Education & Teaching

I made a poor start with the head of Media Studies at my local school. The school had only just achieved Technology and Media Arts Special status and the A level media studies course had not been running for long.

It was my first meeting with him and he obviously wanted to impress a Governor. I can’t remember the exact figures he gave me, but some of his very first words to me were his proud boast that last year they’d achieved an average exam score in the high 90’s percentage wise. He was a little taken aback by my instant lack of response and seeming lack of enthusiasm – he didn’t know quite how to take it, I think expecting me to break into a big smile and say ‘Fantastic’ or something.

With this years A level results just in, and another record of ‘A’s and ‘A*’s, how much worth does an exam result have when so many other students (degree or A level), who have seemingly impressive results? What makes your students stand apart from the rest in the race to be employed somewhere and expound their art?

My son is off to University next month and earlier this year we had an interesting conversation with the ‘Product design’ head of department. He said to us he actually doesn’t like taking in straight ‘A’ students as they don’t tend to complete the course and aren’t usually practical enough to make it either on the course or in the jobs they eventually get – which obviously reflects on the university.

The education system is very academically orientated - there’s a whole other debate as to whether media studies is a academic or vocational subject. But, there is so much weight given to the quality of exam results and statistic tables (academic achievement), that a lot of schools have lost sight of their primary aim, that is to help the student achieve their best potential, not simply the best exam results. Exam results can be achieved by just teaching how to best past exams – I’ve heard students quite often complaining that there were parts of the exam they’d just sat where they actually hadn’t been taught that particular part of the subject – teachers concentrating on certain core parts of the subject so they get good marks, but missing out whole sections of the subject.

So what is the important part in a media studies course?  In my option, not the ’studies’ part and not if the academic aim is just good exam results! The answer has to be the ‘media’ bit – the students project work is the thing that will not only show their future talent, but also separate them from the myriad of others with the exam same grades, especially when it comes to the real world job interview. The main criteria any employer will give you regarding a new employee is the need for talent. We’ve all heard stories of people who’ve made it the real world who we’re written off at school – usually because they didn’t do very well at exams! We need to give the students the opportunities to express their talents to the full - with our guidance help develop those talents and help build a strength of character that will help them through life, not just an exam.

Within Media Studies we need to have the facilities and expertise to allow the students to create project work of a standard that will allow this to become the start of their future career portfolio.  Some years ago the statistics were that the Universities produced over 4,000 media studies graduates a year, just 120 found jobs in the Media Industry.   With even more students at University today and less jobs around I hate to think what the numbers are now.  IF your students are going anywhere in the media, they have to have that supporting project work, exam results are not enough!

Do you use recordings of television and radio programmes in the classroom? Does your limited budget mean that you cannot afford to buy resources? Instead, do you download music and film clips from the web, copy DVDs or photocopy texts? Do you file share with colleagues in other schools/institutions/countries? Do your students use Internet material in their project work?

Many normal activities both inside and outside the classroom depend on the use of literature, music, film and art, in their many manifestations. Often these works are protected by copyright, and those who created them are dependent upon being paid for the use of their works for their livelihood. After all, the creative industries make a valuable contribution to the economy of our country and employ a substantial part of our workforce.

File sharing is not necessarily illegal, even if the works being shared are covered by copyright. For example, some artists may choose to support freeware, shareware, open source, or anti-copyright, and advocate the use of file sharing as a free promotional tool. However, you need to be aware of how legislation affects the use of images, audio and moving images taken from the Internet and other sources. Websites and VLEs (Virtual Learning Environments) are elaborate notice boards, full of text and images, with content usually provided by staff, students and parents. If they include material from other sites or providers without permission, they could be in serious trouble. For example, photographers and photo agencies can use specially designed software to trace their pictures, and alert them when it appears on the Internet. If prior permission from the publisher to use their material has not been gained, then there could be a breach of copyright and action maybe taken.

The confusion for many may come from thinking that a lot of digital content is all right to use under the ‘education’ umbrella. This may well be the case within the classroom as part of a lesson or student study, but when that content is used on websites, VLEs, or as part of a swapped lesson plan, then teachers are facilitating the free re-distribution of those images.

My own company provides school site licenses as part of the cost of a resource. This means that the school can use the digital content on every computer/whiteboard and photocopy worksheets for every student. BUT sharing any of that content outside a school by whatever means, is an infringement of copyright.

The educational resource content market is driven by small companies how can suffer greatly in income from illegal coping, and if these producers of quality educational resources go out of business what is education left with? - Poor quality inappropriate materials and a waste of valuable teacher time, struggling to produce their own. These days students are sophisticated consumers of content, so if given poor content, poor work is the outcome.

Each educational establishment is responsible for adhering to copyright licenses, and that means every teacher/lecturer may be culpable. Many exploit existing material by copying, sharing and making derivative works. You may think you are teaching with well illustrated with digital content, but the lesson learnt by pupils might be about unethical practice and pirating.

AND it’s not just about third party content – how protected is your original content? Resources you have worked on for hours and put on the website or intranet, free for anyone else to capture and use without your permission?

Traditionally literacy could be defined as the ability to decode, understand and communicate in print. As the world evolves and electronic media usurps print as the dominant format, there is an essential need to be media literate.

Understanding how to access, analyse, evaluate and create in a wide variety of media modes is essential in order to be functionally literate. So where does the responsibility lie within the curriculum?

Let’s first look at the relationship between media studies and media literacy. Media Studies is the organised study of media, whereas media literacy is the outcome – the skill of experiencing, analysing and making media products.

Creative Arts best bring together multi-disciplinary forms of creative expression and so surely, multi-media production must lie within this faculty? But in order to produce content, students need to understand how media conveys ideas, informs, entertains and persuades.

Before creating content, media education should encourage students to probe the world of media. What is the message, who is it for and why? Skills of critical analysis may best be learned through inquiry-based classes such as English, rather than from creating and producing one’s own media.

Surely critical thinking skills must be a key educational priority. If students learn to ask the right questions the result will be a lifelong empowerment of the learner and the citizen. Media literacy is about understanding that media is constructed to convey ideas, and therefore we need to be able to identify the techniques and conventions that are used to influence and inform.

But, back to traditional print literacy. We wouldn’t describe someone as literate if they could only read but not write. The two go hand in hand, the ‘doing’ is an essential part of being literate. We might not all be film makers but we should not have a passive relationship to media - creating multi-media texts, visual, sound and print is an essential skill in order to be media literate.

So, should media be seen as a cross-curricular discipline drawing for example on social sciences and the humanities, as well as English and the arts? And let’s not forget the question of how does media sit under the umbrella of the IT department?

Or is media just an expanded conceptualization of literacy? I look forward to your comments.