Making better use of the visual medium in educational videos (2014 version)

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© Arnold Wentzel [email protected]

Tapping the educational potential of visual media Arnold Wentzel

The power of the visual medium is usually wasted in educational efforts. Next time you watch a

television documentary, an educational DVD or a lecture on the internet, close your eyes and you will

soon realise that you can gather just about all the information from just listening. Most of the time we

see 'talking heads', slides full of text that are read or clips and pictures that contain little additional

information. Most of the visuals are used purely to decorate, perhaps to justify why the content

appears in a visual medium rather than a simple audio recording. Of course, we like things that are

pretty, but there is little point in spending so much effort on decoration and let the immense potential

of the visual medium to add to the learning experience go unfulfilled. Making an audio recording in

such cases would have been much cheaper.

Greene (2004) created a theory of informative video to increase our awareness of how we can use the

visual medium better. Unfortunately his sometimes cryptic explanations are often difficult to grasp

and there is a fair amount of repetition. His ideas are nevertheless eye-opening. In this paper, I will

develop my own theory that is perhaps not as tidy and rich as Greene's theory, but has the advantage

of being simpler. For more information on Greene's ideas see Appendix B.

The question that drives this paper is: why use visual media in educational efforts? In the process I

tried to uncover how the addition of the visual medium enhances the learning experience in ways that

a simple audio recording cannot do. If this is understood then educational programmes that are

viewed on television, DVDs and the internet can be designed that will double the value of those

programmes.

1 Elements that interact through visual media

Visual (or perhaps more accurately audio-visual) educational recordings should have an event-like

quality – it should have the feel that something happened that left the audience changed in some way.

Most lectures don't have this quality, yet recordings (which can achieve so much more than a lecture)

often merely replicate dysfunctional lectures (except perhaps for some added visual decoration).

Figure 1: What creates an event-like quality?

As can be seen from the diagram above, for something to have an event-like quality there needs to be

interaction between ideas and an environment made up of people and things – moving forward on a

journey towards a purpose. The people could be the presenter, those who play other roles during the

recording and the audience, the things are usually non-human physical objects or representations, and

ideas are the abstract entities that are necessary to achieve the purpose. In educational recordings

Things People

Ideas Presenter

Purpose (answer to essential question)

Environment

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ideas are primary, but without interaction with people or things they remain lifeless. Ideas will

interact with ideas, but they should also interact with people and things, and facilitate interactions

between people, between things and between people and things.

Too often in recordings the only thing is the text on a slide (or maybe some decorations), and the only

person is the presenter. There is little interaction especially if the presenter simply verbalises the text

on the slide. One rarely finds recordings where one sees how ideas clash and connect with other

ideas, or where one sees how these ideas bring about interactions between people, between things and

between people and things. In such recordings one also does not get a sense of a journey towards a

purpose – it feels like the presenter is just trying to cover as much content as possible in the limited

time. Little change took place in the audience as a result.

The purpose of a recording should not be to cover content – it should primarily focus on the core ideas

(usually three or less) from which the other content grows – let's call them seed ideas. Making the

seed ideas clear is the priority and only if there is time should additional detail be covered. Any detail

covered should grow directly from the seed ideas. These seed ideas can be converted into essential

questions and the purpose of the recording becomes the answering of these questions.

It is much better to focus on a very few seed ideas or essential questions, because if these are

understood the audience will think differently and be able to understand the detail that grows from it

much better. Covering as much content as possible leaves an audience overwhelmed, with little

understanding and even less memory of what was covered.

2 Common tools that can be used in visual media

For the purpose of this paper I will assume that by visual media I mean any media in which recordings

are made for the purpose of being watched (and listened to) by an audience. I will furthermore focus

on recordings that are made for educational purposes (such as television documentaries, lectures

watched on television or MOOCs like Coursera and educational DVDs).

There are five tools that can be used within these recordings:

Presentations: this commonly involves a person (visible or invisible) speaking while any of the

following appear:

o Textual objects: text that summarises or enhances the content.

o Diagrammatic objects: 2D or 3D diagrams used to illustrate or represent ideas.

o Hybrid objects: integration of text with diagrams.

Conversations: this is used to give ideas a human shape and feel. However, it can degenerate to

'talking heads' unless there is some element of surprise, reaction, emotion or conflict.

o Interviews: conversations where people play defined roles. Various talk show formats

may be used here ranging from one-on-one interviews to issue-based talk shows with

many perspectives represented. The interviewer need not be visible.

o Dialogues: people involved in a free exchange of meaning – there is some

unpredictability here given the lack of pre-defined roles.

Narratives: any chain of events that leads to an outcome, which illustrates a particular point.

o Causal narratives which usually takes the form of a story, though it need not be told as a

story, as long as a chain of causes and consequences is clear.

o Logical narratives which take the form of logical reasoning using principles and

concepts. Though this is not told as a story it will also move in a particular direction

towards a conclusion.

Demonstrations: when ideas are too difficult to explain or need to be applied, they need to be

demonstrated in one of the following ways:

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o Visual representation of a procedure and its consequences.

o Coaching involving interactions between a coach and learners.

Division of the visual space: an underutilised tool to increase the complexity of the watching

experience (if there is too little variety or stimulation) or to make what is unheard or unseen

visible. This may include the following:

o Thinking bubbles or reaction shots that appear next to the objects or subjects involved in

the presentation, conversation, demonstration or story

o Commentary that appear at appropriate points in the presentation, conversation,

demonstration or story – similar to subtitles

In most recordings one sees presentations usually involving a 'talking head' alternating with some text

(which is redundant .if the talking head simply repeats it). If pictures are shown they are often

decorative. Inserted video clips can usually be listened to with eyes closed without missing much.

Limited and inadequate use is made of the other four. There are many recordings that use the other

four quite well, but they are the minority.

The table below shows the kinds of interactions each of the tools facilitate. An asterisk indicates that

it is suitable to facilitating an interaction, and a double asterisk indicates that it is exceptionally good

at it. The interactions are between people (P), ideas (I) and things (T).

Table 1: Interactions enabled by each tool

P-P I-I T-T P-I P-T T-I P-I-T

Presentations ** * Conversations ** * Narratives (causal) * * ** ** * ** Narratives (logical) ** Demonstration (procedure) * ** * Demonstration (coaching) * * * ** Division of visual space * ** *

3 Objectives that can be achieved through visual media

Educational recordings should aim to achieve two main objectives: learning and engagement. If there

is no learning, then the recording is not educational, and if it is not engaging then it will not keep the

attention of the audience. The objectives can be subdivided as follows:

Learning is achieved if:

o The recording leads to an improved understanding of the ideas.

o The ideas in the recording are remembered.

Engagement: is evident if:

o The audience is stimulated sensually and mentally.

o The audience experiences a sense of participation with the content.

Decorating a visual space certainly helps with engagement, but it is a rather weak method to ensure

engagement. Engagement should serve learning – it does so by directing the attention of the audience

to the learning and keeping it there. Too much decoration can easily distract the audience from the

learning.

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4 How the visual medium helps to achieve the objectives

Audio can fulfill most of the functions of the visual medium, albeit much less efficiently. This section

tries to identify some of the areas where the visual medium is superior, and relates it to the objectives.

The next table summarises the discussion to follow.

Table 2: How the objectives are achieved

Understanding Remembering Stimulation Participation

Detail Difference Change Relation

Context Attention Short-term memory Long-term memory

Fun Fumbling Fascination

Vicarious Direct

4.1 Functions that promote understanding

If one understands something it should be possible to chunk it up, down and across as shown in the

next diagram. The visual medium is particularly well suited at exhibiting each type of chunking, and

more.

Figure 2: Chunking towards understanding

The four functions the visual medium fulfills well when it comes to promoting understanding are:

Detail: If one can explain what something is part of, what it is made up of and what examples

of it are, that suggests some grasp of the idea. The visual medium is very good at zooming in

and out (in 2D and 3D), showing different levels of detail in a person, a thing or an idea.

o Zoom out: showing a visual representation of the ever bigger picture of ideas, people or

things.

o Zoom in: showing a visual representation of the increasingly minute details of ideas,

people or things.

o Zoom across: showing the various different kinds and examples visually.

Difference: Understanding also requires being able to differentiate and find commonalities.

The visual medium is effective at highlighting this very quickly.

o Contrast: showing where people, things and ideas are different.

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o Commonality: showing what people, things and ideas have in common.

o Analogy: providing visual analogies.

Change: Very few people, things and ideas stay constant, so part of understanding is the ability

to explain how and why they change. The visual medium shows change very easily.

o Movement: showing how one idea leads to another, or how and where people and things

move from one state to another.

o Reaction: showing how people, ideas and things react to other people, ideas or things.

o Evolution: showing how the same set of people, ideas or things change over time.

Relation: Possibly the best indicator of understanding is when one can place an idea, person or

thin in relation to other ideas by explaining its relative importance relative to other ideas, how it

is connected to other ideas or where it is located.

o Hierarchy: this overlaps with the "detail" function. All ideas are found within a

hierarchy of ideas, and it easy to show a hierarchy visually. The same apply to people

and things.

o Connection: all ideas are derived from, and lead to, other ideas. Visual representations

can show the chain of connection easily.

o Location: visual techniques enable one to quickly show the location of an idea, person or

thing within a hierarchy or network of connections.

In most recordings one does not see the visual medium being used to convey any of these effectively.

If any of these functions are employed it is normally done verbally, and so the power of the visual

medium remains underutilised.

4.2 Functions that enhance memory

Something that cannot be recalled when needed has not yet been learned. The visual medium makes

it easier to remember since visual memory is near perfect as researchers have shown. Memory of the

ideas can be facilitated in the following ways:

Context: Unless ideas are situated in the known, they are quickly forgotten. Ideas can be

situated as follows:

o Environmental alignment: we remember ideas fastest when we encounter them in an

environment (of people and things) that is aligned with such ideas. Visual techniques

employing 'green screens' can easily change the environment to suit the ideas being

taught.

o Prior ideas: we remember ideas best when they are connected to our prior knowledge.

Such prior knowledge is easy to display visually and so show where the new ideas are

located.

Attention: For ideas to be transferred to long-term memory, they must first attract attention and

only then be placed in the short-term memory. Visual tools are good at attracting and

maintaining attention in the following ways:

o Emotion: emotions are most powerfully evoked when one sees the actual emotion, and as

Plato once argued, we do not pay attention to anything unless it evokes some emotion.

o Surprise and novelty: events that are expected are barely registered, but even a little of

the unexpected attracts attention. The visual medium can be used to create many small

surprises and novel appearances throughout the recording.

o Credibility: we pay attention to ideas if we think the source is credible. The visual

medium can establish the credibility of a person faster than the audio medium alone.

Short-term memory: Once ideas attract attention, they may be placed in the short-term memory

if it such a transfer is facilitated. Visual tools aid short-term memory in the following ways:

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o Keeping track: when a recording covers a lot of information that the audience needs to

keep track of to understand subsequent ideas, those ideas can be displayed visually to

prevent overload of the short-term memory

o Integration: it is much easier to keep something in mind if it comes to you in more than

one way. Senses should be integrated rather than separated. Integration is easy in the

visual medium because it allows verbal, textual and visual stimuli to be presented

simultaneously.

o Mnemonics: many of the most powerful mnemonic techniques are visual, so the visual

medium is most suitable to show how to use these mnemonic techniques.

Long-term memory: ideas are held in the long-term memory only if we are forced to think about

what is in the short-term memory. We will only think if motivated to do so.

o Concreteness: ideas are best remembered when they have some concrete quality –

somehow connected to the real-world or help us to make sense of the world. Seeing this

real-world connection visually certainly makes it more concrete and gets us thinking.

o Story-telling: as explained in the previous sub-section, narratives help us make

connections. The more connections we can make to an idea the longer we will remember

it. The visual medium excels at making especially causal narratives vivid, but it can also

help to show logical connections. It is natural for humans to engage their thoughts when

watching a flow of ideas or events

o Perspectives: more perspectives allow one to make more connections. Perspective is

mainly a visual phenomenon, so the visual medium can easily show different

perspectives (on ideas or of people or things) and switch between them. Different

perspectives also force us to think in order to make sense of them.

Figure 3: Summary of memory theory

Memory theory is summarised in the diagram above. Many of these principles are explained in Caine

and Caine (1994) and Heath and Heath (2007).

Most recordings pay scant attention to whether the audience will ever remember the ideas, hoping that

by covering as much content as possible somehow some of it will stick. Merely providing a recap of

the main points rarely help people remember if it is merely a talking head reading through a bullet

point list of main ideas. The reality is that we remember very little unless the presenter designs the

recording to achieve this.

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4.3 Functions that provide stimulation

We are more engaged when stimulated – mentally or through the senses or emotions. We are

stimulated when we find something interesting, so this section is based on the F3 theory of what

makes something interesting. It combines Koster's (2005) theory of fun, Thaler's ideas about optimal

perturbation (fumbling) and Hogshead's (2010) triggers of fascination. It overlaps quite a bit with the

functions that make ideas easier to remember.

As the diagram below shows, we are stimulated by something which is fun. We have fun when we

find and master new patterns, where patterns refer to particular ways of thinking or doing that seem to

work. But we are generally happy to stick to existing patterns, so something has to disrupt us to

motivate us to look for new patterns (fumbling). We will pay particular attention to those patterns

that fascinate us. We will play with these patterns until we master them.

Figure 4: The F3 theory of how something becomes interesting

Fun: this requires visuals that show different patterns.

o Variety and novelty: a regular change in scenes or appearances, and unexpected colours,

textures or shapes.

o Complexity: more than one stimulus at a time appearing. An example might be a

combination of talking, facial expression, coloured moving text as commentary

combined and a diagram. If the mind does not have sufficient complexity to keep

engaged it starts to drift.

o Application: showing how the audience can try out different patterns.

Fumbling: this involves disrupting the audience's existing patterns (ideas about how to think or

act) in the following ways:

o Showing where conventional patterns don't work.

o Showing different perspectives that are different from pre-existing ones, but equally or

more effective, or maybe just more interesting.

Fascination: In the search for new patterns we are directed towards those we find fascinating.

Hogshead (2010) argues that there are seven triggers of fascination as summarised in the table

below. The visual medium can be used to trigger one or more them by showing what happens

when using or not using the ideas.

Fun

Fumbling Fascinate

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Table 3: Hogshead's triggers of fascination

Trigger Description

Lust Feeling, senses, anticipation of pleasure

Mystique Puzzling, unanswered question, part of a secret

Alarm Fear, loss of possibilities, respond now

Prestige Achievement, ahead of others, respect, admiration

Power Control, command over others or over environment

Vice Rebel against rules, being different

Trust Comfort, certainty, predictability

In most recordings one sees an attempt at creating fun, but usually in a decorative sense (focusing on

variety and novelty) but not much more. But variety and novelty alone does not aid the learning

experience if it is not used in conjunction with fumbling and fascination. Sometimes fun, fumbling

and fascination can be achieved verbally, so the visual medium may not always play such an

important role in stimulation.

4.4 Functions that create a sense of participation

When we feel separate from something, we pay it little attention. But the more we feel part of

something, the more we engage.

Vicarious participation: we do not have the actually participate to feel that we are participating

as Ramachandran (2011) has shown with his research on mirror neurons. Some ways in which

we can participate through other people are:

o Emotion: the visual medium can easily evoke emotions in us which make us experience

an event as if we are there. Ideas can be shown to be in response to certain emotions

(maybe anger about injustice) or lead to emotions (maybe the joy of discovery).

Emotions can be shown by the presenter, an audience or people involved in using the

ideas.

o Games: when watching others play games we get involved by giving advice on the side

(even if it cannot be heard) and choosing sides. Game shows with visual educational

content can be very effective as seen in Season 3 of Open Varsity (even though its

execution was not quite so good).

o Application: seeing how others apply knowledge makes us feel that we are involved too

– this is part of the reason cooking shows are so popular.

Direct participation: The audience can participate in the recording through the use of external

media that allow participation either in real-time or with a delay.

o Real-time: as used in some television shows, the audience may participate by calling in,

sending sms's or e-mail messages. This can be used to add content to the show or even

influence the direction of the show. The same is possible with live educational

recordings.

o Delayed: The audience may be enabled to participate through social media, and

participating through discussion groups, uploading their own videos or obtaining

certificates by completing quizzes. The results of this can be shared through the visual

medium – either online or in subsequent recordings.

Except for the limited Open Varsity experiment with game shows, or the discussion forums and

quizzes on some MOOCs, the participation dimension remains largely unexplored, especially those

aspects that are well suited to the visual medium.

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Appendix A: Tool used to plan recordings

Based on this paper one can see that there are at least 130 ways (13 sub-objectives x 10 types of tools) in which the visual medium can be used more

effectively in educational programmes. If the finer detail of every sub-objective is taken into account, this extends to 400 ways.

The table below shows the sub-objectives against the types of tools. It can be used when planning a recording to generate ideas for improving the use of the

visual medium, and also to evaluate existing recordings.

Tools

Objectives

Presentation Conversation Narrative Demonstration Division

Textual Diagram Interview Dialogue Causal Logical Procedure Coaching Comment Bubbles

Understanding

Detail

Difference

Change

Relation

Remembering

Context

Attention

Short-term

Long-term

Stimulation

Fun

Fumbling

Fascination

Participation Vicarious

Direct

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Appendix B: Greene's Theory of Informative Video

The diagram below is Greene's own diagrammatic summary of his theory. I refer the reader to the full

text of Greene (2004) that is available on the web. What I will do here is simply explain how to

understand the diagram below.

Figure 1: Greene's theory summarised

Source: Greene (2004)

Greene has explained this approach in a number of self-published books available on Scribd. In this

paper I will focus on one specific tool (fractal diagrams) that form part of his overall approach he calls

'structural cognition' (see Greene, 2006).

The assumption behind structural cognition is that social reality can be categorised and that those

categories can be placed in symmetrical hierarchies. So, a particular phenomenon may be categorised

into four kinds, and those four kinds further categorised into four sub-types. The diagram below

shows how this would look like visually.

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Figure 2: Hierarchical structure of ideas

A different, but similar, representation is given below. In both diagrams you can see that

phenomenon A consists of four categories and that each of those four categories can be further

categorised into four sub-categories. It is hierarchical since categories are nested within other

categories. It is symmetrical since at every act of categorisation always leads to the same number of

categories. In this case, there were four categories, and for every category, four sub-categories.

Figure 3: An alternative hierarchical structure of ideas

Whether this way of representing social reality is a true reflection of it is beside the point – what is

important is whether it helps us to think better about this reality. As Greene suggests, there are a

number of benefits to our thinking.

Firstly, the hierarchical structure allows us to distinguish the more important ideas from the less

important ideas. The more important ideas are those that are the most generative – in our example A

A A1

A1a

A1b

A1c

A1d

A2

A2a

A2b

A2c

A2d

A3

A3a

A3b

A3c

A3d

A4

A4a

A4b

A4c

A4d

A

A1

A1a

A1b

A1c

A1d

A2

A2a

A2b

A2c

A2d

A3

A3a

A3b

A3c

A3d

A4

A4a

A4b

A4c

A4d

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ultimately leads us to sixteen ideas (A1a through to A4d), A1 only leads us to four ideas (A1a through

to A1d) whereas A1a is just one idea.

Secondly, the symmetrical structure makes it all easier to remember. It is easier to remember a

balanced hierarchical list and also makes it immediately obvious when you are forgetting or missing

something.

This is related to the most important benefit – it helps us to create the content inside the categories

because it is clear where the categorisation is incomplete. To see this benefit better, we need to

consider Greene's way of representing hierarchical-symmetrical relationships between ideas. Greene

would show figures 2 and 3 as displayed in the next diagram.

Figure 4: A fractal diagram

Greene's fractal diagram has

the advantage of being more

compact, so it can convey

more information with less

space. If the diagram lacks

symmetry it is more obvious

– for example above where

A4d is missing.

Psychologists tell us that the

mind instinctively sees

patterns, and when a pattern is

incomplete, it tries to fill in

what is missing. The fractal

diagram harnesses this

tendency to provoke the mind

into generating or searching

for what is missing. This

simple technique virtually

forces one into generating

ideas until symmetry and

completion is achieved

This is the method Greene used to develop his theory of informative video. After much reading and

observation he determined that there were eight main functions through which the visual medium can

inform the audience (rather than just making the verbal presentation more attractive). Once he had

eight functions, he searched for eight sub-functions or ways for each of the eight main functions. This

led him to 64 functions (8 x 8). His fractal diagram is an octagon since he needed a geometrical shape

with eight sides (for the eight functions) and is earlier in this Appendix. It looks more complicated,

but works exactly in the same way as figure 3.

I did not understand everything in Greene's theory, yet this does not detract from its usefulness. Even

if only a fraction is understood it remains fruitful and eye-opening, and if only a fraction of this is

implemented we will see the quality of documentaries and various other visual presentations improve

significantly.

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References

Caine, R. and Caine, G. 1994. Making connections.

Greene, R.T. 2004. A Theory of Informative Video: 64 Functions and How to Implement Them.

Greene, R.T. 2006. Powers from Brain Training: Mind, Language-Art, Mind Extensions, Structure,

Theory, Reflection, Happiness, Social Automata, Evidence, Career, Culture, Theories, & Design.

Heath, C. and Heath, D. 2007. Made to stick.

Hogshead, S. 2010. Fascinate. HarperCollins.

Koster, R. 2005. A theory of fun for game design. Paraglyph Press.

Ramachandran, V.S. 2011. The tell-tale brain. London: Willaim Heinemann.

Thaler, S.L. Various papers on www.imagination-engines.com

Making better use of the visual medium in educational videos (2014 version)

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