Rowers Get Feedback With Video Traces

"The biggest thing about Video Traces for us," says Eleanor McElvaine, athletic coach for the UW freshman womens rowing team, "was that the athletes could access this whenever and as often as they wanted."

In the past, it took time out of practice for everyone to go to the video room and look at each athlete's performance. With Video Traces (see box below), each person has her own clip. McElvaine also made a "good examples" clip so the rowers could compare themselves.

What Is Video Traces?

Video Traces allows you to capture a piece of video and then add several types of visual and verbal comments. The video plus the annotations is called a Video Trace.

In annotating, you can

Use the mouse to point to particular features
Freeze the frame to make a detailed comment
Change the speed

Video Traces was originally conceived in 1993 by Reed Stevens, UW assistant professor of cognitive studies in the College of Education. In 2000, PETTT (Program for Educational Transformation Through Technology) began working with Stevens to implement his vision of the system and further develop it.

Even experienced rowers need to watch the video. "They can learn a lot from the visual image with my comments over the top," explains McElvaine.

In one clip, McElvaine freezes the frame and uses the pointer tool to show the position of the student's back as she starts to pull, and then advances frame by frame, in slow motion, to show how she pulls through to the next stroke.

Graphic: Video Trace with photo of rowers.

Photo courtesy of UW Sports Information.

"It's great we have the expertise at the UW to develop this kind of tool," reflects McElvaine. "My hope is that Video Traces will be available to all educators, elementary and high school. It's an A+ in my book."

University of Washington Computing & Communications
Windows on Technology, No. 29, May 2003
newsltr@cac.washington.edu
Modified: May 9, 2003