Weekly Response 7: Confessions from the Media Classroom (Powerpoint Presentation)
For this presentation I wanted to focus on the key ideas from the articles by Levine, Buckingham and Harvey that related to my experience specifically with the Video Journalism course at the Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush. I saw a strong correlation between teaching civic and media education to teaching journalism to the students at Rush. I am a big advocate for this type of education, particularly focusing on combining civic engagement and knowledge with the eye of a citizen or professional journalist. I am able to see this at not only Rush, but also the through teaching strategies of the Social Studies teachers at the Science Leadership Academy.
My presentation takes a look at this approach to learning and also pointing out some of its flaws that are appearing at Rush. Referring to Levine’s comments about public and private voice, I present some of the examples for both types of speech I have experienced and shared with the students. Since the issue of an audience is brought up in both articles, I wanted to speak about the Video Journalism’s audience and how students on the class are reacting to their “real audience.” I actually see the strategies for promoting student trust in a real audience as not quite effective in our classroom, but I am hoping it will change once they are exposed to a face-to-face encounter at Temple University this November. I end the presentation with the Buckingham and Harvey discussion about the production context and how we should ultimately evaluate these types of production. The student Bea that they use as an example of a student who may or may not have “learned” from producing her own film reminds me of a student in our class who worked in the PBS Newshour Student Reporting Labs last year. This student has even admitted that she is repeating a lot of the same learning experiences as she did the prior year. Also the collaborating teacher has created an atmosphere for creative freedom, which has been both positive and negative towards the results of the course. Thus I have revealed our biggest issue with the course and now we are setting firm, but realistic deadlines that all of the students can make.
I really enjoyed reflecting on these readings in this manner and I hope you enjoy reading it. Thanks.
