Overview of Future Directions
The themes below are derived from a concluding discussion about central topics discussed across the conference and future directions and potential next steps for video analysis in education and the social sciences.
Race & Gender
Issues of race and gender in the historical, present and future use of video analysis were central to discussions throughout the conference. Not only do these issues represent some of the core themes of scholars' work and why they use video analysis (e.g. to examine micro-aggressions in classrooms or other settings that have the power to alienate and hurt people or eliminate learning opportunities), but video analysis methods suffer from their own implicit biases. For instance, during the group viewing session, it was noted by many that turns at talk taken by men predominated over those taken by women, especially at the beginning of the discussion session. Video analysis provides powerful techniques to analyze, reveal and discuss issues of race and gender. However, it is not immune to issues of race and gender itself. Future work must both use video analysis to reveal racial and gender inequities but also challenge and advance the practice of doing video analysis to better address issues of race and gender.
Bridging Generations
The conference provided numerous opportunities for older and younger/emerging scholars to compare, contrast and discuss their work. A central topic of discussion was how to bridge the vast knowledge of how to look and listen to video used by an older generation of scholars with new and rapidly advancing technologies and ways of working used by a newer generation of scholars. For instance, many young scholars discussed new technical possibilities that can support and extend existing forms of video analysis. Bridging insights across these generations, and making use of new technologies, are important for future scholars and practitioners using video analysis.
Technology & Design
A central theme discussed at the conference concerned the rapidly advancing technologies that are affording video analysis with new resources for development. These include: the use of multiple, wearable cameras able to record social interaction as it is moving, powerful types of video based software built for everyday researchers and practitioners, and new ways to share and collaborate virtually on video analysis projects. Video analysis in education and the social sciences continues to respond to these technologies. However, many suggested that education and the social sciences could take a more active role in designing technologies that better fit the needs and goals of education and the social sciences.
In addition to the recordings of the group viewing session, the corpus of invididual “view aloud” recordings included on this website provides an archive with many possible uses. One is to view and analyze these recordings, comparatively, to develop a better understanding of how accomplished analysts—across two or more generations of scholars—actually use recordings of human activity to ask and answer questions. For example, how do analysts notice and “work up” for analytic purposes structural aspects of embodied human action recorded in the target classroom video? A second use is to think of the corpus of “view aloud” recordings as an invitation to a secondary analysis project. Users of this website (including those participating in the workshop) might take different approaches to the target classroom video. As these develop and are shared, the collective effort may support a deeper multi-level, multi-perspective analysis of how human interaction is central to learning, teaching, and embodied uses of language in the shared, target recording. Both projects—understanding video analysis, multi-perspective analysis of learning and teaching—could be developed with different users of this web site. If collected and curated in this website, users of the corpus might make substantively new contributions to methods and to our understanding of learning and teaching.