Blog N° 8
Phase II Video Archive
An extremely important element of my research is the collection and archiving of video and audio material related to the lectures. With the prior consent of the participants, I recorded about 60% of the total number of online courses I gave. In addition, for many of the lectures for which there is no recording, I have written personal notes before, during and after the training.
This material is not only an important reference for my research, but can be considered a true historical record.
Collection and archiving of all video/audio material and notes.
In the second phase, I collected all the material from the videoconference/webinar dance classes I held from April 2020 to January 2021. (Fig.1)
It was clearly not possible to archive the material of the lectures / seminars I followed online, except for the seminars I attended with Ta.med (Dance and Medicine). These remained available to the participants throughout the training period, so that participants could consult the studied subjects. Thanks to this possibility I was able to learn a lot and write down the positive aspects and those that worked less well. (Fig.2)
To better evaluate my work, I introduced a short feedback session at the end of each lesson, taking stock of what worked and what did not. Through this practice, I was able to observe the participants' state of mind and better understand their needs and expectations.
Data on the collected material.
From April to June / 2020
I taught 15 classes of 90 minutes each at Folkwang Universität der Künste as an adjunct lecturer. I taught the fourth year of the Bachelor and had an average of 8 students per class, which represented half of the students in the course.
From July / 2020 to January / 2021
For M.A.D.E. Mixed Able Dance Education, I taught as a guest teacher of contemporary dance in various formats:
Workshops 5 classes of 4 hours each. With 20 dancers with different physical abilities.
A block of 15 classes of 120 minutes each with a specific theme, with some of the participants divided into groups, for an average of 5 dancers per class.
From October / 2020 to January / 2021 I taught an amateur class once a week for the Dansart Tanzzentrum in Bielefeld and gave 13 lessons of 75 minutes each.
The recorded material is not published in its entirety on my blogs for clear reasons of privacy: both for the image of the participants and for the premises where they were recorded during the videoconferences.
The material is on a password-protected hard disk. (Fig.4)
If in the future it is deemed necessary to deposit it in a digital library and make it public, I will take care to obtain the consent of all participants present during the recordings.
In the blog, only short clips will be published, always and only after having obtained the explicit consent of the participants.
Even after archiving the material in the first months of the research, I continued to collect the video dance lessons given. This new material was particularly important because in later stages of the preoject I was able to apply the new pedagogical tools I had developed. Below is an outline of all the archived material. (Fig.3)
Storage method
Zoom software already provides a method for chronologically storing all the information needed, from conference videos to chats. With the Zoom software, it is also possible to obtain written transcripts of what was discussed during the conference.
This feature has been particularly useful for gathering spontaneous feedback from questions and interventions made during the class.
The method used by Zoom helped me to make an initial classification of the recordings, and I then sorted the videos according to the archiving criteria best suited to my research.
(Fig.4 Hard disk with video material)
Archiving criteria and thematic tables.
To make the archived material easily searchable, I used simple archival criteria by categorising the videos by date of recording and by institution. In addition, I created thematic tables.
General archiving criteria
Number of expected participants (starting from the base of participants before Covid-19 if the class already existed before). Number of actual participants. Age and gender.
Tables.
Psychophysical table.
Energy of the group during the dance class
Energy of the group during the whole teaching period
Participants who interrupted the dance class before the end. No matter the reason.
Concentration of the participants during the class.
Concentration of the participants over whole teaching period.
Change in participants' motivation/humour during the lesson.
Change in participants' motivation/humour over the whole teaching period
Accidents occours during the classes.
Participants injured outside the classroom during the whole teaching period.
Participants with previous injuries during the entire teaching period.
Table of exercises
Quantity of exercises performed during a class.
Average duration of an exercise.
Quality of the performed exercises.
Average time for explanation of an exercise already known.
Average time for explanation of a new exercise.
Dedicated time for correction by participants.
Amount of time for independent activity, e.g. Breackout Session.
Dedicated time for improvisation.
Dedicated time for theoretical explanations.
Dedicated time for watching external material: video, audio, whiteboard...
Personal
Change of motivation/ mood in myself during the lesson.
Change of motivation/ mood in myself during the several lessons.
Any physical discomfort during the lesson.
Any accidents that happened during the lesson.
Technical issues
Connection problems
Picture quality
Sound quality
Difficulty finding the software tools.
Due to the length of each video, I created additional criteria for cataloguing the video content using a written and voice annotation program designed for dance, Motion Notes (* I have dedicated the Blog10 to this program called Motion Notes).
Thanks to this fantastic and easy-to-use tool, I was able to add reference notes to individual videos, which made it easier for me to search and compare data.
In addition, although it was not always possible, I started very early on to write notes during the lessons, also writing down the times when the exercises were performed. This system helped me, speeding up the process of archiving the 75 hours of recording enormously.
Texts and pages consulted for the research.
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