Information Architecture (I)- Video Representations for Education

Article Questions Representational Practice of Using Video in/for Educational Research

Goldman, R. (2007). Video Representation and the Perspectivity Framework: Epistemology, Ethnography, Evaluation, and Ethics.

This is the introductory chapter to the book, Video Research in the Learning Sciences.

• Summary: this chapter reflects upon and raises questions about using video technology as a tool for creating representations about and with others in the process of research on learning.
• Epistemological background & orientation: In the field of education as well as anthropology, it is no longer possible to presume to transparently represent the “other”, whether in writing about, educating directly, or designing for others. The contemporary movement in education as well as anthropology is towards acknowledging this “crisis of representation” and also towards a conception of knowledge as local, situated, and socially constructed.

Ricki is arguing then for self-reflexivity, practices of awareness around one’s own and others perspectives. New technologies seem to make this kind of observation more possible and also more complex.
This introduction then goes on to examine the questions that arise in using video technology in the research process. One question that has bearing on interaction design concerns the affordances of video technology, and whether it has specific benefits or poses problems when deployed in the context/setting of research. Another important question for information/interaction design concerns an awareness of the representations that we are making (designing)- what ideas and beliefs (our ethical stances) do they reflect, how will they be interpreted by various others?
Comments:
Any practices we engage in as researchers, educators, designers are essentially practices of representation. Representation-making is not a neutral or transparent practice. In thinking about information or interaction design for education, what results in more “effective” (and thus “good”) design, may have to be based in considering these kinds of questions and reflexivity about ourselves and our actions in relation to others.