Michael Wesch, an associate professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University, began “The Visions of Students Tomorrow” on January 18. It is a new video-collaboration project that he hopes will help generate a conversation about the “media-ated life” of many students. He wants not only to gain insights into how students interact with their dense and ever-changing media environment, but also to tackle the question of whether instructors have kept pace with it.
Mr. Wesch has been responsible for such popular video projects as “Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us,” which has more than 11 million views on YouTube, and “A Vision of Students Today,” with more than four million views.
He wants “to hear from probably the most important voice in the question of where to go next with education, and that voice, of course, is the students themselves.”
To gather those voices, Mr. Wesch is soliciting videos from students, ranging in lengths from three seconds to three minutes. He hopes to collect a sufficient pool by February 15, and then to remix them into one video that represents a “summation of students’ experiences with their education today.”
The project will also help generate discussion about “whether or not the learning environments we are creating in the classroom are adequate and are a good match for the learning that needs to happen today,” he says.
The project has received support from several groups, including the MacArthur Digital Media and Learning Initiative and the Mozilla Foundation. Most of the funds will go towards helping start and maintain a Web site that will curate the remixed videos and describe resources on media literacy and better teaching practices.
“Are we teaching in a way that is going to create the types of students who can harness and leverage this new media environment, or are we failing our students?” Mr. Wesch asks.
The project is meant to serve as a combination of experimental video techniques and a message about education and learning. The remixed videos will use formats such as HTML5, which can link to information outside the video, including an interactive list of resources and contributors.
8 Responses to Video Uses Student Voices to Explore New Directions in Education
mwesch - January 26, 2011 at 8:24 pm
There have already been some great contributions. See the remix here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_XNG3Mndww
garay - January 27, 2011 at 7:11 am
Kudos to Michael (again) for making novel use of Web 2.0 tools to engage students into learning as well as crowd sourcing on issues of relevance to Academia.
I look forward to seeing the students’ message, and more importantly, how we, as HigherEd administrators and educators, will react to their voices and opinions.
I wish I was a college student today.
cpdesub - January 27, 2011 at 9:25 am
Michael Wesch is the keynote speaker at this year’s Heartland eLearning Conference in Edmond, OK. Visit http://www.uco.edu/heartlandconference/ to learn more about this high value, low cost conference.
professorrct - January 27, 2011 at 9:26 am
Michael Wesch’s work really challenged me to rethink what I’m doing as a professor. I’m a big fan of his approach.
mrmars - January 27, 2011 at 8:09 pm
Watched several of the videos. Dr Wesch gets excellent marks for encouraging student involvement and creativity, but these things play out more as video “confessionals” than anything else. As in: “I don’t study, I don’t pay attention in class, and I’m bored by most of what I’m expected to learn,” and maybe even “I feel a bit alienated by the whole enterprise, which by the way, is costing me a lot of money.”
If there is something here that is supposed to help me teach these kids more effectively, I guess I missed it. Perhaps I’m reading too much into what I saw, but these kids seem to be implying that I’m somehow responsible for the fact that the traditional classroom environment doesn’t connect with them, which implies that I’m supposed to somehow “fix” that?
I think that systems work best with clear leadership, and clear expectations. If these testimonials are somehow suggesting that the system should transfer even more power to the “students” than it already has, then I must take exception.
The kids who seem to do best in the classes I teach are those who at least begin the process of adapting to the old system and its expectations of student motivation, and effort. Certainly technology can be a huge help, but the way these kids use it – maybe the problem is better stated as: the way we way we let them use it (esp. in class) – is more of a distraction than anything else. So what I got out of this is that my suspicions about how self-centered these kids are and how addicted to their distractions, is correct.
Time we did something about that maybe? Are we in charge or not, do we have tons of evidence that the old system provided most with a quality education that is self-evident to anyone who cares to note that the world we live in at the moment was shaped by that system? Young people’s attitudes can be changed without scaring them for life, ask anyone who has gone through a military boot camp. Not very pleasant to be sure, but hugely effective in ensuring that one learn what what one needs to know to ensure their survival.
If there is an alternative lesson here, some gentle way to parley distraction into learning, I’d love to know what it is.
pataphyz - January 30, 2011 at 1:42 am
@mrmars: As a student actively involved in the VOST2011 project, I’m not speaking objectively, but- and perhaps because of my location- I still think I may be able to productively contribute to the discussion. The first point you make about the confessional structure holds true for a lot of what has been contributed so far, but I’m not sure that is an indict of the project. First, because ‘vision’ can have two very distinct meanings: both a descriptive claim about how students experience education today and also what students want from education and where they’d like to see it go. The confessional structure lends itself more readily to the first meaning and I think an accurate description of the situation is beneficial. Sure- the videos show some students not taking full advantage of their classes- even actively distracting other students- but this is not coming from a position of laziness or no desire to learn. The fact that the students were willing to put the effort into creating a video about their education demonstrates that point. Instead, what we can see is this disconnect between the methods of learning offered and the methods that would work better with students. Here’s where the second meaning of vision would be useful, and I truly hope that comes more into play. But it’s difficult. I didn’t realize how hard it was to tell a story in video form until I had to make one and my video is far less nuanced than I would like. Learning to work within the structure of a short video is difficult, but really rewarding too. I think the progress of skills as the project goes along will help improve the proscriptive focus of the videos. The other difficulty is that it is more challenging to say here’s how to fix this than it is to say this needs fixing. Allowing for the exploration of a problem seems to be the necessary first step to formulating any solutions.
I’m not sure I follow your argument for hierarchical education- you claim that the students that do best under an old system are those that adapt to the old system. Well, of course! The question we’re trying to explore is whether the old system is best suited for today’s students. I don’t think the answer is an overwhelming yes. Even by the current standards used (ie standardized testing) the US education is not as globally competitive as it was 30 or 40 years ago. The continuation of global conflict and systemic poverty and disease also call into question the success of current models of education. It’s not that there haven’t been great social, technological, and artistic developments, but I don’t think any of those are exclusive to a single method of education. Mass enui among college students suggests that the current system isn’t working. It may be possible to step up the rigor in classes but it seems far more appealing (here’s where my bias as a student comes in) to change the methods used. Technology offers more effective ways for group collaboration than has been previously possible. It has the potential to connect students and instructors across geographical boundaries/cultural boundaries/language boundaries. It can be used for group note taking- google documents have provided a means of exploring this option. There are many other ways to apply it but until we make conscious and concerted effort towards applying technology for the benefit- not the detriment- of education- we’re stuck with students and teachers who are frustrated.
dbn777 - January 30, 2011 at 4:18 am
@mrmars: I am also a student involved in the VOST2011 project. I would like to contribute to the discussion. I support what pataphyz mentions about the concept of ‘vision’. It is important for a discussion to be built on the perceptions of multiple individuals within the subject of study. I fear that conversation is hindered when a division line is drawn between the student and teacher.
The perceptions of “these kids”, “the way we *let* them use technology”, and the “refusal to accept responsibility for the current situation” are factors that continually drive the disassociation between student and teacher. Both, student and teacher, play a role in the video images that are being portrayed. The VOST2011 project is simply a conversation piece that dictates flaws and disconnection within the current system of education. The student videos are self-centered because that is the intention of the project. They are self-centered because that is the mediation of the conversation.
I do agree with your point: the system works best with clear leadership and clear expectations. Yet, both leadership and expectation can derive from student and teacher. The shift is not one of ‘power’, rather it is the development of a collaboration. The old system is exactly that… old! We are trying to solve today’s problems with yesterday’s tools. The military approach solidifies the mechanistic production of clone students. I ask you to consider: If all students are routinely the same, how can they make a difference in the world? Students do need to know how to survive, but they also need to know how to improve. The boot-camp student becomes the gear of a machine that is already ticking towards self-destruct. I would suggest viewing this VOST2011 video for the depiction of both problem and solution: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e-uy_xPy1o. VOST2011 is possible because of new forms of media, and technology is a key ingredient for successfully updating education.
Current forms of technology are a reality and their existence within the classroom will continue to become more prominent. Instead of barricading the doors and excluding new forms of media, the classroom should develop with the technology and allow it to manifest as a toolkit for asking questions/seeking answers. I would suggest reading “Teaching as a Subversive Activity” by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner for further explanation.
“The most important intellectual ability man has yet developed – the art and science of asking questions – is not taught in school. Moreover, it is not “taught” in the most devastating way possible: by arranging the environment so that significant question asking is not valued.” – Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner
garay - January 31, 2011 at 9:12 am
I am glad to see students express their opinion on university administrative matters, especially when it comes to Teaching & Learning. Typically, we (HigherEd administrators and educators) spend too much time discussing and over-analyzing the way we teach, the way our students learn or should learn with little to no regard to how students actually best learn.
I am not advocating that we go out of our way to please anything and everything that our students may wish and want at any one point. Indeed, we should remain distant from all extreme decisions, but that also means evolving away from totalitarian lecture-centric education.
The year is 2011.
Today’s technology, along with research in modern pedagogy, afford us endless opportunities to teach better, and for our precious students to learn easier and substantially better :: What is not to like?