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Video Quality

An important issue for video in distance learning situations is quality. Video quality can have different meanings. One refers simply to the technical aspects of quality. This is of considerable importance now, as compression techniques become more and more important, allowing us to put more video on such media as CD-Rom. But these technical issues will not be further discussed.

Another issue concerns the quality of the video as video. Is the video good video, well done, produced with the best talents and strategies. Or is it poor quality, as with much 'home' video? We can also consider the video from the standpoint of learning. 'Good" video may be provide poor learning capabilities for many students.

The quality of video for distance learning varies enormously. For many courses the video quality is not good. But even in the best courses, the best video, such as that developed by the Open University with professional standards, there is an excessive use of 'talking heads'. Video tends to be a reproduction of lectures, also bringing in some facilities that were not available in lectures.

A good example of this are the extensive well produced video courses produced by the Annenburg CPB project. These courses are almost pure video, but, like Open University courses, were high quality. An occasional course, such as The Mechanical Universe, had a few computer components, and may have used, as with this course, considerable amounts of computer animation. In The Mechanical Universe the computer animation was partially used for animating formulae, so the course was characterized by 'dancing ' proofs. A friend, experienced with distance learning, who purchased this course commented to me that ''the series gives more satisfaction to the instructor than to the student...not giving them problem solving experiences.''

A more standard use of video was in a successful Annenburg course, French in Action. Because of the tie between Annenburg CPB, and the Public Broadcasting System, the videos made for these courses were often broadcast directly, but usually not associated with any course. I do not have any information about whether the Annenburg CPB courses, or many other similar video based courses, have been widely used for distance learning. And I do not know of any full studies of their effectiveness.

One aspect of video seems peculiar. This aspect seems to apply both to video prepared for courses, and for commercial video. Although video is a visual medium, and often much attention is given to that, for most video the content is almost all conveyed by the sound, rather than by the visual material. One can do a simple test of this kind: watch a given videotape, turning off the sound and watching only the visual material. Then do the opposite; listen to the sound, while not looking at the screen. One can reverse the order.

Most instructional video is almost entirely dependent on sound, not visual concepts for conveying content. The lovely short films of Charles Eames provide examples of films that depend heavily on visual information, with some having only music on the sound track. But these products are not part of full courses.

It seems strange that a medium that has such great visual capabilities seldom exploits them, when it come to information. But information is, I realize, not the only aspect of video. Perhaps the visual material adds motivational aspects.