Advantages and Disadvantages of video as an educational medium

Videos must be used as a facet of instruction along with other resource material available to you for teaching a particular topic.

As educators, our aim is to get students energized and engaged in the hands-on learning process. Videos are an instructional medium that are compelling and generates a greater amount of interest and enjoyment.

Advantages of Videos as educational medium:

• It gives students clear concept clarity, as everything can be visualized and explained in detail.
• Visuals tend to be more interesting and engaging, when compared to text.
• Students who are good visual learners have a lot of advantages studying from videos. They can learn more efficiently.
• It helps retain and maintain interest for longer periods of time.
• It provides an innovative and effective means for educators to address and deliver the required curriculum content.
• Videos are mostly very demonstration-friendly.
• Videos create experiences. For instance, you can recreate voices, faces, situations of a past event, person or place. Children can experience extinct species of animals or animals that thrive only in a remote wilderness half way around the world.
• It acts as a flexible teaching medium. The more interested and engaged students are and the more interactive each learning session is, the more students will enjoy learning and retain information from the lesson. Videos provide the option to stop each video and challenge students to predict the outcome of a demonstration, and elaborate on, or debate a point. You also have the option to rewind a section of the video to review a segment to ensure that children understand key concepts. You can ensure to add further interactivity by copying activities, conducting discussions or repeating demonstrations and experiments in your classroom.
• It gives instance notes, whenever required can visualize the video and topic will be revised and can also make notes.

Disadvantages of Videos as educational medium:

• Playing video can use a lot of the bandwidth and may take time to load.
• The video could be a distraction if the structure of the video is not aligned to what needs to be taught.
• It is hard and time consuming to find quality videos.

Using the right online educational video service can help teachers or parents to minimize lesson preparation time. It enables them to easily identify and select the right video for the lesson.