Movie Discovery was founded by filmmakers, who believe that audio-visual media is a great way to deliver a message, to provoke thought and to enhance knowledge.
Research proves that this is exactly the case, especially when it comes to a young audience.
SOME DATA
- Among young students (up to 25), two thirds prefer to watch a video than to read a text
eConsultancy - The Key to Generation Z is Video
Forbes, based on surveys from Business Insider and Manifest - 51% of YouTube users learn to master skills from YouTube videos.
PEW Research - Khan Academy channel has more than 5.3 million subscribers.
- Veritasium channel about physics has more than 6.6 million subscribers.
- Ted educational channel on YouTube, TedEd, has more than 10.3 million subscribers.
- Smarter Everyday channel on YouTube, which features videos about science, has 7.6 million subscribers.
RESEARCH
Research conducted throughout the years shows again and again that studying through audio visual content has a positive effect on the memorisation of the the studied content. It was associated with better retrieval and an increase in transfer learning abilities. See for example in Allen and Smith (2012), Kay (2012), Lloyd and Robertson (2012), Stockwell et al., (2015), Means et al., (2010). Mayer and Gallini (1990) and later Mayer and Moreno (2003) found that use of the the visual (pictorial) and auditory (verbal) channels can facilitate the integration of new information into existing cognitive structures. Bravo et al., (2011) found that films help in increasing motivation among students and are providing a richer learning experience and develop the independence of the students.
So…
Maybe we don’t need teachers anymore?
On the contrary!
The professional and pedagogical ability of teachers is crucial for a successful mediation of the study material.
In addition, a research made for the World Economic Forum in 2017 found that there are also some disadvantages in digital learning, as they might provide an illusion of learning, while in comparable research with control groups, it was found that students who used “old media” scored higher.
Apparently and trivial as it might seem, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle, with optimal results achieved as a combination of books, frontal instruction and films and other forms of audio visual content.
THE CONFUSION IS MOUNTING...
Unofficial data from the field signifies that teachers are anyway using videos from YouTube to enrich their classes!
So why do we need Movie Discovery at all?...
Well, relying on YouTube for classes has some obvious shortcomings:
- YouTube videos have no quality control and no fact check. We’re not addressing the known “fake news”, which are done on purpose, but also some naive mistakes made by Youtubers.
- YouTube does not rank popularity according to the accuracy of the content. YouTube’s main goal is to make money, which means that popularity of prime importance. and popular videos are not necessarily the most educational one, to say the least.
- Some of the content on youtube is pirated. A teacher can rely on a video and be surprised it was removed when they want to show it to their students.
- The frequency and quantity of advertisements on Youtube are increasing all the time.
MOVIE DISCOVERY ADVANTAGES
- Professionally made films only.
- Fact based films.
- Films manually curated by seasoned filmmakers.
- Accurate categorisation, according to library of Congress subject Headings (LCSH).
- Films in German or in English.
- Quality, in-house film reviews, written by film professionals (English).
- Segment creation tool, which allows the teacher to isolate a favourite scene to show in class or to share with students in a Learning Management System (LMS).