Using video clips contextually

The question of how much of a video clip to use is one that I address with some frequency with instructors. If the copyright owner of the video clip is a publisher, there are restrictions on its use that should be consulted. A review of the TEACH Act, passed by congress in 2002, is worth your time and effort. One of the best sites that covers the opportunities this law creates for presenting video to online students is at Ball State University.

While I can only give a personal opinion, not a legal one, I believe the TEACH act offers marvelous opportunities for showing a portion of a video to students enrolled in a curricular course at a non-profit institution. Moreover, those opportunities are enhanced, markedly, with the introduction of the learning management system, Canvas, very soon here at USF.

But notice I said "portion". Some instructors feel they should be able to show an entire movie to an online class just as they can before students in a face-to-face classroom. The TEACH act says you must use only a "reasonable" portion, but I understand the guidelines leaves those "reasonable" limits up to you, the faculty member. Still, it's pretty obvious to me that the law does not want you to show the entire work online.

So, my recommendation is, give the movie clip you want to show online a "contextual wrapper". Lead-into the clip with some commentary (in the form of a narrative paragraph or a recorded comment by you). Then show the clip, next in sequence. Then follow that up with an activity or assessment. Here is an example:

In the movie, "To Kill a Mockingbird," the lead character, lawyer Atticus Finch, played by Gregory Peck, is defending an African American, Tom Robinson, who is on trial for the rape of a white woman. This is the old south, 1930's, and Jim Crow laws are in full bloom; it is a very bad time for African Americans. While Robinson is accused of raping the white woman, in actuality, it was the white woman, Mayella, who seduced Robinson. That's the evidence that has been explicitly drawn out by Finch during the trial. In the closing arguments you are about to see, Finch is calling on the all-white jury to consider these facts. Now let's watch the clip.

To Kill a Mockingbird clip

What does this video clip say to you about racial injustice? Does it apply today?

Like I said, it's only an example. But the effect is that the student does not have to see the entire movie to get the meaning of the video clip, if all goes well with the conceptual framework that you provide in the narrative. In Canvas, the link to the clip appears as its own video clip window, which makes for a seamless viewing and reading experience for the student.

The clip is taken from http://www.youtube.com/movieclipsFILM, which is a marvelous resource for adding clips from major movies for an instructional purpose!

Glen Gummess