Audiovisual Media

Audiovisual (AV) is electronic media possessing both a sound and a visual component, such as slide-tape presentations,films, television programs, corporate conferencing, church services, and live theater productions.

Audiovisual service providers frequently offer web streaming, video conferencing, and live broadcast services.

Computer-based audiovisual equipment is often used in education, with many schools and universities installing projection equipment and using interactive whiteboard technology.

There are some features, which can be used to ascertain the extent to which audio visual aids are of great value in a learning procedure. And their values depend upon the extent to which they assist in achieving the objectives of instructions and maybe indicated briefly under the following heads:

1.1 Relevancy:
The aid must be relevant to the topic which needs to be improved. Very important standard value is the extent to which any aid is directly related to the understanding of the subject knowledge. A visual aid could be accurate to the best details comprehensible and interesting and yet to be of little value because of its irrelevancy. Let us see a specimen; a teacher is trying to make clear the pattern of sodium atom with the help of chart. Suppose if the teacher uses accurate and beautiful chart on which there are so many other atomic structures drawn. Automatically it will lose much of the teaching value. Perhaps because of the presence of irrelevant material on the chart.

1.2 Accuracy:
It is very important to make the audiovisual aids are exact and accurate but it is difficult to make them as accurate as desired and expected. The chart is always missing the third-dimensional attribute and must be viewed from a fixed standard place. The models overcome both these difficulties but are seldom as accurate in the details as images. The accuracy of understanding is often considering as important rather than the accuracy of the specimen.

For example; if someone is teaching the principal parts of flowers by drawing an apple blossom. It is of some little importance whether the diagram resembles the apple blossom in every detail but the important thing will be to clarify the proper relation of such parts as petals, stamens, etc. for this reason a good diagram might be of even greater value than an accurate photograph. Hence it is the accuracy of the concept produced rather than the accuracy of details (exactness) in visual aids, moreover which is important. And on the other hand, a teacher uses a large model of a leaf plant in his classroom and then observes that the students when given the actual plant do not recognize it as being the same thing.

1.3 Interest:
Audio-Visual utilization makes the learning procedure very easy and its absence makes it disgusting its presence makes the work a privilege and its absence makes it a punishment or lack of source of knowledge. The main job of the teacher is to create interest in the students for learning any subject taught. Almost all the academics should be taught with the help of audiovisual aids so many concepts in secondary level classes that can be made interesting with the help of chats, images, and films. For example atomic structure, patterns, modules, and digestive systems, mathematical figures, historical events geographical maps and graphs, etc.

1.4 Comprehensibility:
In selecting and using visual aids we must try to choose those things as aids which relate the new experience with past experience and which are within the comprehension of the students who are to use it.

For instance; lee’s take a teacher finds that his class is experiencing substantial problem in locating and understanding the connection between the parts of a circulatory system. And the instructor then draws purely a diagrammatic draft on the black board very clearly. This clarified the difficulties and issues because it is simple and readily comprehended by the students.

1.5 Motivation:
How to motivate students for learning language? Audio visual aids motivate and act as a catalyst for learners as they make the learning process in the classroom interesting especially in activity-oriented subjects for effective learning.

1.6 Realism:
A visual aid must necessarily possess the quality and niche of developing real concepts of different areas of life. Instead, we may try to develop in our students the concept very similar to that of the movement of electrons in the atom. We the teachers, in this case, try our best to describe accurately with the help of diagrams and charts but the students are shown the actual film of the movements of electrons; an entirely very different, but effective concept will emerge. Nearly all the visual aids are lacking one or the other characteristics but the actual specimen clarifies the concept due to realism, as the learners experience the fact in a practical approach of learning and understanding.

Advantages of Audio-Visual Aids:

2.1 To Challenge the Attention of the Pupils: The teacher who uses devices can usually see that the attention of the whole classroom is on the lesson and that should not be distracted. This is generally true when teachers are dealing with the lower classes. Devices should never be used by the teacher as mere attractions or entertainment. Exposure to visual or audio-visual material and nothing more is not an educative procedure.

2.2 To Stimulate the Imagination and Develop the Mental Imagery: Devices stimulate and increase the imagination of the pupils. Intellectual imagery can be used as a vehicle of thought and as a means of clarifying ideas and concepts. As imagination plays a vital role in any innovation and for any learning and almost all the innovations are in the form of imaginations and they evolved to be the theories and principles. Hence the imagination is much important to increase in the classroom so it is the duty of the teachers, especially those who are taking care of the secondary and lower levels of classes to use the teaching aids in the classroom because they play a vital role in increasing the imagination and they help in thought-provoking among the learners.

2.3 To Facilitate the Understanding of the Pupils: The most widely acknowledged use of aids, whether visual or audio-visual, its use in aiding understanding. As we learn everything and anything after understanding otherwise there can be any learning without understanding. Language learning can be acquired up by using models, filmstrips, movies, and pictorial material to supplement textbooks and printed materials. Material devices give significance, importance, and color and imagery body to the idea presented by the instructor. And abstract ideas can be made concrete in the minds of the pupils by the usage of devices like diagrams and graphs and these are very useful in developing understanding in mathematics and other social sciences. The graph is a good device in representing mathematical facts.

2.4 To Provide Incentive for Action: The use of devices in education, such as pictures and objects will arouses emotion and incites the individual to action or learning. The teacher must select the right kind of device to excite the students to a worthwhile intellectual activity during the class. Asking the pupils to collect pictures representing water, air, land transportation which stimulates them to action or immediate learning.

2.5 To Develop the Ability to Listen: The ability to listen can be developed best through the use of audio-visual materials. It is also the responsibility of the schools colleges and other educational institutions, to provide training for our students to be good listeners first. And listening is the best and first way of learning in the procedure. And as we knew the best saying, „one who is a good listener can be a good speaker or orator too”. And as we know Training in the art of listening is one of the aims of audio-visual education.