Traditionally, we have educated our young by giving them knowledge or skills and letting them practice until we think they have mastered it. Then we test them on it and give them feedback about how they did. This allows us to categorize them based on their response but what else does it give us…and them? Certainly, a type of learning happens but is it the best type? Does it make learning fun and interesting? It seems that a more fruitful approach might be to apply that knowledge or those skills to something meaningful and “real” as soon as they are taught. I realize that this isn’t always possible; sometimes you need to learn basic building blocks before you move on, and of course there are some concepts where it might be very difficult to imagine what a “real” project would look like. I imagine that if we tried though, we could do it more often than we have.
I’ve been teaching technology and video production for the past several years. These fields allow you to develop projects that allow students to utilize technique and skills immediately after they are taught. At least, I think these fields allow one to think of these a bit easier than traditional courses like math or science. Want to learn how to build a web page…ok, here are the tools, now build one. Want to make a movie. Here is the process…piece by piece…now make one. It sounds simple, but I imagine if we thought about different ways we could do this with history, math, science and language, we might be able to provide different approaches to learning. Perhaps we need to be even more explicit with students about when we need to teach building blocks.
The SMI is a perfect example of these kinds of projects. We do not wait for mastery of content…We move forward with production as though the students are ready to produce using their own thoughts. We talk about craft, art, technique, technical skill, but also feel that these cannot be fully realized until they are put to practice. We give the content knowledge and skills and have the students develop projects using these, in their own voice.
The first project is designed to emphasis the importance of pre-production and introduce the concept of creating a reality through visual language. In groups of three, participants create a 2-4 minute script and storyboard. Stories are shot in the order that they will be viewed, constraining the participants to the plan (shot list) they create.
To make the project more interesting, groups are given a prop and a line of dialogue that they must incorporate. Additionally, each group member must appear on screen at least once. To prepare for telling a story without dialogue or sound, ample practice in developing shot technique and continuity are given. In addition, we offer an acting workshop where participants explore telling stories through body language and props.
The Summer Media Institute (SMI) is a six week, media education program that takes place at Cambridge Community Television (CCTV). It is designed to give youth participants comprehensive training and experience of the video production process. It is made possible through a partnership with the city of Cambridge Mayor’s Summer Youth Employment Program (MSYEP).
Participants are 14-18 year old residents of Cambridge and are paid, through MSYEP, to work at CCTV. They are expected to participate in all of the workshops and trainings that we offer them. During the SMI, they produce about three video productions, although the program changes every year. This year, we have 16 participants ranging in video experience, three staff members and two youth trainers.
It’s a summer job, but it has a summer camp feeling, with exceptional opportunities for learning and growth. Students learn all about producing and sharing video, are exposed to media literacy concepts, practice creative expression, work in groups, give and receive critical feedback, write scripts and personal narratives and plan the final screening. Student work is presented at the screening, is shown on CCTV channels and is viewable on the CCTV website.
Digital Storytelling is the practice of using digital tools, such as digital cameras and computers, to create audio-visual stories. As with traditional storytelling, most digital stories focus on a specific topic and contain a particular point of view. Digital stories can vary in length, but most of the stories used in education typically last between two and ten minutes. Topics can range from personal tales to the recounting of historical events, from exploring life in one’s own community to the search for life in other corners of the universe, and literally, everything in between. The beauty of this form of digital expression is that these stories can be created by people everywhere, on any subject, and shared electronically all over the world.
More about digital stories and see examples, visit the Center for Digital Storytelling – http://www.storycenter.org/index1.html
I’ve used the Digital Story form to introduce media production concepts to students of all ages. I’ve also used digital storytelling projects to focus on writing, or speaking a particular language. This works extremely well for students who are learning a new language. It allows them to create a story but not rely entirely on their language ability to convey a message.
Your school may have all of the equipment that you need. If you have access to an Apple computer, then you already have video editing software that makes it very easy to put together music, images and audio narration. It is called IMovie. You may additionally need a scanner to use photographs that students bring from home or you can choose to use material found on the web. Remember, if students are interested in sharing their creations later, the YouTube or some other site, then you should teach fair use and encourage them to not use popular music. I often recommend using material that is created under a Creative Commons license or is in the Public Domain.
The entire process is fairly simple. Begin by choosing a topic. Have the students begin writing about this topic. Whenever they need to take a break, they can search the Internet (I recommend using creativecommons.org or arhive.org) for images that relate or reinforce what they are talking about. They can even search for background music.
I’ve been thinking for a couple of months now about how I can make a good (the best) case for using web 2.0 tools in public school classes. I mean, not just using them – google maps and other tools are awesome for gathering data – but allowing students to gain skills producing and distributing their ideas into the great platform of the Internet. This allows them to participate in local, and global conversations and to experience that effect. While I am interested in full, unhindered access to these tools and the use of them to share content, I’m certainly interested in any attempt to move in this direction.
It seems that many public school systems are fearful or have policy against this idea for one of several reasons. It is not always easy to ensure the security of content that is published online. It’s not possible to guarantee the accessibility of that content in the future. Legally, many schools may not feel that they have control over the content that distributed publicly from the students that they are responsible for. How can a school manage the content that does become available online?
This raises many questions for me. Is it possible for students to create content, as a class project for example, and post it online without the school system needing to take responsibility. What kind of legal agreement can be made to allow a teacher to maintain responsibility, for parents to agree. What burden does this place on the teacher? How can i engage in a meaningful conversation with the school system about these ideas?
Too much to think about. I’ll be sure to write more as I have these conversations.
Thursday, March 4, at the ICA in Boston, RYMAEC (Regional Youth Media Arts Education Consortium) hosted an open mic where many educators, researchers and youth media workers shared tools and strategies. Kara Oehler was the featured speaker and she presented her work with the Mapping Main Street project. They hope to document in some way all of the main streets in the U.S. – and make them available on a web application where others can share comments or other content.
I presented a project that I worked on with a Spanish teacher in which we used garageband and soundcloud.com to create podcasts as practice for the Spanish AP exam. The concept is simple: prepare (or find) a sound file that can be used as conversation practice. The AP exam asks a series of questions in formal conversation and gives the tester time to respond. We can do this using different tracks in GarageBand (or any multitrack recorder). The final project can be exported and put on a digital player or shared using a site like soundcloud.
Web Games or activities
Interactive lesson plans
Research information for student use
Current events information
Image collections
Information for own professional development
Online video library/exclusive content
Primary source materials
Interactive simulations
Online video library/previously aired content
Student-produced multimedia
Data sets
Student-created Web sites
Opportunities to interact with experts
Student submission Web sites
Non-interactive lesson plans
Audio on handheld devices
Blogs
Facebook, Wiki, social media communities
Video on handheld devices
The Youth Media Reporter (www.youthmediareporter.org) has invited the boston area to be the focus in its upcoming journal. RYMAEC/ICA (www.rymaec.org), New England’s Regional Youth Media Arts Education Consortium, is helping coordinate the efforts to make this journal a success and we are excited to encourage you to participate!
I’m very excited about the possibilities. Some possible ideas might be:
Best practices of working within the system. I’ll write more about this in my next post but I want to highlight two projects that I’ve worked on this fall. Creating Digital Stories with creative commons images and Shakespearean sonnets and creating podcasts as practice for the AP spanish test.
The important part of this is to let the educators come to you. They already have the core concepts they want to teach and experience creating curriculum and lesson plans. Try to support the work they are doing while incorporating media literacy/production.
I’m continuing to try to incorporate media literacy and media production into mainstream education and just completed another project that I think might offer a great example of this kind of work. An AP Spanish teacher approached me with the challenge of creating practice with feedback for the spoken portion of the AP Spanish test. I asked her if it were possible to get recorded examples of what that portion of the test might sound like. She was able to find CDs with previous years examples and practice tests. I decided that the students would create podcasts and then she would be able to listen to these podcasts on her computer or portable player and then offer students feedback herself.
I first imported the CDs and created mp3 versions of all practice and exam audio. I then created a simple web page where students would be able to download these MP3s to the computer they were working on. After students had created a folder on the desktop and downloaded these MP3 files to their computer, they imported them into a garage band project.
Using the computers built-in microphone students were able to record their voices onto a new track in GarageBand responding to and answering the questions that were posed from the practice audio. After recording their voices students then exported these projects as MP3 files that we were able to place onto a USB drive that the teacher could review later. the students were very engaged by this project and the teacher was able to provide meaningful feedback to students in preparation for their AP exams.
I’m trying to incorporate media literacy (the ability to deconstruct and create meaningful messages using a variety of media tools) and to mainstream education. My current position allows me to work directly with teachers and students during the school day. This creates the potential to propose media projects to support the work that teachers are already doing. I believe it is important to have the educators bring the challenge to the media consultant. The teacher already has the curriculum, goals and standards they have to work within. We can try to support this work while teaching media literacy and media production.
This first example has to do with language teacher approaching me with the challenge of contextualizing Shakespearean sonnets. She wanted to do in media project and wanted to have the students responsible for choosing the materials that would be in the media productions. I suggested creating digital stories with music and images that the students could create and download. Each specific line of the Shakespearean sonnet they were working on would be represented by one or two images.
First, pairs of students typed each sonnet in Word and thought about what each line next to them. they rewrote each line in language that was meaningful to them. They then found two images using creative Commons search feature to correspond with each line. all of the images were imported into an iMovie project and placed in the proper order. Next, each line was copied from the Word document and paste it into the iMovie project so that it would be displayed over the two corresponding images. finally music was chosen to match the overall mood of the sonnet. Many students found it difficult to use creative Commons to find music or did not have the time to create their own music using GarageBand so we allow students to use copyright music. This means that the work could not be shown on our local public access channel or could not be put on the school website.