Visual Instruction

In today’s world many teachers are starting to integrate more and more digital content into instruction. With SAFARI Montage teachers do not have to download internet content the night before class and hope it will play the next day! Our content is not streamed from the internet but instead we use a file sharing process, where the content is provided on a server that “lives” in your school building or district. What this means to you as a teacher is with one click, from one interface, you can access thousands of digital assets to include in teaching.

It’s always exciting to walk into a classroom and see students enjoying a video or clip from SAFARI Montage. It’s even cooler to see our little ones in the primary grades discussing the experiment they just witnessed on the screen, why the problem-solving method is correct or incorrect on the math show, or to simply listen as they sing along to the alphabet.

Pennsylvania is our home state and I have wanted to do something special here with SAFARI Montage for a few years now, which is why I am thrilled to announce that SAFARI Montage will be available this Fall to every public school in PA connected to the state-wide high-speed network known as PAIUnet.

Pennsylvania is our home state and I have wanted to do something special here with SAFARI Montage for a few years now, which is why I am thrilled to announce that SAFARI Montage will be available this Fall to every public school in PA connected to the state-wide high-speed network known as PAIUnet.

I’ll never forget the look of surprise on the principal’s face when he walked into the library to see what all the commotion was about. He knew that we were trying out SAFARI Montage Live! with his school to connect his 7th graders with Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. He also knew that we would have a second connection to Advocate Christ Medical Center, where heart surgeons would be taking questions from the students. He had been told that there would be a live open heart operation that day and that students would get to see it all. But as they say, “seeing is believing.” So, as he walked into the class and saw one of his students asking the surgeon a question about a procedure, it is safe to say that he was shocked when the surgeon on the screen momentarily looked up from the patient and answered him through his surgical mask. The principal looked at me and said, “I didn’t know our school could do this. So now we have a video conferencing lab?” To which I replied, “It’s even better than that. Video conferencing has left the lab!”

I founded Library Video Company 25 years ago this month with a very simple mission in the K-12 North American market: to produce and distribute quality educational video resources to schools in a manner that made it easy for educators to procure and use effectively.

Once considered a supplemental teaching tool, educational video is becoming an increasingly central resource for instruction. Video presents visual and audio information simultaneously, making it easier to reach students who learn best through different modalities and learning styles. A growing body of research supports the pedagogical significance of this important tool for the regular education classroom (Cruse, 2007). Video can also help to reach and motivate students for whom school and learning pose special challenges.

Without question, this generation truly is the media generation, devoting more than a quarter of each day to media. As media devices become increasingly portable, and as they spread even further through young people’s environments—from their schools to their cars—media messages will become an even more ubiquitous presence in an already media-saturated world. Anything that takes up this much space in young people’s lives deserves our full attention.
—Kaiser Family Foundation