Tips for Teachers

Please share your tips with other VideoPoint users through the VideoPoint Users Group.

VideoPoint: Physics Fundamentals in Your Curriculum

VideoPoint: Physics Fundamentals can be integrated into your classroom in many different ways. Lecture demonstrations can be given with VideoPoint to show relationships of functions to real data; hands-on classroom activities let the students explore the movies on their own. VideoPoint homework assignments and projects have often produced very interesting analysis of situations that we never dreamed of when working on the software.

Effectiveness of Video Analysis for Teaching

Dr. Bob Beichner has studied the effectiveness of using video analysis tools to improve student understanding and recognition of functions. Though he used his own software (VideoGraph) to do the study, VideoPoint and VideoGraph have the same basic functionality. In general, he found that there was a strong correlation between the student's ability to recognize functions and the amount of time spent doing video analysis.

Increasing Student Interest with VideoPoint

In general, we have found that students are very comfortable with video on a computer and show interest when looking at the movies in the collection on the CD. However, we have been amazed at how much time the students will voluntarily spend working on VideoPoint projects when they have shot the movie themselves.

Logistics of Making Movies in the Classroom

You can either capture one movie that all the students can use or you can split the students up into groups and have each group do its own movie. Making one movie is easier, but the smaller groups generate more student interest since each has a hand in making the movie that they will be analyzing.

When capturing videos, it's usually best to have groups of three or four students. Usually, you will need one camera/computer person, one person doing the action, and one either assisting with the camera or the action. Any more than four and people stand around; groups of two often have problems doing everything at once.