Widespread, capable networking infrastructure, cheaper video capture and editing tools, and the demand from media-savvy students are the main factors driving the trend toward video in education, experts say.

As an instructional tool, video has significant staying power in today's classrooms, even in the midst of new technologies and the discussion of technologies yet to come, said Peter Grunwald, president of the market research firm Grunwald Associates.

But, he explained, "video is finding its way into schools through different paths." Teachers still show video from cable and DVDs, but streaming video is becoming more and more prevalent, as is the trend of students producing their own video content.

"It's not an explosion in the use of video, it's a recognition that video as an instructional medium has significant benefits," Grunwald said. "Video has certain strengths that the printed word does not. Therefore, it has its place in the toolbox as well."

Ron Reed, Discovery Education's senior vice president for sales and integration, agrees.

"Video has always been popular with educators, and in recent years it's becoming more mature," Reed said. "What's happening in the last few years is that video is being used differently."

Many teachers are too pressed for time and cannot show a whole video, but streaming video products let teachers easily identify short, two-minute clips that illustrate or reinforce what they are teaching.

"When I grew up--and even while I was an elementary school teacher--video was shown from the beginning to the end in a darkened room. Occasionally the video would be stopped and the teacher would say a few words, maybe even ask a question," said Gene Broderson, director of education at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. "Today, teachers are using the material differently. It is no longer a 20 to 30 minute break in the day."

Also, most schools are now equipped with the infrastructure to handle video over an Internet Protocol (IP) network. "Since eRate funding came in 1998, we now have virtually all schools wired in some format," Reed said. "As that expands, streaming video can become a much more structured part of teaching."

Phylis Hawkins, education solutions manager for Cisco Systems Inc., sees a trend toward schools consolidating all of their functions onto one infrastructure, and that includes migrating their video collections from analog formats to digital distribution.

"There's an inherent benefit of digital media," Hawkins said. Teachers can truncate videos into exact clips and tag them for easy searching.

Plus, students can integrate the video into reports, presentations, and discussions. "It is no longer just a teacher-driven tool, it is a content tool used by teacher and student," Broderson said.

Video-editing instruction in schools is on the rise, said Steve Chazin, director of strategic markets for Avid Technology Inc., a company that makes video and audio equipment used by movie, television, and music studios across North America.