LEARNING THROUGH VIDEO…..OLKEJUADO HIGH SCHOOL EXPERIENCE

The word library brings to mind books, books, and even more books, the word class room also ringing read, read, read, read. Combine the book and the class and all that’s missing is the student. What most people either don’t know or refuse to understand is that , books , a library and a class room is not all one needs to learn, and even in the library there is more than just gigantic volumes of intimidating books waiting to be read, there are other items like videos that can instill knowledge faster and even more effectively.

Mr. Joseph Sila with his students

Do you ever wonder why a student will remember everything they watched on TV, every piece of action every word as if they were part of the production team and forget most of what they learn in class? Studies have shown that Most people are likely to be more attentive to a TV than to teacher, visual information is easy to process and pictures are like a first language to most people, regardless of this the TV like social media has received immense criticism, parents and teachers are too busy shielding children from TV and videos that they forget its untapped potential, there must be a reason why it is more popular than a book.

Students of Olkejuado high school got out of their comfort zone breaking the classroom monotony travelled over 10 kilometers to Isinya Maarifa center to put the TV and video to good use.

When Mr. Joseph Sila Mbindyo  an agriculture teacher at Olkejuado high school in Kajiado visited the Maarifa center after hearing about the ongoing mobile library program he came looking for books on agriculture for his students to read, just as any other teacher or parent  would , but when the field officer informed him that videos on farming were also available, his focus totally shifted and after going through the DVD inventory he settled for two videos “ farming for life” and “horticultural farming in Kenya”, the date was set and all that remained was the students arrival.

On the D day, to our surprise a whole bus off 55 students arrived at the Maarifa center, the boys carried notebooks and pens. Since they could not fit in the Maarifa center, the Maasai rural training center (MRTC) dining hall which is a stone’s throw away from the Maarifa center was the perfect venue.

After watching the videos, the session was followed by a question and answer session which provoked discussion on what the students had learnt.

Discussion in Progress.

Maybe we shouldn’t judge the TV and videos by the images we see on it, maybe it’s time we really tapped into its true potential, If students love TV so much then why not use is to instill the much needed knowledge, isn’t it said that People learn new concepts more when presented with both visual and audio information as opposed to audio alone?