3. Basic Principles of Visual Communication

There are three main factors that influence the utility of visual communication:

• Personal properties and basic pedagogical ability of the teacher
• The technology itself, technical standard of tools and infrastructure
• The interaction of human being in technical environments

In ordinary teaching there are several non-verbal communication channels, i.e. eye-contact with the audience, movement among the students and usage of body language.

Eye-contact with the audience

In a video conference, physical eye-contact is not possible, but you may give the students an apparent eye-contact by looking straight into the camera. They will feel that you look at them and that you are really trying to tell them something, not just reading a text to them. As a comparison, you may think of the news reader on TV. He is looking most of the time into the camera, i.e. we feel that he is looking at us. If he were looking all other places, we would loose the interest after only a few minutes, as we would have interpreted it as a lack of attention. The main challenge is to be able to engage the far end students, and apparent eye-contact is the most important tool you have got. The placement of equipments in your video conferencing studio will influence how easy this is maintained. The most important detail here is to place the camera as near the monitor of the far end part as possible. I you look at the monitor now and then, you don't completely loose eye-contact with the students. This is visualised in the two video clips below.

Here are two video clips that focus on the lecturer's eye-contact with far end students. The placement of camera relative to the monitor of far end part is decisive to achieve eye-contact most of the time.

Clothes and background

You will achieve best visual pictures with one-coloured clothes and background. Patterns on the clothes and on the background should be avoided, as the refreshment of pictures when things are moving will demand a high transfer capacity and will introduce a visual disturbance. Blue is a nice colour on the background, and the colour of your clothes should "match" the background. White and black colours should be avoided as they introduce trouble with the light adjustments of the cameras. Besides, clean white and black are not appropriate colours on the screen. Light blue, light green and light brown are colours that may appear nicely. Eventual logos should be discrete and simple.

Movement within the camera view

In ordinary teaching it is common to move around, both in front of the blackboard and to walk down among the students. It may be done in a conscious way to achieve some variation in teaching, or it may be more occasional. In visual communications, the movements should be limited and more planned. Otherwise you will experience to move outside the camera view, which is not desirable. In TV productions, for instance from a football match, the cameras follow the player who has got the ball. In teaching, you don't normally have a specific camera operator, which means that you have to operate it yourself. The cameras are operated by the remote control. Instead of sweeping the room with the arrow controls on the remote control, it is wise to make so-called presets, which are pre-defined sound adjustments and camera positions.

In the first video clip we see that the lecturer moves outside the camera view and struggles to find himself on the screen again. In the second video the successful usage of presets are demonstrated

As you probably agree upon after watching the two videos above, it is important to try out and adjust several camera views, for instance when you are sitting by the teacher's desk, when you are standing in front of or near the whiteboard, or some other convenient place you will move to during the lesson. The general rule will be to make only small movements, and be sure that all movements are within the active camera view. In addition, make presets on your remote control with some selected camera views (behind the desk, in front of the blackboard etc.)

But there are still more challenges in connection with movements, as will be discussed in the next section.

The sound quality in visual communications

It is generally agreed upon that in video conferences the sound quality is even more important than the picture quality. Although both sound and picture should be of excellent quality, it is possible to imagine a useful video session with periods of bad picture conditions, as long as the sound is OK. But, in fact, the opposite is not possible. If you can't hear the far end part(s), the whole communication session is spoiled.

Therefore, choices of microphone solutions are of fundamental significance. In the two video clips below, microphone solutions for the teacher is regarded.

In the first video clip we see that the lecturer uses a table-top microphone, which may be a good solution for a static lecture. An even better solution is demonstrated in the second video, where a wireless neck-mounted microphone is used.