Home > News > K12 curriculum Tagged Articles

Posts Tagged ‘K12 curriculum’

26th
Oct 2012

Up to 80% of Teachers Using Video in the Classoom, But …

… Less Than 10% of Those Teachers Are Receiving The Full Benefits.

Research conducted over the last 18 months indicates that more than 80% of teachers in the US are using video in the classroom as a valued teaching resource, however a combination of lack of subtitles (closed captions), and a lack of understanding how to use those subtitles effectively, mean that the vast majority of those teachers are not getting the full benefits from that video for themselves or their students.

Subtitles have widely been regarded in the past as being essential only for those smaller numbers of children with hearing impairments. But sadly this misapprehension is robbing students of many opportunities.

A substantial amount of research over the last 30 years has demonstrated that subtitles on video, movies and television, has the potential to significantly improve students reading and literacy skills. In fact a pilot program operated by the late Dr. Alice Killackey of the Availll Institute demonstrated the ability to improve children’s Reading and Literacy skills by as much as one year, in as little as 6 weeks.

Evidence substantiating this potential comes from countries like Finland that have for many years provided TV programming with subtitles as a matter of course, and as a result they repetitively top the list of OECD countries with the highest Reading and Literacy skills amongst children.

However the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that would enable children to improve their Reading and Literacy skills at the same time as studying a range of curriculum-based topics, has remained elusive while the majority of companies providing educational video for teachers have chosen to ignore and provide the use of subtitles – either because of the added cost of providing that captioning, or lack of awareness about the full potential it provides in the educational environment.
(more…)


7th
Aug 2012

Zane Education Reviews

Reviews of Zane Education by Educational Blogs Provides Valuable Insight into Benefits of Visual Learning

The results of independent reviews recently carried out of the Zane Education website and their online visual learning solution by a random selection of 100 different education-related blogs has now been published.

Zane Education is rapidly becoming known and recognised as the owner of the largest fully subtitled online educational video library currently available online. Their use of this online educational video library – which was developed specifically to teach a comprehensive selection of curriculum topics, provides an extremely effective and highly beneficial means  of Visual Learning that can benefit all children, and not only those with special needs, dyslexia or reading disabilites.

Access to these blogs is provided easily at one central location: Zane Education Review Blogs.
(more…)


14th
Jul 2012

Boycott The Use of Educational Video With No Subtitles or Closed Captions

Educational Video Without Subtitles or Captions Fails To Provide Equal Access for all Children

We live in a time where now more than 94% of teachers use video as an important educational video resource in the classroom.

As a result a host of services now attempt to provide online educational video to satisfy that growing demand. However with the exception of only two companies, they all conveniently ignore the fact that providing educational video without the essential availability of subtitles or captions, fails to provide equal access for all children. And it’s all because of cost …it simply costs too much.

The power of Visual Learning is beyond doubt, but the use of captions and subtitles on Educational Video is regarded as essential for:

  • The Deaf and hearing impaired students.
  • Improving comprehension for struggling readers.
  • Improving literacy for children with learning disabilities and Special Needs.
  • Enabling all children to improve Reading and Literacy skills.
  • When combined with the audio visual nature of video they provides for the widest range of Learning styles.
  • Providing language benefits for students learning English as a Second Language

They are so important that the company Zane Education recognises the use of subtitles and captions on educational video as The Missing Piece.

Even the law now recognises and demands the use of subtitles and captions on video.
(more…)


25th
May 2012

Educational Videos for Teachers in the K-12 Classroom

Searching for Online Educational Video for Teachers to Use In the Classroom Can be a Drag

If you have found this page because you are a teacher looking for online video to use in class tomorrow, and don’t have the time to read and enjoy this article about the frustrations that many of your peers are experiencing with this same task, then go directly to this page to access the educational online video you need.

However if you have a few minutes, and are interested in reading about the frustration being suffered by a growing number of teachers like yourself, and the solution – then read on…..

Some people must expect teachers to be miracle workers.

And many of those people, or so it would appear,  can be found amongst the growing number of companies attempting to provide online video for teachers to use in the classroom.

Any as teacher that has ever sat down in the evening and attempted to find an online video that might be suitable for use in a class next day will tell you, it can be a hugely frustrating and time consuming task.

It is disappointing that – with more than 80% of teachers understanding the benefit of using online educational video as a valuable and effective classroom teaching resource – the majority of online educational video providers seem to lack any appreciation of what a teacher really needs.

Above all a teacher needs to be able to find and identify the appropriate online video to use in a matter of minutes, and that video really should be supported.  That support should provide immediate access to a relevant Lessons Plan, the online testing or quiz for that particular video topic, and in an ideal situation – the use of online interactive study tools that enable that topic to be fully explored by either the student or teacher. Yet the vast majority of online educational video services don’t even provide any level of Tech-support.
(more…)


23rd
May 2012

Study How Animals are Classified Using Online Video

A review of Studying How Animals are Classified Using online subtitled Video

Review Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Stars

Using these online subtitled videos to study and learn about How Animals are Classified, you’ll explore the history and structure of the five-kingdom system of organism classification and learn how the horse (or Equus caballus) is categorized by kingdom, phylum, subphylum, class, order, family, genus and species.

Zane Education‘s library of online educational video includes a comprehensive range of Biology topics, and today we review the topic of How Animals are Classified.

How Animals are Classified is a curriculum-based topic intended for students of 12 years and older up to those of Adult age, or Grades 6 and upwards.
(more…)



24th
Mar 2012

Online Educational Video

 

Review and Compare Online Educational Video Services

As many as 94% of teachers are doing it in the classroom, an increasing number of Home Educators are beginning to do it, and even the parents and caregivers of Special Needs students are now understanding why they need to do it.

Doing what?

Using online educational video as a powerful and potentially very beneficial teaching aid, that what!

There is no doubt that the audio visual nature of video and movies as an educational tool is extremely useful, after all it is a powerful form of Visual Learning. But choosing which educational video service to use can be like trying to compare apples with oranges.

A recent survey of the many websites now offering online video for educational purposes reveals the good, the bad, and the downright ugly side of what can only be described in most cases as a very misleading situation.

For a start if you are going to use video for teaching children a selection of curriculum topics, it is stating the obvious that you need to use educational video that was designed specfically for the purpose. Trying to use video content that was original designed for television programming and enterainment can hardly be described as being aligned to National or State Standards.

Then of course you have the issue of educational video that is not subtitled. This type of video, no matter how good the content, is essentially only doing 66% of the job. Children – whether they be Special Needs or not – need to have the choice to watch, listen to or read each presentation. It is this that caters for the widest range of Learning Styles and abilities. In fact in 2010 the Government passed laws requiring video providers to provide subtitles – otherwise known as closed captions. Yet because this is the Internet, many providers simply ignore these requirements which is testament to a very prevalent attitude that is if it’s video, and if it’s of a general educational nature, it’s good enough.
(more…)


28th
Jun 2011

Educational Video and The K12 Curriculum

Wasting Money in Education – 50 State Curriculums?

I was recently given the job of conducting some research on Education in India and the current state of the education market in India.

One of the first things I discovered to my surprise was that in a country of 1.2 billion people with over 250 million students in the K12 age range at school, was that the country basically had one education curriculum.

At first I thought I had made a mistake, so I checked with our new office in India only to discover that was correct. A country that many consider third-world, does have an education system that essentially operates using one single curriculum.

So why on earth does a country like the United States – supposedly a world leader – a country with less than a quarter of India’s population and just 20% of that number of students, require 50 different State curriculums?

Are children in Los Angeles so totally different from children in New York or Florida? Of course not. So what on earth can possibly justify such a gross waste of time, energy and money, in a time when education appears to be under-funded and increasingly ineffective?

Can you imagine having 50 different financial currencies in one country, or a motor vehicle manufacturer like Ford making 50 different versions of a particular model of car, one for each State? Of course not. So why is it the case in education? (more…)


29th
Jan 2011

Visual Learning for Hearing Impaired Students

Subtitled Videos for Education of the Hearing Impaired Child

We begin this fifth article in the series about Visual Learning by stating the obvious, that educational videos that have been developed specifically to teach the K12 curriculum, and that purposely provide dedicated subtitles, provide an improved, effective and enjoyable way of delivering learning and education for the hearing impaired student or the child with hearing difficulties, and will encourage self-motivation towards a continuation of that learning experience. Or in simple terms, the hearing impaired student will enjoy this new and more meaningful way of learning, and as a result they are going to want to continue using it.

Children generally benefit greatly from Visual Learning. The use of educational video introduces that important element of fun to the learning process, it delivers the curriculum content in a graphical format that makes learning interesting, it enables and encourages them to learn at their own speed thereby enabling them to achieve their greatest potential, it provides a more compelling alternative to the textbook that often does little to inspire or motivate the student, and it provides them with what can be best described as their own virtual teacher complete with STOP and START buttons.

As the awareness of the effectiveness of Visual Learning has grown, and the significant benefits of online educational video have become more widely accepted and understood, the availability and the amount of online educational video has started to increase. However with the exception of one company, the needs of the hearing impaired child or student appear to have been largely ignored and forgotten.

While this may not have been deliberate, the fact remains that this has largely come about because the majority of so-called educational video available online, is film footage that was original recorded for other uses including general TV distribution, and was not developed specifically for the teaching of the K12 curriculum. In other words, simply because those videos may be of a general educational nature, does not mean that they adequately meet the requirements of the curriculum standards.

Zane Education however has taken a totally different approach, and as a result has a developed an online educational video library of over 1,500 online videos covering 11 school subjects and 240 topics specifically for the teaching of the curriculum. And wonderfully they have had the foresight to provide children with as many learning style options as possible, by adding subtitles to all of their videos.

In other words children with hearing impairments can now also enjoy the significant benefits of online educational video.

As was pointed out in an earlier article on Visual Learning that specifically addressed the issue of Dyslexia, there are those that would speculate that learning by using video rather than the use of textbooks, means that children’s reading skills will suffer. Obviously with the addition of subtitles that is not necessarily the case. In fact a future article to be released in the next week will demonstrate and explain precisely, how video subtitles can be used to rapidly increase a child’s reading skills. And Research carried out by the Availll Institute over the last 5 years has demonstrated the link between the use of subtitles on video, and the improvement in children’s reading skills. (more…)


25th
Jan 2011

Curriculum for Dyslexia

Visual Learning for Dyslexia Students

This article outlines how subtitled educational videos provide the ideal learning and curriculum teaching environment for children with Dyslexia, and dyslexic students generally.

Visual Learning is defined as “a teaching and learning style in which ideas, concepts, data and other information are associated with images and techniques. It is one of the three basic types of learning styles that also includes kinesthetic learning and auditory learning.”

So while subtitled educational video provides the ideal solution for dyslexia and many special needs and learning difficulties, it is very important to understand that the educational video that is the tool, and it is the way you use the tool, or the technique, that defines how that tool can be use appropriately to cater for specific educational needs. This is less the case when we are talk about providing an education solution for children with Dyslexia simply because the video itself provides the all important option to the textbook, however when we look at improving the reading of the Dyslexic child, it is very important.

It is important to note that we are specifically talking about the use of educational videos that are subtitled, and not just any old educational videos. This is ultimately important because with subtitled educational video each child or student is provided with the choice to watch, to listen to, and/ or to read each presentation. Not only does this mean that each child is able to absorb and process the information that best suites their situation, and their individual abilities. It also means that in each situation, the subtitles can, and should be used to help improve each student’s reading skills.

So in providing curriculum for students with dyslexia, it means that the educational video is used to cater for the needs of the dyslexic child, but it should also be used to help improve their reading abilities.

One reasonably accurate description of Dyslexia is “an impairment in the brain’s processing of information that results in difficulty reading, spelling, writing, and related language skills.”

Therefore in providing a learning solution for the dyslexic student, it is obvious that an alternative way of delivering the necessary curriculum content or learning material, should be one where reading is not required. And video provides that ideal alternative.

For all children the use of video in education and learning is a compelling, interesting and much more fun way of learning. With the introduction of fun and interest, learning becomes much more of an enjoyable experience and therefore much more effective. As a result it motivates and incentivises the child to become more involved with, and engage in, the learning process.

This is exactly the same for the Dyslexic student, but at the same time it provides the child with dyslexia, a lifeline to their education and academic development. It’s fun and interesting, but at the same time it eradicates the need for the textbook by providing the all-important way in which the curriculum content can be delivered to them, irrespective of whatever reading disabilities they may have.
(more…)