Ben Jones (@benpaddlejones) and I have just completed a research paper looking at his use video analysis in physical education. In an effort to share some of the initial findings with the outside world I have (with Ben’s permission) decided to write a 200 word blog summary of the research. I would like to be able to do this with more of my work and hope that it helps to open the conduit between research and the practice communities.

We’re living in a technological revolution. However, it is awave of progress that is moving away from us with each passing day. In theirsong ‘time’ Pink Floyd wrote “we run and we run to catch up with the sun butit’s sinking” – which in my mind is a good analogy for the distance that isbeing created between what we could do with ICT in our teaching and therealities of what little is actually achieved. To address this Ben chose to usevideo analysis to engage low ability and disaffected kids in physical education.It could be argued that video analysis has occurred in physical education formany years using suitcase size video cameras and bulky players but despite theavailability of this technology it hasn’t caught on in the subject’s teaching.Ben’s project was to see what worked ‘best’ for his students and he tried sevendifferent video analysis techniques only to find that simply recording andreplaying footage  on digital cameras andfreezing the frame using pause was the most useful for his students. In thisway immediate feedback was possible which helped students engage with theirlearning while simultaneously wanting to help their peers.