small scale
research projects and analysing empirical data,
showing their research skills.
Why “videopapers” – what is
different and what is new?
The following approaches are already well established:



Use of video in teacher education (e.g. Sherin 2003,
Goldman et al 2007 Video Research in the learning
sciences)
Linking observations of more or less experienced teachers
or trainees (real or virtual), with personal practice and
experiences
Drawing on practitioner-orientated and research-based
literature to underpin personal practice
Videopaper added another dimension
 Students watching themselves, writing about themselves
and showing it to others.
Theoretical background

Reflection

Reflective practitioner (Schön, 1983)

Iterative reflective process
Process of reflective thought (Dewey, 1933)

Developing student teachers’ changes through
experience

Discourses

Multimodality (Jewitt, 2004)

Integration of different modes to create
meaning
The project with MFL student teachers

18 volunteer MFL PGCE students

Workshop 1. Reading videopapers
Workshop 2. Learning how to edit a clip and
create a videopaper
Filming in the classroom + collecting relevant
material
Workshop 3/4. Editing clip and creating
videopaper




Data collected: video observations, interviews,
completed videopapers.
Some key findings




The process of reading a videopaper
The process of creating a videopaper
The videopapers
Students’ perception of videopapers as a
tool to support self reflection



The relationship between video and text
Structure of VP
Relationship between videopaper and essay… it would
make it more real
Reading – “this is real”

“If you compare it to a normal essay it gives you
a realistic dimension because it is not abstract
any more; you’re not talking about behaviour
management, big theories, here you have the
reality, practice, it’s not just writing but
connecting theories to the practice and the other
way.” Liz
Reading – ‘a way in’

“I was very interested and I thought oh yes, I
want to have a look at this and see what it’s all
about. I wasn’t as intimidated as I would be if I’d
approached a huge thick tome…” - Liz

“it seems like people make language less
accessible when they’re writing academically.
Things could be said in a much more
straightforward way”. - Patricia
Reader as writer

“we want to discover how the kids react to this
and then watch the video and then that’s how I
would analyse the situation. That would be far
more like you are involved … because you also
can decide or give your opinion or you feel the
reader wants your opinion” (Christine)

“But you’re bringing your own set of value
judgements about which bits you perceive as
being the most important. And they of course
might not be those bits that the writer or the
creator of the video paper has envisaged” (Liz
and Catrin)

“We found ourselves being quite critical of the
lesson and the way the classroom was while if
we just had a text we wouldn’t have know if it
was a horse shoe or three rows” - Brid

“I think you get a lot more out of the clip for
having read it. Because the clips are so short,
it’s very hard to get much out of them unless
you read – Catherine
Creating - What text/ What video?

“I’m not describing it at all. I’ve started typing something
about a school strategy so I would explain this a bit and then
just use the clips to say well the kids would ask for language if
they don’t know so I would just cut the bits where the kids
ask for language and I wouldn’t explain the situation so they
would just see oh they can do it so I would just say that’s how
the school does it and then from my lesson that’s an
evidence”. – Christine

“But then I suppose you might see something different to
someone else, because you were teaching and somebody else
who wasn’t teaching might pick up something else” – Clare

“but the video ought to supplement the text really. Is the text
the most important? Can we make a value judgement?” - Liz
Text: a different ‘genre’?

“Could you not get away from that problem by keeping it
quite academic and not worrying so much about breaking it
up all the time. So you’re keeping more to the traditional
essay. I don’t see why you should make it less academic just
because it’s a video paper. When you read academic, like
people take it seriously. When you write in a less academic
way, it’s unfortunate but I do think that there are a lot of
people who will or would take it less seriously”.– Catherine

“they didn’t have very much where you had text and then you
had to link in. So it was very much you sort of played the
video and then you read it. Or you read it and you played the
video. So it just felt like it could have been used a lot more”–
Catherine
Videopaper vs essay

You could actually see what you were talking
about whereas if you were writing an essay, it’s
quite hard, you know, you have to try and
visualise the lessons… - Brid

It makes it even harder that you know they can
see what you want to tell them. It would be
easier to write an essay about whatever. While
now even if the text is smaller it is much more
thinking behind - Catherine

You’ve got the raw evidence, the video footage
rather than in a sense being able to hide behind
your own transcript of what goes on – Catrin
Videopaper vs
other (manifactured) videos

Even if you’re just picking out one little
snapshot you do get a feel for the type of
school or the kids or where they’re – oh
those kids are a bit more like my kids’.
Cos when you see those videos you’re
like- those kids don’t exist. - Catherine
To conclude…
Videopaper as a new form of discourse

Realism brought by the video
 issue of believability (realistic realism:
Latour, 1998)
 Videopapers can be a ‘way in’ for teachers to
access theoretical/research ideas through
something that is meaningful to them and
connects to their practice

Raw data can be accessed and analysed by the
reader
 Multiple interpretations
 “Make up your own mind”
 Sharing perspectives

Videopaper is not dominated by video or
text - the meaning is created out of the
relationship between video and text
(multimodality: Jewitt, 2004) or meaning
shifted towards the video

Videopaper as a new genre
 New writing ‘style’? New structure?
 Analysis vs description
Videopaper & reflection on practice

Videopaper is “one step further”


Watching, editing, writing …. Creating a videopaper
Passive/active, watching/reading vp

Permanent record of reflection and reflective
process

Reading other’s/own VP and editing are starting
point for reflection

Reflection shifted towards the
classroom/kids/learning rather then the teacher
only
Part 4. Creating
videopapers
VideoPaper Builder 3
http://vpb.concord.org
Free download
• max 5-8
minutes
• Choose size
(320x240,
480x360)
Produce
ONE clip
Screenshots
.ppt
Java applets
Insert clip
Type text in
pages &
sections
Hyperlinks
Play buttons
Page link
Slide
buttons
Save .vpb
Publishing
Edit clips (+
captions)
Scanned
images
Creating the videopaper in
VPB3
Filming
Slides (.jpeg)
Video (.mpg, .mov)
The process of creating a videopaper –
VPB3
Videopaper
folder
Index.html
Open in any
browser
Other useful tools for video analysis and
representation

StudioCode
http://www.studiocodegroup.com/

Diver
http://diver.stanford.edu/what.html
Sign up:
http://171.64.201.176/webdiver/webdiver_23c/webdive
r
_signup_v5.php

InqScribe
http://www.inquirium.net/products/inqscribe/index.html
STUDIOCODE
Video to be coded
Code input
window
Codes
Coded
instances
timeline
InqScribe
Thank you for your attention.
Any (more) questions?
Federica Olivero
[email protected]
References

Videopaper Builder 3.0 (http://vpb.concord.org)

Beardsley, L., Cogan-Drew, D., & Olivero, F. (forthcoming).
Videopaper: Bridging research and practice for pre-service and
experienced teachers. In R. Goldman, R. D. Pea, B. Barron & S.
J. Derry (Eds.), Video research in the learning sciences.
Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Olivero, F., John, P., & Sutherland, R. (2004). Seeing is
believing: Using videopapers to transform teachers' professional
knowledge and practice. Cambridge Journal of Education, 34(2),
179-191.


Olivero, F., Sutherland, R., & John, P. (2004). It's about
interactive learning of mathematics [CD-Rom].