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When designing learning environments in primary teacher education, there is an attempt to represent real teaching practice in an authentic way to prospective teachers. When constructing these environments, teacher educators have to consider how to best motivate the student teacher, identifying the most relevant practice-based principles and the ways in which the theory and practice can be bridged. There are other considerations as well. For example, in the Netherlands, as in some other countries, teacher education is changing drastically. Controversial teacher education curricula, consisting of primary school subjects originated after more than one hundred years of reflection on the subject matter of primary education and the ways teachers have taught, have been replaced by curricula merely intended to improve the general professionalization of the prospective teacher, neglecting the school subjects. More specifically, the new objective is to adequately prepare students to become competent beginning teachers.

Despite widespread enthusiasm for video technology in teacher education and a great deal of development and use of videos for this purpose, relatively little systematic research has been conducted on the feasibility and effectiveness of various types and uses of video for various teacher education purposes. Much of the research that is available on educational applications of video technology is focused on the use of video in K-12 teaching or in business and industrial training, rather than in teacher education. Furthermore, much of the research on video in teacher education has been limited to studies of relatively global perceptions of its value. These studies indicate that preservice instructors and students, as well as inservice professional development leaders and participating teachers, typically report positive responses to the video components of the program. Authors typically describe what was included in the video component and how it was used by participants. However, they rarely assess the relative effectiveness of different types or uses of video, let alone consider the trade-offs embedded in these alternatives if used to pursue contrasting educational purposes and goals.