Federica Olivero Graduate School of Education University of Bristol fede'oliverobristol'ac'uk

1
Federica OliveroGraduate School of
EducationUniversity of Bristolfede.olivero_at_brist
ol.ac.uk

• DEVELOPING THE USE OF VIDEO ANALYSIS AS A TOOL
  FOR RESEARCHING E-LEARNING

2
The story

• Why working with video? When researching
  elearning, video allows seeing things that we
  could not see with other methods, such as
• Once established that video is useful, how do we
  collect it?
• What do we do with the hours and hours of
  collected video-recordings?
• After the analysis, how can we use the video-data
  in the presentation/ re-presentation/
  dissemination of our findings?
• Issues to consider

3
Where I come from

• Maths education interaction with dynamic
  geometry environments (students interactions) -
  understanding how the ICT is used by students in
  order to identify its potentialities and make
  recommendations to teachers
• Socio-cutural perspective (Vygotsky, Wertsch) and
  instrumentation framework (Verillion Rabardel)
• Involving participants in the analytical process
• Disseminating research findings to participants
• some experiences cannot be represented by spoken
  language or talked, they are enacted, spoken by
  the body. So they cannot be represented by
  traditional forms such as text (Riessman, 2005)

VIDEO
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The story

• Why working with video? When researching
  elearning, video allows seeing things that we
  could not see with other methods, such as
• Once established that video is useful, how do we
  collect it?
• What do we do with the hours and hours of
  collected video-recordings?
• After the analysis, how can we use the video-data
  in the presentation/ re-presentation/
  dissemination of our findings?
• Issues to consider

5
Why working with video?
Object of research dialogue and community of
enquiry in e-learning

• If we really want to understand the interactions
  with and at (Crook, 1994) new technologies, we
  need new methodologies that allow us to capture
  what we need and to experiment with new ways of
  analysing data.
• VIDEO
• Provides a window on the interactions as they
  take place
• Language is often implicit, deictic (complex
  relationship between what is seeable and what is
  sayable)
• Lots of meaningful silence
• Gestures
• The screen may constitute a shared workspace no
  need to make things explicit (Olivero, 2002)
• Communication between students may happen through
  the mouse-keyboard

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• Allows bringing the participants perspective in
  the analysis - research with as opposed to
  research about
• Show video-data to elicit responses
• Participants to take part in the analysis / do
  the analysis themselves
• Video-data can easily be shared/distributed in a
  form that is accessible to the participants
• Seeing what is possible
• Allows repeated viewings of the same event
• Different perspectives/ layers/ focus
• Narrowing down (eg use of a particular tool
  within a particular software) and opening up (eg
  reconfiguration of space around the ICT)
• In-depth analysis of focused episodes without
  losing the whole
• Brings the researcher in
• Enables you to enter the world of another
• From the outside in (Rich Pathasmik, 2002)

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Video as mediator

• The video mediates between the researcher
  (observer) and the event
• We do not analyse the video but the event that
  has been captured by the video-camera
• Different form other forms of video,e g
  video-diaries, video-narratives in which the
  video (visual) is the object of analysis

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Video-analysis

• Analysis is made of "three concurrent flows of
  activities data reduction, data display, and
  conclusion drawing/verification"
• (Miles Huberman, 1994, p.10)
• Analysis starts with the choice of what to
  capture on video and ends with the choice of what
  clips to use for dissemination.

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The story

• Why working with video? When researching
  elearning, video allows seeing things that we
  could not see with other methods, such as
• Once established that video is useful, how do we
  collect it?
• What do we do with the hours and hours of
  collected video-recordings?
• After the analysis, how can we use the video-data
  in the presentation/ re-presentation/
  dissemination of our findings?
• Issues to consider

10
Collecting video

• Agency of the researcher
• Videocamera left running
• Researcher behind the videocamera
• What you want to capture/ research questions
• Impression that a video-camera may capture the
  event, but a camera does not capture everything
• What do you do with what you dont see but you
  know it is there?
• A video opens up the space what frame do you
  consider?
• Cheap and easy-to-use technologies to collect,
  store and share videos

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What can be captured from different angles
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Transforming the video-recording into meaningful
video-data
The video element is usually lost during the
analytical process. Reduced to transcripts or
descriptions. BUT a transcript is a 2D linear
representation of a 3D non linear multimodal event

• Visual analysis may be based only on what is
  visible within the image or collection of images
  . It may draw on contextual information .
  It may use a range of different kinds of
  information. (van Leeuwen Jewitt, 2002)
• Logging videos
• Watching the whole video(s)
• Emergent issues/categories
• Extracting videoclips
• how much video will you analyse in details?
• Transcripts descriptions
• Additional material (eg worksheets, writing)
• Video is not the only source of data

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The story

• Why working with video? When researching
  elearning, video allows seeing things that we
  could not see with other methods, such as
• Once established that video is useful, how do we
  collect it?
• What do we do with the hours and hours of
  collected video-recordings?
• After the analysis, how can we use the video-data
  in the presentation/ re-presentation/
  dissemination of our findings?
• Issues to consider

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An analytical tool StudioCode

• Creating a coding system
• Capturing and coding video
• Transcribing
• Searching a transcript - a timeline
• Making movies for presentation

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StudioCodehttp//www.sportstecintl.com/content/sh
owpage.cfm?dirproducts1id747
Video to be coded
Code input window
Codes
Coded instances
timeline
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Potentialities of StudioCode

• Analysis and video-data coexist in the same
  environment
• Content analysis
• User-friendly
• Visual
• Different layers of analysis coexist
• Multiple points of view
• Multidisciplinary analysis
• Flexible
• Codes can be changed/added/deleted/saved
• Can work with large/small video-files, more or
  less fine grain
• Allows on-site analysis
• Ease of presentation of video-data
• It is also a transcription tool

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Issues to consider with StudioCode

• Risk of fragmentation
• Deconstructing an event then need for
  re-constructing it
• Watching a video is more complex than analysing a
  transcript
• Dynamic/static
• Many things to attend to
• Need to have a coding system to start with
• Know what you want to see
• Only works with videofiles (no audiofiles)

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Videopaper (http//vpb.concord.org)

• Developed as part of the Bridging Research and
  Practice project at TERC (Boston, MA) to create
  an alternative genre for the production, use, and
  dissemination of educational research.
• The project conjectured that teachers,
  researchers and other communities interested in
  education could use VideoPapers to make their
  conversations more grounded in actual events,
  more insightful, and more resistant to
  oversimplifications.
• Videopapers are multimedia documents that
  integrate and synchronise different forms of
  representation, such as text, video and images,
  in one single non linear cohesive document.

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Video synchronised with the text
Navigation menu/tools
Play buttons synchronising text to video
Closed captions
Text
Hyperlinks to other pages in the videopaper or
to external sources
Slides synchronised with the video - or Java
applets etc
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Videopaper as an analytical tool

• Video and text in the same environment
• Can have other material
• Scanned images, digital pictures, java applets
• Video and text are linked and influence each
  other
• Easy to use
• allows participants to analyse their own practice
• Self-contained account of an event
• Analysis and evidence

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• Watch video and write analysis at the same time
  in the same environment
• Can add to the text-analysis at any time and from
  different people
• Can publish different stages of the analysis

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The story

• Why working with video? When researching
  elearning, video allows seeing things that we
  could not see with other methods, such as
• Once established that video is useful, how do we
  collect it?
• What do we do with the hours and hours of
  collected video-recordings? - examples
• After the analysis, how can we use the video-data
  in the presentation/ re-presentation/
  dissemination of our findings?
• Issues to consider

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Examples

• Teachers developed coding systems drawing on the
  learning aims and objectives of their particular
  lessons (REISS project) StudioCode
• Researchers developed coding systems on the basis
  of a theoretical framework (Interactive Education
  project) StudioCode
• Student teachers analysing their lessons
  Videopaper

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Example 1. The Interactive Education project
(Sutherland et al)
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Why using video?

• Our theoretical perspective (socio-cultural
  theory) implies that learning is closely related
  to activity and the cognitive and cultural tools
  that are harnessed within this activity. Thus
  our focus of analysis of learning was on the
  nature of activity and the interactions between
  students and their use of digital and non-digital
  tools.
• Using digital video to capture the reality of
  teaching and learning in the classroom.
• The analytical process focuses on teaching and
  learning processes (through an analysis of video
  data) and learning outcomes (through an analysis
  of students work, diagnostic assessment and
  interview data).

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What video-data?

• In order to capture the interaction between
  teacher and students a video camera was placed in
  the corner of the classroom and left to record
  without interference. This technique captures
  classroom processes of interaction, including
  teachers and students talk.
• In order to capture the interaction between
  student/s and the computer two forms of data
  capture were used (a) dynamic electronic
  recording of the computer using software (b)
  video recording of social interactions and
  interactions with the computer using a video
  recorder.
• In the case of music it was also important to
  capture the process as shown on the computer
  screen, whilst also capturing the ways in which
  the student(s) used the musical keyboard. This
  involved using two cameras for each pair of
  students one focused on the screen the other on
  the music/computer keyboard. A mixer was used to
  capture the sound from the students individual
  microphones as well as the sound from the
  computer or keyboard. Video footage was viewed
  along with the musical products that were saved
  in files. We also used a screen-save program or
  discretely named multiple-saves to capture the
  process of the work (Gall Breeze, 2005).

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How we analyse video-data

• The video data is viewed in real time and
  passages identified for more detailed analysis
  using the constructed analytical categories.
• In order to explore the learning dimension of
  what students have been doing we develop
  conjectures from our analysis and play back
  critical episodes of video data.
• The video and computer based textual record is
  therefore both a source of data and a stimulus
  for reflective discussion with teachers.
• We edit excerpts of the video data (subject to
  ethical considerations) in order to produce
  teacher development videos.
• Selected excerpts of the video recording are
  transcribed in detail (to include capturing of
  images etc).
• Studio Code is allowing us to more systematically
  compare teaching and learning between the
  different subjects. For this purpose video data
  is being coded in two separate ways the first
  looks at the patterns of activity in the
  classroom as a whole and the second looks at the
  activity of a focus group of students as they
  engage in computer-mediated activity as part of
  the lesson.

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What video allowed us to see (1)

• This process enabled teachers to come into
  contact with appropriate available designs,
  which were then transformed through both
  mimetic and creative activity. In the
  successful cases the teacher started with a
  relatively simple idea and over time and with
  iteration transformed this into a powerful new
  use of ICT for learning (for example the use of
  drop-down menus in MFL, Taylor Lazarus, 2005).
  The whole process was enabled by the use of
  video evidence.
• Analysis of video data indicates that students
  can work with ICT for extended periods of time,
  investigating their own questions and
  experimenting with ideas in an interactive and
  iterative way. We have seen this whether students
  are investigating language and spelling,
  investigating the properties of quadrilaterals,
  developing their own compositions in music or
  writing e-mails to a German correspondent.

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What video allowed us to see (2)

• Teachers themselves often underplayed their role
  in directing learning, influenced by the dominant
  rhetoric of teacher as facilitator. It was only
  through micro-analysis of video data that their
  crucial role in orchestrating a knowledge
  construction community became apparent
  (Sutherland et al, 2004 Sutch, 2005)
• Analysis of video data also indicates that
  students themselves often confronted and
  supported each other with the process of
  knowledge construction. Superficially this could
  appear chaotic, but close analysis of the video
  data highlighted the productive nature of this
  informal networking in the classroom, although
  teachers themselves were often unaware of the
  resourcefulness of students in this respect.
• Analysis of video data has provided us with
  evidence of positive impact of out-of-school
  learning on in-school learning.

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Example of in-depth analysis of interactionsthe
case of the negative scale factor
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• In lesson 3 LLn do off task talk for the first
  time and quite often. They are no longer engaged.
• Negative scale factor- polygon disappears from
  the screen they do not investigate this more.
• They have an integer scale factor so it makes big
  jumps and its more difficult to see the
  continuous change
• Theres implicit mathematics in what LLn see and
  say that is never made explicit by the students
  themselves or via the teacher so it is lost.
• they cannot make sense of the task in terms of
  the mathematics, i.e. if you cannot incorporate
  the mathematics in what youre doing with the
  software then it becomes boring as it is only a
  series of instructions that you do and repeat but
  do not make too much sense to you.
• Cabri has not been transformed into an instrument
  for them

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• In lesson 3 Nabil does most of the work with the
  mouse but always shows Simon what hes done.
• When talking about the negative scale factor Sam
  immediately understands what Nabil is talking
  about just by looking at the figure in movement
  on the screen.
• Discovering negative scale factor
• first, it turns around static
• second, it goes the opposite way more dynamic
• They have one decimal digit and see the enlarged
  shape moving slowly
• When Ellie talks to Sam and Nabil about their
  discovery about the negative scale factor, Ln
  says weve done that as well, that means that
  they implicitly related the movement of the shape
  to positive-negative scale factor but did not
  made it explicit and did not give to it much
  importance).
• Cabri becomes an instrument

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It was immediately obvious that Sam and Nabil
were much more confident in using Cabri and
experimenting . They seemed happier to take
risks and try things out. In the clip the boys
were constantly changing the shape in some way
and seemed to discover more this way. Sam and
Nabil were clearly enjoying using and playing
with Cabri. This supports the view that Lauren
and Lauras perceived inactivity was actually due
to a tentativeness they felt about Cabri and
probably maths in general. The students seemed
to believe the effect of the negative number
much more than if I had introduced it in the
classroom. They seemed to be happier seeing an
effect and then deducing what was happening,
rather than the other way around. Cabri was
invaluable in enabling them to do this.
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Example 2. The REISS project - Distilling the
complexity of teaching and learning environments
(V.Armstrong, S.Barnes, R.Sutherland, P.John,
F.Olivero)
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What video-data?

• Using two video cameras (one focusing on
  interactions with the IWB, the other set up to
  capture the whole class), a sequence of three
  one-hour lessons for each teacher was video
  recorded.
• A researcher, using the editing software Final
  Cut Pro, then produced a composite image that
  enabled the image from the whole class camera and
  IWB camera to be viewed simultaneously.
• The complete lessons were then made into a Quick
  Time movie and burned onto a Compact Disc and
  copies were given to the teachers. An important
  aspect of our research design was enabling
  teachers to have access to their data unedited
  where no prior selections had taken place.
• In addition to the class sessions, in-depth
  semi-structured interviews were conducted with
  the four teachers together with two focus groups
  of six pupils in each class after the sequence of
  lessons had been video recorded and transcribed
  in full. The joint viewing sessions between
  researchers and teacher practitioners were also
  video recorded and transcribed and used as part
  of the analysis.
• (Armstrong, Barnes, Sutherland, 2005)

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How we analysed video-data

• The project researcher was responsible, in the
  first instance, for viewing all of the video data
  and selecting interesting clips from across the
  range of lessons and transcribing the language so
  that it could be displayed simultaneously while
  watching the clips.
• The teacher practitioners also selected clips
  from their own lessons that they found of
  particular interest. These clips were presented
  in analysis sessions involving researchers and
  teacher practitioners.
• From research questions from researchers and
  teachers, a set of categories was developed which
  aimed to explore teaching and learning issues.
  Iterative coding process (Lesh and Leher, 2000) -
  categories jointly developed.
• Often when video is used to gather data, the
  observations made by the participants are not
  used to provide analytic resources but rather to
  clarify understanding of incidents, language or
  technologies (Heath and Hindmarsh, 2002). However
  within this project teachers observations are
  not only used to provide a context for the events
  observed but their perspectives form an integral
  part of the analysis process.
• (Armstrong, Barnes, Sutherland, 2005)

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What the video allowed us to see

• The way in which Sarah and the pupils engaged
  with this software in the lesson was at odds with
  Sarahs intended learning objectives
• Sarah chose the software to support the doing of
  science but analysis of the video data suggests
  that pupils were viewing this software as
  gaming software.
• Affordances of the software
• Teachers language and introduction of the task
• Motivational aspect of the whiteboard
• (Armstrong, Barnes, Sutherland, 2005)

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Example 3. PGCE Videopaper project(E.Lazarus
F.Olivero)
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• Videopapers can incorporate in one coehesive
  document
• Videoclips of practice (eg teaching, counselling)
• Collected material (eg students work, teaching
  material, documents)
• Reflective accounts and narratives of the
  video-recorded event
• Research underpinning the event or reading of the
  event
• Commentaries

• Tool for analysis of own practice
• Tool to support reflection on practice
• Tool to represent/show/embody the link between
  theory and practice

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The videopaper assignment

• Select a focus for your videopaper
• Choose one lesson to be video-recorded (by EL)
• Collect materials from the classroom and from
  your teaching
• Review the video
• Edit video from 50 to 5 minutes (IMovie)
• 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 (on a CD)

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The story

• Why working with video? When researching
  elearning, video allows seeing things that we
  could not see with other methods, such as
• Once established that video is useful, how do we
  collect it?
• What do we do with the hours and hours of
  collected video-recordings?
• After the analysis, how can we use the video-data
  in the presentation/ re-presentation/
  dissemination of our findings?
• Issues to consider

42
Dissemination

• Do not want to lose the video element in the
  presentation/ re-presentation of findings
• experiment with new ways of representing and
  communicating teachers professional knowledge so
  that it connected more readily with
  practitioners particular discourses (Gee, 1996)
• experiment with new ways of including video
  elements also in academic publications
• Two forms of (re)presentation
• Videopapers
• Video-assets
• Showing rather than just telling
• Dialogue between text, video and images
• Realism of the video
• Raw data can be accessed by the reader

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DISCOURSES
Discourses are ways of behaving, interacting,
valuing, thinking, believing, speaking, and often
reading and writing that are accepted as
instantiations of particular roles (or types of
people) by specific groups of people. (Gee,1996)
Teachers practice
Academic research

• To support practitioners to value their classroom
  experiences
• and use those experiences as a text to study an
  analyse in order to better understand their crafts

• To provide scholarly and theoretical foundations
  for effective pedagogy

Different Discourses (Bartels, 2003)
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Academic Discourse
Teachers Discourse

• Specialised terminology
• Propositions and prescriptions
• Stream of words

• Language of the classroom
• Sights, sounds and interactive features of the
  classroom
• Visual, oral and physical cues

"if academics want to write for teachers, they
need to be careful to incorporate kind of textual
features and qualities that are central to
teachers' Discourse" (Bartels, 2003)
Practitioners Discourse
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The dominant technology used to gain access to
research is predominantly print publications.

• digital video embedded within a videopaper, in
  contrast, captures, preserves, and represents
  events in ways that connect with the world of the
  practitioner, a world where different forms of
  knowledge are continually being juxtaposed.

videopapers incorporate features that
intrinsically belong to teachers Discourse
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This is real. You can see it. When you read some
of these journals with research in them, I
sometimes think did they just make it up in an
afternoon so they could publish something? The
writing they do just doesnt link with practice
its about different things. It makes me
suspicious of their motives but with this you can
see its real there is a real teacher, the kids
are real, its a real classroom you can see
that. She is having real problems, noisy
machines, noisy guys, messing around.
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Dissemination - the power of video

• This is real. You can see it. When you read some
  of these journals with research in them, I
  sometimes think did they just make it up in an
  afternoon so they could publish something? The
  writing they do just doesnt link with practice
  its about different things. It makes me
  suspicious of their motives but with this you can
  see its real there is a real teacher, the kids
  are real, its a real classroom you can see
  that. She is having real problems, noisy
  machines, noisy guys, messing around.

• the realism that the video elements brought to
  his thinking
• messiness of the video contrasting it tacitly
  with many of the made to measure
  representations that often accompany official
  guidelines
• levels of authenticity embedded within videopaper
  contrasting it to conventional academic papers

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The story

• Why working with video? When researching
  elearning, video allows seeing things that we
  could not see with other methods, such as
• Once established that video is useful, how do we
  collect it?
• What do we do with the hours and hours of
  collected video-recordings?
• After the analysis, how can we use the video-data
  in the presentation/ re-presentation/
  dissemination of our findings?
• Issues to consider

49
Issues to consider

• Video allows/facilitates multidisciplinary
  analysis
• Potential over-collection of video
• storage problems, watching takes time
• Contexts access, permission, use
• School, Home, workplace
• Video-data does not constitute an objective
  account of the event
• Role of the film-maker is not always made
  explicit but is there
• Videoclips are constructed
• Video does not speak for itself
• Need contextual information
• Ethical issues
• If you cant show the video, do you lose the
  essence of the research?

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• Thank you
• For more details and papers
• Fede.olivero_at_bristol.ac.uk