Instructional Technology

and AV AidsBy Iftikhar Hussain Babur

Senior Subject Specialist (Computer Science)

Government College for Elementary Teachers,

Kot Lakhpat Lahore

Educational Media

Audio-visual (AV) aids

Instructional aids

Audio-visual media

Communication technology

Educational or instructional media

Learning resources

Educational Media

Learning vs Number of senses

If I hear I forget, I see I remember, I do I learn

Chinese proverb

Once writing is equal to ten times reading; once

teaching is equal to ten times writings

Unknown

AV aids

AV aids are “all material used in the classroom or

in other teaching situations, to facilitate the understanding of the written or spoken words” —Dent

“Audio visual aids are those devices by the use of

which communication of ideas between persons

and groups in various teaching and training situations is helped” —Edgar Dale

AV aids

“Audio visual aids are any device which can be

used to make the learning experience more concrete, more realistic and more dynamic” —Kinder S. James

Purposes of AV Aids

Clear images

Antidote to the disease of verbal instructions

Vicarious experience

Variety

Retentive

Based on maxims of teaching

Purposes of AV Aids

Helpful in attracting attention

Conservation of energy and time

Realism

Spread of education on a mass scale

Encouragement to healthy classroom

interaction

Purposes of AV Aids

Promotion of scientific temper

Positive transfer of learning and training

Reinforcement to learner

Best motivators

Principles of AV Aids

The teacher should be well prepared with the

particular AV aid which he or she is supposed to

use with a particular lesson.

Check in advance whether the

slide/LCD/filmstrip projector is available in the

classroom and is functioning.

Make sure that technical support is available

whenever required.

Principles of AV Aids

Selection of the AV aid should be as per the

requirement of the content to be presented to

the students.

Make sure that every student is able to see or

hear the AV aid without any difficulty.

AV aid should be prepared as per the

fundamental guidelines

Principles of AV Aids

As far as possible, students should be involved in

preparation and preservation of AV aids.

AV aid should be economical.

Principle of stimulus variation and feedback

reinforcement should also be considered while

preparing and selecting an AV aid.

Key concepts in the selection and use

of media

Learning objectives

Size and nature of the Group

Availability of resources

Technical support

Know your expertise in preparation on media

Key concepts in the selection and use

of media

Media characteristics

Electricity

Learner’s response

Legal considerations

Other concepts

Types of AV Aids

Visual AidsNon-Projected

Blackboard or Greenboard

Clean before start of class

Divide the board into two equal halves

Write only the key points.

Develop the concepts of your lesson on the

board as you progress through your lesson.

Ensure the legibility from the last row before the

lecture.

Blackboard or Greenboard

Use white or yellow color chalk.

It is better to write in bold letters.

Use sufficient pressure while writing on board.

Avoid writing on sides and the bottom of the

board.

Blackboard or Greenboard

Switch on the light above the board to ensure

good visibility of the board. Avoid direct glare

on the board.

Avoid speaking while writing on the board.

Use colored chalks to highlight or differentiate.

Stand clear of the written word.

Don’t show your back for a prolonged time

while writing on the blackboard.

Clean it completely after the class is over.

Proper use of blackboard

Blackboard and Greenboard

Advantages

Easy to use.

Electricity is not a necessity for its usage.

Cheap and readily available in most of the

classrooms.

Disadvantages

Requires good calligraphy skills to use it effectively.

The written material cannot be stored and reused.

If good quality chalk is not used it may make your

clothes and hands dirty.

Flannel BoardFlannel board can be used as a visual aid as it

facilitates placement of shapes, symbols, and

cutouts on it.

It helps the students in comprehension by its

attractiveness and stimulating material presented

on it, also it brings out creativity and interest among

students.

It can serve as an effective visual aid for smaller

group of students.

Cut-outs or shapes should be created with the

material that can adhere to the board easily.

Flannel BoardAdvantages

Provides a scope for creativity and originality.

Students are more attracted and learn the

content on the board with interest.

Contents of the board can be preserved for a

long time and can be reused.

Disadvantages

It is time consuming to prepare the content to

be displayed on the flannel board.

Materials have to be adapted to make it useful

for flannel board.

Flannel BoardIt is the board on which current news, study material

and quizzes etc., can be displayed by the students.

It is a visual aid which stimulates the students to

prepare and display interesting learning material for

the class.

A teacher can also use it in a classroom to display

illustration, steps of a process, photographs, newspaper

cuttings relevant to the lesson content and any other

creative work to enhance student learning.

Bulletin Board

Guidelines for effective use of bulletin

board

Should be installed at a well-lit place.

Neutral background color.

Should not be over crowded, else it will lose its

attractiveness.

Items should be displayed creatively, systematically

and logically.

A suitable title be given to each group of items.

Replace after a period of time with newer ones.

Cheap and effective

Material can be stored in files and reused.

Stimulates the student.

Useful aid.

Advantages

Flash Cards

Flash card, as the name indicates, is a card which is made of hard or compact paper of varying size on which brief content or illustration is displayed.

make sure that each student is able to see the card.

Provide running commentary of the content while showing the card.

Ten to twelve cards for one talk can be used.

The messages should be simple and brief line drawings or photographs, etc.

Flash Cards

Flash Cards

Advantages

Easy to prepare and use.

Portable, so can be used whenever required.

Effective aid to teach a complex process.

Disadvantages

Cannot be used for larger group of students.

Time consuming to prepare the cards.

Flip Chart

It is made of compact sheets or large pads of papers which may include picture maps, cartoons, handmade diagrams and photographs, etc.

A flip chart is used as a visual aid in which information is provided in sequence with the help of clipped compact sheets which are arranged in sequence, and each paper sheet is flipped up after it has been shown to students.

Flip Chart

Models

Models are three-dimensional (height, width and depth) visual aids which are not same in size, shape or function of the real object. Models are more creative and attractive, and therefore catch the eye of the students easily.

In educational institutions models are most frequently used to teach structures of various body organs, for example, model of heart, lung, kidney etc., or to teach the working of a system like irrigation system or DAMs.

Advantages Useful visual aid.

Can be enlarged or reduced in size.

Can be helpful to teach physical systems.

Help to stimulate reality when it is not possible to access the real object or replica.

Useful for demonstrating the interior structures of objects.

Models can be stored and reused whenever required.

Disadvantages

Can convey wrong information to the students if not prepared carefully.

Costly and time consuming to prepare good models.

Require a lot of space and caution to store the model.

Puppets

Used as a visual aid for teaching in different countries of the world for the last 4000 years.

Puppets are an inanimate object used in the art of puppetry, popularly known as “Kathputli”.

It is a three-dimensional AV aid usually made of wood but any other material can be also be used to prepare it.

A puppet enacts a particular character in a puppetry show, which can be planned to teach some principles, attitude related to daily life.

Puppets

It requires a well-written script to make the teaching effective and interesting.

Students learn by viewing the performance of the puppets during the show as well as by making the puppets, and acting as puppeteers.

Puppets can be of various types; for example, hand/glove puppet, string puppet, rod puppet, shadow puppet.

Advantages

Students learn by doing (making puppets, script writing, and organizing puppet shows).

Puppets can be stored and reused.

Puppet play provides the opportunity to the students to get comfortable in situations that are unfamiliar or challenging.

Disadvantages

Time consuming and difficult to make good puppets.

Requires special training to become good puppeteers.

Puppets

Visual Aids(Printed)

Leaflet

Printed material, which includes leaflets, pamphlets and magazines are the major means of conveying propaganda.

A leaflet is a written or pictorial message on a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths; however, it has no standard size, shape, or format.

The most commonly recommended size of leaflet is 6″×3″.

The major factors which affect the leaflet sizes are the length of message, artwork required, and the purpose of the leaflet.

Guidelines for Making Effective Leaflets

Reader must be motivated by persuading.

Brief heading.

The first sentence of the text should contain the essence of the message.

While using pictures in leaflets the picture and the text must complement each other.

Advantages

A leaflet can be passed from student to student without distorting the information on it.

It allows for the use of photographs and graphic illustrations which can be easily understood by all level of students.

It is permanent and can be stored and retrieved whenever required.

It can be useful to communicate messages for a very large as well as small group of students.

It reinforces learning by providing chances of rereading as and when required by the students.

Disadvantages

Dissemination of the leaflet is time consuming and costly.

It is less timely than other means of communication.

It can be altered by overprinting.

Development and design of effective printed material requires trained and knowledgeable personnel.

Pamphlet

Used for centuries as an economical AV aid.

A pamphlet is a booklet which is unbound or without a hard cover.

Pamphlets can contain anything from information on emergency management of dangue control to the steps of basic life support, warning signs of cancer and warning signs of sun stroke etc.

Visual AidsProjected

Overhead Projector

Overhead projector (OHP) is one of the most frequently used visual aid in education which has replaced the blackboard in most of the classrooms.

The size of the plastic sheet is usually 25 × 20 cm.

Although it is not a sophisticated instrument like the data projector but it still requires some guidelines to be followed to make it an effective teaching aid.

Guidelines for Overhead Projector Screen must be visible to every student.

The stage of OHP should be clean.

Follow the general rule of one idea-one transparency.

The transparency must be covered with a opaque sheet.

While using a transparency don’t talk to the screen, but talk to the students.

Be creative while preparing a transparency; for example, to build up a complex diagram three or four transparencies can be used as overlays on the original transparency or you may employ cutouts to build visuals in stages.

Guidelines for Overhead Projector

Radiographs can be projected successfully with the overhead projector. For this purpose, the classroom must be darkened.

Switch off the projector light when you are not using the OHP.

Black, blue and green colors are considered good for transparency preparation. Avoid yellow, orange and red (not projected well by OHP).

Not necessary to write text content in running CAPITAL LETTERS.

Write in legible letters.

7-7 or 8-8 rule.

Transparency

Advantages of the Transparency

Transparencies can be prepared well in advance and can be stored and reused whenever required.

Progressive disclosure of a transparency is helpful to gradually build up the concept under study.

Material can be prepared by the teachers themselves.

It is a time-saving and cost-effective visual aid.

Disadvantages of the Transparency

Novice teachers may feel difficulty in proper use of transparency.

Creativity and imagination is required to make good transparency.

Students may read on the transparency if the teacher exposed it entirely in the beginning, creating disharmony in what the teacher is teaching and what the student is reading.

Difficult to handle and preserve the transparency.

Electricity is a must for its use.

Disadvantages of the Transparency

Teachers usually tend to talk to the screen instead of students.

Inappropriate teacher's position may cause difficulty in watching the transparency.

Printed transparencies which teachers use because of lack of time to prepare a transparency cannot be considered as good approach.

Students require notes or handouts if class is taken with the help of transparency because most of their time is spent in reading the transparency.

Not useful for students with visual impairment and dyslexia.

Opaque Projector

The only projector on which you can project a variety of materials:

Book pages

Objects

Coins

Post cards, or any other similar flat material that is non-transparent.

The opaque projector will project and simultaneously enlarge, directly from

originals, printed matter, all kinds of written or pictorial matter in any sequence

derived by the teacher.

Advantages

Stimulates attention and arouses interest

Can project a wide range of materials like stamps, coins, specimen

Slides and film strip

A slide is a small piece of transparent material on which a single graphical image is placed or photographed. Slide projectors and filmstrip projectors are AV devices which are used to project slides and filmstrips on the screen.

On the other hand, filmstrip projectors project images contained in filmstrips, which are a series of small slides photographed in permanent sequence on a 35mm or 16mm film, either in color or in black and white.

Film strip: 12 to 18 films in a sequence.

Photographic slides:

Handmade slides:

Advantages and disadvantages

Advantages

Attracts the attention of the students.

Makes learning easy.

It is a portable visual aid, can be used in variety of settings.

Disadvantages

It is a costly visual aid.

Handling of the slide and slide projector is difficult.

Audio Aids

Audio Aids

Public address (PA) systems

Radio

Tape Recorder

Public Audio System

Public address (PA) systems consist of a microphone or input source, a mixer amplifier and one or more loudspeakers to convert electrical signals into sound. Simple PA systems of this type often provide 50 to 200 watts of power and are often used in small venues such as college auditoriums, lecture theater and big classrooms to make teacher's voice audible to the students. A sound source, such as a computer, may be connected to a PA system so that audio or video can be played through the system.

PA systems with a larger number of speakers are widely used in institutional and commercial buildings, to read announcements or declare states of emergency. Intercom systems which are often used in schools also have microphones in each room to send replies to the central office.

Radio

A radio is an auditory aid which is used to present teaching material in the form of voice only. Its primary purpose is to entertain public but it can be exploited as a teaching aid.

As a teaching aid it can supplement classroom teaching and may be useful in improving pronunciation and language of the students.

Tape Recorder

A tape recorder is a portable electronic device that can play pre-recorded sound as well as record the sound on a magnetic tape. It provides functions to play, forward, rewind and pause a particular tape. It can be used to teach verbal communication skills and counseling skills to the nursing students. Nowadays, CD and DVD players have replaced the traditional tape recorder, as they are more convenient and have a large storing capacity on a single CD-ROM or DVD-ROM.

Audio Visual Aids

Multimedia

When two or more different types of media are used sequentially in a single instruction or for self-paced learning package, the term multimedia is used.

High interest

Different multimedia-different objectives

LCD Projector

LCD projector is the latest technological innovation which has revolutionized the world of AV aids.

Versatile teaching aid

Useful in almost all educational disciplines.

Can hold student’s attention for a prolonged period of time.

With the help of a LCD projector, a teacher can use video, audio, PowerPoint presentation, slide show, puppet show, films, motion pictures etc., as teaching aids.

LCD Projector

Advantages and disadvantages

Advantages

Attracts the attention of the students.

Makes learning easy.

Can use a variety of presentation modes.

Disadvantages

It is costly and sophisticated equipment.

Requires careful handling.

It is not a portable device.

Powerpoint Slides

PowerPoint is a utility of Microsoft office which can provide high quality, high-tech delivery of teaching materials through the use of slides on a computer screen.

Being a versatile AV aid it can incorporate anything, like pictures, audio, video, animation, text, graphs etc. on the slides, thereby increasing the student interest and attention through stimulus variation.

Guidelines

Choose dark or light background of the slides as per your requirement.

Choose an appropriate layout.

Projected text should be large enough so that everybody in the classroom can see it without any difficulty.

Use images to emphasize a particular point or concept.

Relevant Images.

Use simple animation whenever necessary, it is better to use it sparingly.

Follow the rule of six or eight.

Advantages

Greater flexibility in selection of slides and illustration of

teaching points.

Picture quality can be improved and pictures can also be

edited as per requirement.

Safe, clean and minimal storage space required.

Textual information can be copied and retrieved any time and

can be converted into hard copy.

Capable to provide maximum stimulus variation, e.g.,

photographs interspersed with models and data, audio, video

and animation etc.

Advantages

Cartoon slides or fun slides can serve an educational purpose

as well as lighten the teaching–learning environment.

Maintain a high level of interest in the lesson.

Promote greater student participation.

Can be used at all levels of learning.

It is time-intensive to create PowerPoint slides but it is an

investment which can easily be updated and reused once

teaching and learning patterns develop.

Disadvantages

It easily becomes a replacement for the presenter, not

reinforcement.

More chances of misuse; presenter may just read on from

slides, spoiling the purpose of the AV aid.

The teacher may dare to take a class without enough

preparation by putting all the content material on the slides

and just reading from it in the classroom.

Films

Films are AV aids which communicate through sound and

sight simultaneously.

It blends pictures, colors, objects and graphs to suits its

purpose.

It may be fixed filmstrips or slides, and motion picture films.

Types of Films

Instructional films: it pertains to specific instructional subjects

and the duration of a film is usually 10–20 minutes.

Documentary films: it presents actual truthful material in a

cinematically interesting way.

Discursive films: a topic or series of related topics are

presented in a systematic, logical way through this type of

films.

Drill films: useful to teach disaster drills to students.

Advantages

Direct the attention of the whole class to the screen and to the

pictures and words on it.

Can depict the situations which the teacher cannot present in

the class room.

It can be shown over and over again if required.

Attracts high degree of attention of the students, and hence

can teach a large content material in short time.

Motion pictures are able to communicate emotional

experience and attitude.

Disadvantages

Films are costly.

Trained staff is needed which is generally not available.

It is difficult to discuss important points during the projection of

a film.

Television

Television is considered as the electronic blackboard of

modern society as well as a medium of mass communication.

activates the sense of hearing and vision

better learning.

attracts the students

creates interest and desire to learn.

Television

Advancement in technology has changed the size and shape

of television, refining its quality as an educational media.

Television can be used to show video, seminars,

demonstrations and lectures from an expert who is otherwise

inaccessible in the classroom.

It is a boon for distance education as it broadcasts a number

of educational programs through satellite into the homes of

students.

Advantages

Can be used for large group of students.

Saves the time of teacher and is an economical device.

Reduces teacher's workload.

Disadvantages

Requires electricity for operation.

Requires maintenance as well as a suitable place for

installation.