Video Production As A Support To Education In Geography

Between February and November 2014, the Laboratory of Geography of the University of Siena published on the Internet two educational videos titled “Globalization: a geographical approach” and “Globalization: a historical approach”. The aim of this project was to produce educational content in geography that allowed the dissemination of globalization as a scientific subject. Four years after their online publication, the experience collected in the classroom with these videos and moreover the high number of views reached, have stimulated a collective assessment by the members of our Laboratory. The idea is to do a comprehensive evaluation of this experience looking at the aims of the project, its methodology and the results. The evolution of video platforms and their integration with social networks and mobile devices only recently granted to video documents a status of ubiquitous instruments for education and scientific dissemination.

If today society can listen to music videos at will, it is equally true that today, humanity can carry a continuous process of education with the same type of media. The rapid evolution of technology and digital recording devices is also a key factor that allowed the formation of a context where the achievement of internal production of educational videos has become easy and quite straightforward. For this reason, the focus of this article is production of video as of educational material. This project also points to understand to which extent new multimedia tools could in the geographical training coexist and integrate a traditional approach, inside and outside the classroom.

The choice of globalization as subject of the video derived from its significance in geographic university teaching. Specifically, the two videos aimed to highlight the relevant aspects of globalization seen from two distinct perspectives: on one hand its geographical explanation in the strict sense and on the other an essential discussion from a contemporary history perspective. The project aimed to verify to which extent films disseminated through the Internet would increase and integrate concepts acquired by students on such comprehensive and extensive subject in classroom. Since the preparatory stages, we assumed that different perspectives – in this case that of a geographer and that of a historian – would have been essential to offer a complete understanding on a complex issue such as globalization. In the specific case of these videos, the idea was to approach the production process with a genuine interdisciplinary approach.

The use of video, documentaries and films in the classroom is not a new concept. There is a vast bibliography difficult to summarize in these pages. Nevertheless, pioneering works worthy of remark are, the portrayal of educators in motion pictures and teachers in the movies. This theme has undergone a significant development apparently connected to the diffusion of digital audiovisual medium at the beginning of the 21st century. Remarkable contributions are Using Popular Films to Challenge Preserving Teachers and About Teaching In Urban School. . Trier has explored the complexity and potential of these tools with the text challenging the Cinematic Construction of 'Literacy' with Preservice Teachers. Questioning the usefulness of films as an essential tool for education, this paper addresses the topic of video production for teaching in geography.

Aims of the project

The idea of making targeted films for educational purposes was born as a genuine attempt to evaluate the ability to disseminate scientific notions through channels different than text, whether in its traditional printed type or in its increasingly spreading digital version. Although the text represents a unique and unparalleled device for transmission of new ideas, and a perfect complement of classroom teaching, the progressive growth of new communication channels with the advent of the Internet has introduced innovative opportunities for information transmission. The applicability of these new devices as educational tools remains partly unknown and must be assessed within a collective and shared context. As highlighted above, our work program aimed at the production video documents to be published in the open domain of Internet to guarantee free access to the public, therefore, not addressed exclusively to students of the degree courses involved in the teaching carried out by the staff of the Laboratory of Geography of the University of Siena.

It must be stated that globalization presents different levels of complexity that made it one of the most interesting themes of contemporary geography. It is a broad subject that lies exactly in the intersection of topics such as the development, urban or political geography just to name a few. Globalization has progressively affirmed itself as one of the focal topics of the typical programs of introductory courses in geography. Consequently, the choice was also dictated by the consideration that an effective representation of the theme of globalization would have had a positive effect on other related topics during geography courses.

The aim of the project was not to move towards a simplification of support materials for didactic training, nor was it to present a substitutive device for books and texts. On the contrary, and as stated before, the objective was to experiment empirically the production of new digital tools. Today, video represent a medium that have reached a great popularity as a mass communication format. Our main objective was not to exploit the popularity – nor its alleged convenience – but rather to evaluate the potential of the medium itself as a learning device.

The reference context for this project was therefore geographical training at a higher education level. Within this process, a starting question was to understand if the integration of new technological tools need to be considered crucial in the current socio-cultural context. In other words the project aimed to evaluate to what extent, new communication tools can now be successfully and effectively be integrated with traditional methods of education. From the beginning, the logic was therefore to identify and experiment with mechanisms that would allow the integration of new videos and video documents with the regular tools of traditional training. At the same time, the aim was to understand if these new methods would allow the construction of educational materials that could satisfy both their use in curricular education or as a device for scientific dissemination. Also, one of the first objectives was to understand if the films discussed in this paper may perhaps be used successfully both in the scholastic and in the university stages of geographic education. Would the message and the language be consistent with multiple degrees or levels of training? The initial objective was therefore to understand how videos could integrate and improve the preparation and acquisition of scientific knowledge acquired in the classroom or through printed manuals.

Structure and contents

The two video clips were both structured as interviews. The main characters of the films are respectively Prof. Claudio Greppi in Globalization: a geographical perspective and Prof. Tommaso Detti in Globalization: a historical perspective. The idea of organizing the narration around an interview is mainly based on the necessity to provide the highest degree of authoritativeness to the contents produced. In order to achieve this, the decision was to choose as the central character of the narration well acknowledged university fellows. The web today shows a condition of relativism, here intended also as absence of authority. From the beginning it was evident and essential to identify the mechanisms for assigning to our video clips a satisfactory degree of competence and authority.

The interview was chosen as a mechanism to reproduce a process of dialogue between two ideal interlocutors. On the one hand a narrator or interviewee and on the other a listener or interviewer. During the preparation stages of the project, a one-sided dialogue structure for the interview was chosen. It should be remarked, however, how current platforms for video publishing constitute recognized social networks that allow an effectively a dialogue with the final viewers. In fact, nowadays every online platform has spaces to insert comments through which it is possible to provide feedback to documents and their contents.

The structure of the contents was organized according to an ideal order of information that follows a logical sequence. Each interview was structured on a series of topics that ideally the interlocutor asks the interviewee. One of the most relevant elements of all the choices made was of course the duration of the videos. The adopted length was a maximum duration of 15 minutes. The main problem was to understand what duration represented the best option and allowed the construction of the most suitable container for the transmission of ideas. Today the audience of video platforms tends to prefer more short films, so the question asked was to understand the ideal length limit or it would be better to say the balance between the quantity of information to be transmitted and the length of the movie.

The foundation for the dialog of both videos were five questions. Each segment of the video production was structured based on concepts that gravitated around these ideas. It is worth pointing out how the interpretation of the set of question by the two interviewees was considerably different. As will be explained below interviewees had the opportunity to freely develop ideas around the survey. The questions proposed to both interviewees were, or at least can be summarized, in the following five points:

1. What is the meaning of the term globalization – when was the first time you have heard the term globalization?
2. Differences between contemporary globalization (post-colonial) and historical globalization?
3. What role have different media played in globalization in the 20th century?
4. In your opinion, what paradigm (homogenization, polarization or globalization) best describes the social and cultural dynamics of the last two decades?
5. In what way is the development of multinationals, and the increase in foreign direct investment, transforming the general framework of state sovereignty? What is the role of globalization in the economic dynamics of emerging countries?

In addition to the initial questions, interviewed were asked to introduce bibliographical references, concepts and news that would motivate viewers to explore and deepen the topic independently. This aspect has been of great interest and usefulness since in the document references made in the videos were to texts that are consistently used in classrooms during the degree course.

Globalization: from narration to production

The entire project - from its initial preparation to publication - has been characterized by specific actions that have been coordinated in a specific order. The process was divided into 5 distinct phases that required - in the early stages - several attempts at trial error and experimentation to achieve the desired quality standard. Our desire to achieve a high level of quality has influenced many of the choices of this path.

Interview planning

Each of the two interviews began with a group of broad questions on the subject of globalization. Interviewees received the questionnaire beforehand. As stated earlier much attention has been given to leave the interviewees the opportunity to freely interpret and develop the questionnaire. Each question translates ideally into one of the sections that form the structure of the videos. The questions and related subtopics served as a map or guide to lead the interlocutor or addressee progressively within the dialogue at a level of ever increasing complexity. One of the main objectives from the beginning was to leave this structure implied within the dialogue. The questions are not stressed openly by an interviewer nor by a background voice, nor by a title or text to separate the different sections of the dialogue. The only precaution asked interviewees was to open each topic implicitly including the meaning of the question in the opening statements of their answers. The result is precisely that of defining an effective logical dynamic and rhythm in the structure of the expected dialogue.

The shooting

In front of the camera the interviewee was left to talk freely without interruptions and without indications of any kind. The function of the interviewer was passive and neutral. His presence served to ensure the naturalness of the gesture and allow the interviewee to present a natural expression during the shoot. In fact, in the filming the interviewer not only never appears in the frame, but during video-editing his questions and voice were excluded from the final cut.

One main objective was to reach a high-quality standard for the shots. A reflex camera with a photographic lens was used for this purpose. The adopted method offered a great advantage in terms of image quality but placed limits on the dynamics of the recording process. In fact, SLR cameras – for purely commercial reasons – do not allow continuous shooting and stop their recordings every 15 or 30 minutes. In addition, shooting interrupted every 15 minutes also requires more extensive work during the video editing process. All shots were taken with 50mm lenses (on APSC sensor) to ensure the lowest degree of deformation of the interviewee. At the same time, the maximum focal aperture was used to blur the background and thus emphasize the figure of the interviewee. In the specific case of the interview with Claudio Greppi, the interview provided for a double take with a second camera for a lateral shot to favor the video editing process. In any case, the use of the SLR allowed to obtain an excellent depth of field at the interviewed shots that allowed to define an adequate level of filming.

In both cases, the focal aperture of the lens, which is able to convey the maximum amount of light possible, allowed to make satisfactorily illuminated shots and isolation of the subjects from the background.

The audio

At a technical and methodological level, the aspect on which more emphasis was placed was audio recording. A double voice taping accompanied the video shooting. The redundancy of this operation was not directed only to the construction of a backup copy but was necessary for the post-production of a better quality of audio to be used in the video editing phase.

The decision of a double recording was made on the assumption that poor audio quality would simply have produced a video of decreased impact. In other words, the videos had to be characterized by a clear transmission of the messages through voice. The audio recordings were conducted through microphones both on the input of the SLR itself and with a professional digital recorder. The adopted scheme allowed us to make a high quality lossless recording in WAV format at 24khz/bit. This format subsequently allowed to achieve a good audio track through the equalization of the levels and the removal of the background noise.

Video editing

One feature shared by the two films was the type of shooting taken through a close-up. The interview with Claudio Greppi lasted a total of 1 hour and 36 minutes. This recording time was subsequently reduced to 10 minutes and 43 seconds of the final cut. The interview with Tommaso Detti lasted 1 hour and 28 minutes, then condensed to 15 minutes and 25 seconds video clip. The unrestricted approach to the interview, described above, imposed an extra effort in selecting sections of the shooting for the editing of the final video. To allow fluidity in the final montage different strategies were adopted for the two films. In the first case we used the double shooting. That solution allows to cut and mount between parts of the shooting without major obstacles. In the second case, made with only one SLR, the fluidity in video editing was achieved with the use of a large number of b-roll movies and context clips accompanied by the voice of the narrator in the background. In fact, the use constant use of video clips in Globalization: a historical perspective lead to a high-quality product and a significant difference between the two videos. Another aspect that differentiates the two films is the presence of a soundtrack in Globalization: a historical perspective. In fact, this video consists of 6 different music tracks in the background that accompany the interviewee’s voice. The choice of all the audio and video clips were made among accessible Creative Commons license on the Internet. Both the music and the clips were used as a device to develop a more plausible context and therefore facilitate the descriptive process conducted by the interviewee’s narration. In the first film instead (Globalization: a geographical perspective) only steady pictures and maps were used as an incorporation to its final montage.

Publication

After the montage completion, compression has been carried out, trying to keep the quality of the product as unaltered as possible. The final version of the first movie was 1080p while the second one was 720p. Accordingly to the aims of the project, the conditions of the platforms that offered the possibility to publish the videos were assessed. Following the logic of full accessibility and given the free nature of the platform, it was published on the YouTube platform.

The video in the classroom

Commercial promotion of the video clips was never done after their release and they were not promoted through other channels such as social networks. The videos essentially began to be used in classrooms during the 2015/2016 geography courses. Initially they were presented together with other films on the Internet for their use in and outside the classroom. In the successive academic year, the videos were presented as an integrative content of the course. It was actively suggested to students to watch the videos. Then, during the next academic year 2017/2018 it was decided to evaluate, through an impartial framework, the value and potential of video documents as an educational tool. This process was carried out examining the case of Globalization: a historical perspective. This decision was dictated also by the higher popularity in terms of views that this clip gained specially if compared to respect Globalization: a geographical perspective. By September 2018 this video had already exceeded 18,000 views while for the second film this number was still around 1000. In this regard it should be noted that it is very difficult to understand which choices between the two production may have led to these significant differences. It should be remembered though, that Globalization: a historical perspective represented in general a more evolved characterized for more attention to technical details like background music, as well as a list of more than 60 video clips that were used to contextualize the narration. This level of carefulness and attention determined differences in the final result of both productions.

As shown by many researchers, the evaluation of the impact in the classroom is still one of the key points within the entire creative process and production. For this purpose, students of the Geography D course of the three-year course of literary and philosophical studies at the University of Siena were used as a reference sample. To evaluate the scope as a teaching device in the classroom a two-step procedure was followed. First, the video Globalization: a historical perspective was never showed in the classroom during the lessons of the entire semester of 2017-2018. At a certain point of the semester, the web address to access the video was provided to all the students who attended classes regularly. The video was presented without emphasis as supplementary material for the globalization subject. During the rest of the course, no more indications or remarks for the video were made in the classroom. Just before the end of the semester an anonymous online questionnaire was presented to the sample group to which they answered directly in the classroom through their smartphone devices.

The questionnaire consisted essentially of 9 questions without a formal structure. The form was proposed to a group of 105 students that attended that day the geography lesson. Students who answered the first question negatively were automatically excluded from the rest of the questionnaire. The questions asked were:

• Have you seen the video Globalization: a historical perspective?
• Did the video express the concepts clearly?
• The video presented content that you consider interesting?
• Was the video relevant to your university education?
• The video has stimulated to deepen the theme of globalization?
• Did you find the appropriate length of video?
• Would you be interested to follow (30:00) a longer version of the video?
• Do you consider the contents of the document relevant to the contents of the Geography curriculum?

The results were as follows. After 2 months and 2 weeks of the indication of the links 77. 14% of the students had seen the video. Considering that a total of 105 students answered the poll a sample of 81 need to be considered as the actual sample of this assessment.

The interpretation of these results is complex but to some extent allow us to highlight some elements useful for the analysis summarized in these pages. Questions b, c and d, to be read together, demonstrate a good reception of the videos. As shown by the answers to these three questions, the general feedback was positive given also that a large portion of the population sample that took vision of the video. We must remember that the video was not mandatory. We assume that there has been also a word of mouth that led to these results. We also assume that the group of first viewers had deemed the film useful for the learning program and therefore presume that the high value attributed matured into a positive suggestion or judgment passed to the classmates. The percentage of positive responses to the question d emphasizes a high percentage of individuals (80. 2%) which considers consistent and coherent with their university education. In summary, this specific movie was valued as “relevant tool” in the comprehensive framework of the degree course and not only contextualized within the geography program. The answers to question e emphasizes how the movie, beyond the contents, has been evaluated as an instrument able to “stimulate” further consideration to this topic. The answers to f and g are apparently conflicting but are particularly interesting precisely because they provide key elements on one of the crucial questions of the project. All the interviewees consider “adequate” the length of the video. Simultaneously, answers to g shows how a double-length version of the movie do not attract student’s attention as an education device. The answers have only shown a lower predisposition by the students to engage in a video of greater length. Answers to the question h are important because seem to show a consistency between what was discussed in the classroom, the readings, other texts and the contents of the film.

Conclusions

It is difficult to draw a conclusive statement on this educational project. In fact, it must be considered still in progress, since the films described in these pages are still accessible and free for its use and will continue to be used as tools for integrating teaching.

On the one hand it should be clarified that these present results that have overall confirmed the expectations outlined in the introductory part of this text. This experience has confirmed how films can be considered effectively as educational tools, useful both to integrate and to stimulate the education of even complex geographic themes. In our opinion, the most important aspect was the positive reception that these films had among geography students of some degree courses of the University of Siena. For both of the videos produced, it was possible to confirm how this type of video documents constitute an excellent integrating tool, both for classroom teaching activities and for classroom dialogue or as an integration training outside the classroom. From what seems to emerge from the comparison of the two films in question, quality seems to play an essential role in the diffusion and affirmation of these instruments. In fact, the presence of music tracks in the background and movies as context elements seem to cause the greatest popularity of a film with respect to the other.

As geography teachers, the overall assessment we make is that custom video production is a process with enormous potential for student education. The perception that we have had as educators is that the project has to some extent improved overall training experience in general. Not only is it a mechanism to integrate but above all to strengthen and connect the concepts acquired in the classroom.