Almost every student uses digital media every day outside of school. Our society has evolved into a digital society where information and communication technology devices (mobile phones, tablets etc.) are used and digitized content (including photos and videos) is produced and consumed. In particular, video is used by the younger generation for self-expression and communication, on YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, etc.

Although videos play a major role in young people’s lives they only play a minor role in school as a tool to support learning. The learning potential has hardly been explored or applied in schooling. Video technologies offer a variety of possibilities for use, in the methodological integration in the classroom, and as a technical design tool itself. Video as an audio-visual medium that appeals both aurally and visually – information recording and processing takes place through combined sensory perception, thus a higher learning success can be expected and learners can be specifically addressed in their learning preferences.

Since students are the actual creators of the videos, digital and subject-related competencies can be specifically promoted. Using vidubiology, students develop digital skills for communication and collaboration, as well as designing digital content, as the European Digital Competence Framework for Citizens, proposes.
The vidubiology team developed OER learning and teaching materials to support these skills. Materials include background information, task sheets for students and teachers, technicards for technical support and video tutorials to support photo and video production within three modules. The modules are designed to take teachers gradually from very basic to advanced media production:

> Module 1 > Taking photos > “Plants and animals in the seasons”
> Module 2 > Photo stories / time-lapse / slow motion > “Organisms in Action”
> Module 3 > Full video production > “Creative Video!”

Forty teachers with 800 students from ten schools from three countries have been involved in piloting all the materials produced by the project and have been instrumental in improving the final resources. The final materials have been put together and expanded within a 40 page professionally-designed vidubiology handbook that is available in Bulgarian, English, German and Icelandic. Over 800 photos and 75 videos were collected in the vidubiology Flickr channel and YouTube playlists, from teachers and students; these have been viewed close to 25.000 times. 25 videos were produced to disseminate and guide teachers including project highlights, pilot videos and interviews with teachers and students who worked on vidubiology.

The team from Bulgaria, Germany, Iceland and the United Kingdom has made great efforts to disseminate the vidubiology ideas, invitation to events, documents and videos within their local and regional networks. Five European teacher training workshops addressed teachers directly, including an event at one of the largest zoo in the UK, Chester Zoo. An audience across all of Europe was reached with through eleven large scale online campaigns. The team organised two webinars in partnership with the European Scientix project. In addition the resources have been uploaded on to the Scientix platform and are available in all the project languages and in some cases additional languages.

Íslenska:

Evrópska erasmus+ verkefnið vidubiology (skapandi myndmiðlun í líffræði) býður upp á nýbreytni fyrir nemendur við að rannsaka og uppgötva ýmis fyrirbæri náttúrunnar með því að notast við stafræna miðlun.