educational media

This article examines how adolescents are using digital video production in school to express emotions, deal with personal and community problems and even draw on their multimedia compositions as a form of healing. In this sense, youth are using literacy to help them to make sense of their lives while attempting to make changes within themselves and their communities.

The data for this paper comes from a two-year ethnographic study in two high schools. Field observations, interviews, video data, pre-production texts (storyboards, scripts, screen plays etc.) and student films were analyzed to understand what language and literacy look like when students use digital video production and distribution in school to tell stories.

Drawing on a New Literacy Studies theoretical framework, the author argues that the literacy practices in this study allow students to make sense of issues and emotions in their lives and cope with their life circumstances by showing their stories to real audiences both within and beyond their schools.

The paper examines the roles of educators and learners in creating networked learning experiences on massive open online courses (MOOCs). It proves that it is possible to move from a pedagogy of abundance to a pedagogy that supports human beings in their learning through the active creation of resources and learning places by both learners and course facilitators.

“Video is a powerful and increasingly prevalent learning tool,” says international media executive Adam Salkeld, who is curating VIDEO EDUCA. “Generation Z’s learners are typically highly sophisticated consumers of video as well as native video makers. Educators need to respond to this major shift in the way media content is used and perceived by current generations to ensure effectiveness.” 

OEB 2012’s programme is now online and features a series of expert-led video sessions grouped under the name VIDEO EDUCA. The VIDEO EDUCA sessions will focus on all aspects of using video in learning, ranging from the practical production process to learning practitioners’ experiences. In the opening plenary session, the award-winning documentary maker Michael Grigsby will deliver a keynote speech on the role of video in education. As well as making nearly 30 acclaimed films, Grigsby co-founded the Abingdon Film Unit, which works with secondary school pupils to create short documentaries and animated films.

Participants will have the unique opportunity to have their own videos critiqued by industry experts such as Steve Anderson, Executive Producer of BBC’s Question Time, in the pre-conference Video Masterclass. Taking place on Wednesday 28^th November, the Video Masterclass will provide participants with a detailed overview of using video to communicate learning, as well as insider knowledge of the production process. From script to screen, the Masterclass will cover the key areas of filmmaking and ensure that all participants leave with the tools and techniques to make video a successful component of learning resources, whatever the budget.

Additional expert speakers and session leaders include Rebekah Tolley, an award-winning film-maker and educator who has produced educational resources for the United Nations, the BBC and Channel 4; and Martin Addison, CEO of Video Arts, the company founded by John Cleese. Video Arts remains one of the world’s leading video training companies and has changed the face of corporate training across the globe.

OEB 2012’s programme features over 400 speakers from more than 40 countries and provides an abundance of networking opportunities, as well as an extensive exhibition area with over 90 exhibitors. For more information, please visit www.online-educa.com.

We’ll start with a detailed research on cooperative devices and the mechanism related to the self reproduction and self narration dynamics. Each Sharp’s member will identify in his context people at risk of social or digital marginalization and people who have important but difficult relationships with their area (a great focus is on school reality and “digital natives” generation, who don’t show neither an appropriate digital awareness nor a suitable self-representation).  

People identified will be trained to visual communication in a learning-by-doing approach, through their own community video narration, related to their area. Thus, mediators and social operators will guarantee a direct training and will disseminate their competences.

Documentaries will be gathered in the web platform, which represents not only a great database but also a strong device used to modify and mix together videos. In this way, we are realizing new and common area representations and are contributing to create new dynamics to the self construction and to the public and collective construction as well.