About
Background
The Video Analysis Tool was originally developed in the Learning & Performance Support Laboratory (LPSL) at the University of Georgia. It is now licensed and developed by Evirx. Dr. Art Recesso was a Research Scientist in the LPSL at UGA and most recently started Evirx to commercialize VAT.
VAT was originally developed from the work Dr. Art Recesso and Dr. Marti Venn had been doing at Valdostat State University. They had seen a need to increase support for student teachers placed in remote geographic locations in south Georgia. In 2002 Dr. Recesso and Dr. Michael Hannafin began further developing the idea to use video analysis for amplifying critical events in field-based performances. Today, we recognize the applications of VAT go far beyind its original intent. Leaders, instructors, and learners from any sector can make use of the system to gather evidence of performance, interpret it with validated lenses (e.g., assessment instruments), and generate evidence-informed explanations to provide continuous growth and development. All sectors (e.g., military, corporate training, transportation, educatio, health care and medical, veterinary medicine, etc...) can apply the methods and tool to assist with high risk decision making.
Components & Functions
The Video Analysis Tool is a vehicle used for defining and reflecting on evidence of performance or practice. Instructional and learning events are recorded through video cameras and stored for review or analysis. Video evidence may be captured in two forms: live, real-time capture and post-event upload. In live capture, an IP video camera is pre-installed in a classroom, passing video streams to a video server which records the video streams, enabling an individual to observe practices unobtrusively with minimal classroom disruption or interference. Post-event upload refers to archiving video files in the Video Analysis Tool after a recording session. VAT users video-record (digitally or to tape) an event in real-time, and later digitize and upload the converted files to the tool. While increasing the time and effort required for gathering evidence, post-event uploading provides additional backup in the event of network or data transfer failures, as the local video camera can also store the files to be uploaded afterwards.
Video analysis enables raters and practitioners to conduct deep inquiries into teaching-learning practices. They can view a video of specific events and segment the video into smaller sessions of specific interest keyed to defined areas, needs or priorities. Refined sessions, called clips, are especially useful in refining the scope of an inquiry, providing both practitioners, support professionals and raters the ability to observe and reflect without noise or interference of extraneous events.
Raters access captured evidence of practice from a standard computer using the Video Analysis Tool. VAT allows users to create clips, refine clips, view clips, and collaborate electronically about a specific instance of practice. Initially a large piece of video is segmented, providing markers or reminders of where target practices may be examined more deeply through the creation of clips (create video clips). Those clips may later be refined after initial live observation or during post-event review (refine clips). This allows for the rater to make further passes at each segment to define specific, more fine grained activities, such as when a specific math teaching strategies occurred. During refinement, the user defines clips where specific evidence is associated with criteria of interest, such as particular teaching frameworks, career benchmarks, or quality of practice rubrics. The user designates, annotates, and certifies specific events’ clips as representative evidence associated with a target practice, such as a national teaching standard (e.g., NBTC standards). Marked-up, performance evidence can then be accessed and viewed for either a single individual or across participants using the view clips tool. This provides raters with the capability to examine closely the performance of a single individual across multiple events, or multiple individuals across single events. Finally, through the view others’ clips tool, users can share clips and reflections with raters or other practitioners, collaboratively reflecting and comparing their perspectives on an analysis of events.
Users of the Video Analysis Tool may share evidence either face-to-face or asynchronously through a Web-based viewer interface. Group members can view a single piece of evidence, a complete inquiry, and even compare individual pieces (e.g. beginning and end of the semester) of evidence using the view others’ clips tool. Through this interaction, the group sets a joint course of action or contemplates recommendations already tendered for the inquiry.
To assist users in fully utilizing functions of VAT, an online tutorial provides scaffolding in the form of step-by-step operation procedures as well as explanations of what each step means. In addition, users can select help while creating, refining, and defining clips to reveal a pop-up window that provides context-sensitive scaffolding appropriate to each step.
Original VAT Inventors
• Dr. Arthur Recesso
Learning & Performance Support Laboratory
University of Georgia
• Dr. Michael J. Hannafin
Learning & Performance Support Laboratory
University of Georgia
• Mr. Vineet Khosla
Learning & Performance Support Laboratory
Current VAT Development
•Dr. Art Recesso
Evirx
http://evirx.com
• David Savage
Cedonix
http://cedonix.com
A few of the people and places Using VAT
• University of Georgia
• Valdosta State University
• University of West Georgia
• Macon State University
• Indiana State University
• Purdue University
• Virginia Tech
• University of Iowa
• Kennesaw State University
• others...
