Editorial on Mobile and Panoramic Video in Education

Abstract

Educational video has been around since the beginning of the movie and TV era. The medium was seen as a potential method for delivering education. This development has continued into the Internet era. Many services provide educational videos for teachers and students and in higher education and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). MOOCs rely on delivering short segments of lectures in video format. For example, Khan Academy, which delivers educational Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) content in video format, has become extremely popular. However, video should not be seen only as a passive medium repeating the broadcast model–the same content from one to many. In contrast, user-generated video has been increasing in recent years. Mobile devices and web-based video tools have created the potential for new kinds of paradigms in education. User-generated video supports creativity and problem solving, and making a video is a learning process. These skills are among the 21st-century skills or key competence skills that are crucial in evolving societies. In this issue, we try to understand the current situation of the use of mobile video in education. In many schools, teachers are uncertain about allowing students to use their own mobile devices in the classroom. It can be difficult to see where video can be applied. Creating videos is an example of a pedagogically meaningful use of mobile devices in the classroom. Young people use many social media–based video services on the Internet during their free time. The use is mainly related to entertainment. Maria Loftus, Peter Tiernan, and Sebastian Cheriann discuss students’ readiness to move from consumers to producers of digital video content. The authors claim that as an educators, we should transfer young people’s video-related skills to school use. In a cross-cultural analysis, the authors conclude that students want to adopt video for school but need teacher support. Anu Liljestrom, Jorma Enkenberg, and Sinikka Pollanen studied inquiry-driven learning and video storytelling. Video stories were seen as learning objects and were used to analyze to study the learning process and the ecosystem. The authors conclude Educ Inf Technol (2014) 19:565–567 DOI 10.1007/s10639-014-9340-x