Video Scribing: How Visuals Enhance Learning: Ted Talk Series TedxSunriver Summaries
Speaker: Kent Barney
Summary by Alecsy Christensen
How Visuals Enhance Learning
What is so important about having visuals and videos anyway? Why should you be convinced to put visuals and videos in your materials for successful business goings and ventures? Why do people tend to learn and remember better with visuals? How does it all work? All of these answers will soon be discovered.
Think of an owl, what does an owl represent? In our society, an owl represents wisdom. We think of an owl and most of us think of smarts, authority, and wisdom. Owls are a lot of times used in logos for schools, learning centers, reading centers, libraries, and other areas. Are there any owl logos you can think of that might be along those same lines? People associate words with pictures, we have certain feelings and thoughts that impact us when seeing a visual, or hearing a word. Humans couple words with pictures, that is how we learn.
In a study mentioned by Barney, there was a group of students learning english in a foreign country that were asked in one of their tests to “describe a blender” in 200 words. One group of students was given only that phrase: “describe a blender”. The other group of students were given that phrase and a picture of an actual blender. The study had amazing results:
In the group that only had the phrase “describe a blender” to work with, 53% of them accurately described a blender in 200 words. The group that had the phrase and a picture of a blender had a success rate of 93%, what an amazing comparison! Just with a simple picture, a group of students was able to have an increase in 40% success that they accurately completed their assignment.
Still not convinced? Lets look at Facebook Statistics:
Images and visual content get the most clicks out of anything else on Facebook!!! Unbelievable.
But what is it about images that helps us better understand?
Kent Barney had a great example of how images make such a big impact on a delivered message. Take the phrase “please do not pet the house cat”. As just a phrase, you are probably thinking this is a silly house cat that doesn’t like to be touched. You even might think the sign is funny, and scheme on how you might manage to pet the cat, just to make fun of the sign.
Please do Note Pet the House Cat
Now, take the same phrase as a caption or description to this picture:
Please Do Not Pet the House Cat
If you saw this sign, would it change your thoughts about the whole phrase? Did this picture take you to a different understanding about the cat and why you shouldn’t pet it? Hopefully it did. 🙂 Visual content enhances a message and the way we understand it. I am sure you understood the phrase and the phrase coupled with the picture differently in each exercise.
Visuals take us to a new way of thinking, a place where we might not otherwise find. This new level of thought can enlighten us, heighten our senses, change the way we think, and ultimately, change the world.
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