British Schools, supported by government IT inititaives, were quick to adopt video technologies and used Dartfish software from its early days to educate and give feedback. These early adopters have now recognized the potential and convenience of tablets with equal enthusiasm so that those who once fired up a laptop and used InTheAction for instant feedback may now use an App such as Dartfish Express instead. That certainly doesn’t make Dartfish software redundant in education as James Pillinger from Fettes College in Edinburgh explains here.
For the last four years the PE and Games department have been trying to tap into the power of observational learning. The effect of visual feedback is undeniable. Dartfish has allowed Fettes College to use film to motivate and inform pupils as well as reinforce learning.
Tagging
We currently use tagging panels to ensure pupils’ time is used efficiently, the Hockey coaches have then been able to present all the ‘circle entries’ or ‘penalty corner attack’ clips in isolation.
Tagging projects from matches allow our coaches to analyse decision making and use positive and negative reinforcement to shape behaviour and optimise performance. Pupils who are injured, alongside rehab work, have been using Dartfish Easytag to feedback statistics to players and coaches.
Analyzer tools
We are also using the Analyser tools and ‘Stromotion’ to identify technical strengths and weaknesses; being able to measure angles and then merge or split screen with technical models allows pupils and teachers to create specific objectives for the forthcoming sessions. We often then use the ‘live delay’ feature on Dartfish TeamPro to provide pupils with immediate feedback, they play and watch. This allows pupils and coaches to make immediate adjustments to technical execution. This has been important in ensuring a safe playing environment in collision sports, we use Live delay for contact training in rugby and recognising ‘mixed’ bowling actions in cricket. So you could argue that we have used it as a form of injury prevention.
Dartfish .tv
Before dartfish.tv we had to meet pupils and talk through footage, now we can do it remotely. Pupils have access 24/7 to the clips and the coaches and pupils can engage in a dialogue about the film. We even have coaches from National Governing Bodies and professional sportsmen and women that can comment remotely on the channel. Since September we have uploaded almost 200 videos of both boys and girls ages 8-18 from iPhone and iPad through Dartfish Express and through Dartifsh TeamPro on PC. Pupils have individual collections and teams have collections with highlights from the season (so parents of pupils, who are unable to get to fixtures can watch the team play from anywhere in the world). We even have a collection for Sport Science that contains 3 min lectures that pupils view before the lesson in an attempt to apply the ‘Flipped Classroom’ concept of teaching.
On to Dartfish Classroom +
We have just placed an order for Classroom plus which, by removing the restriction on where Dartfrish can be installed, will allow Pupils to tag and analyse and in some cases upload to the TV site. The possibilities of motivating pupils to take responsibility for independent learning are enormous, learning is becoming more active, assessment more formative and the intensity of training sessions has definitely increased. The school’s Director of Teaching and Learning is also using dartfish.tv to share good practice with staff and the Drama and Science departments are trialing the use of Dartfish to show pupils experiments from labs and performance from the stage. It is becoming a cross-curricular virtual (visual) learning environment.
Through the whole process Dartfish have been incredibly supportive; the online tutorials are great and the process of upload is very straightforward. It takes far less time and money than people imagine to integrate video analysis into the daily routine of teaching and the positive change in the attitude of the learner has very tangible results. Pupils at Fettes College now see Dartfish products as an integral part of their ‘interactive’ education.
Fettes college is a fee-paying school in Edinburgh, Scotland. You can check out the public content on their dartfish.tv channel. James Pillinger has been Head of Sport for the past 6 years.
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