Videatives Products • What is a Videative?

The word "videative" is a composite of the words "video” and "narrative." Videatives are text documents presented in electronic format that describe and explain the significance of the goals, strategies, and theories of children engaged in learning experiences. Within the text, words and phrases serve as hypertext links that, when clicked, launch short video clips. The video clips (usually no more than 30 seconds in length) exemplify and give context to the experiences described and explained in the text. The purpose of the videative is to enhance the reader’s ability to recognize, interpret, and understand children’s thinking and learning.

Traditional educational materials consist of videotapes, with voice-over narrations that explain the significance of what the viewer is watching. In these videotapes, the narrative is secondary to the video. The problem with this format is that when the main load of information is carried by video, the mind falls into a passive mode. Viewers, used to watching television and movies for pleasure, tend to let the story unfold before their eyes, without engaging their minds or being fully aware of the information conveyed by the voice-over narration.

In contrast, reading text requires the mind to enter into a more active mode, causing the reader to infer, speculate, and make predictions about the experiences conveyed in the text. In a videative, the video takes on a supporting role while the text becomes the primary means of communication. Thus, the word "videative" captures the idea of video-under-text rather than speech over video.

Our research shows that when readers are presented with video-under-text they maintain a more reflective and analytic perspective on the topic of study. Nevertheless, this study includes all the spontaneity and surprise of real life classrooms. With video-under-text, the reader can make relevant connections between learning theory and the experiences that compose young children’s days.

What is a Thinkprint?  We found a new way to make the videative somewhat more engaging, but no less powerful in bringing together theory and practice.  In the Thinkprint the video plays in a stationary window next to paragraphs of text that give a description of the action and a transcript of what the people say in the clip.  The blue words, when rolled over with your cursor, reveal the likely-thoughts of the people in the video, both adults and children.  These "thought balloons" are therefore analogous to fingerprints that reveal the uniqueness of the person.  As the fingerprint ink reveals the uniqueness of the person, so the likely-thought in print reveals the significance of the comment or action, thus the term "Thinkprint."  Type "Thinkprint" into the Store Search window and you will see all of the videatives that are done in this manner.