Harnessing the Power of Social Media in the Classroom: Challenging Students to Create Content to Share on Social Media Sites to Improve Learning Outcomes

Many young adults consume news, political, and historical information through social media sites, and yet students do not always connect this information to the academic knowledge they learn in their classes. In addition, while students learn academic writing and presentation skills, they may not feel equipped to present the knowledge that they have learned to a non-academic audience. I detail a class assignment in which students produce a social media project that imparts academic knowledge to a general audience. These have taken the form of short videos, websites, a documentary and even poems and songs. Drawing on a survey of the students, as well as a content analysis of the projects, I find that the project is successful in achieving several teaching goals, including knowledge retainment, critical thinking skills, making real world connections with class material, student empowerment, and improving communication skills.     

Minecraft and machinima in action: development of creativity in the classroom

ABSTRACT

Numerous studies show the positive effects of introducing video games into learning contexts. These instruments help develop twenty-first-century skills, such as creativity, from a dual perspective: (i) the students’ perspective, since they develop skills and competencies that allow them to find innovative solutions to the challenges posed by games, and to become digital culture producers; and (ii) the education professionals’ perspective, to use these instruments in schools and thereby change the way students learn. Using a sample of 85 first-year secondary school students, this study aims to provide empirical evidence about the development of creativity through the introduction of video games in the classroom. To do this, an eight-week pedagogical workshop was developed in which the Minecraft video game was introduced in the subject of technology. To assess the results of the workshop, the participants’ creativity was analysed using a pre-test/post-test design through the CREA Creative Intelligence Test, as well as the evaluation of the students’ machinima productions by their teachers. Results show a significant increase in creativity and high scores for machinima productions, highlighting the opportunity to introduce these tools in classrooms in order to develop innovative educational contexts where creative processes and products are the protagonists.     

Problem-solving in collaborative game design practices: epistemic stance,affect, and engagement

ABSTRACT

This article explores children’s development of problem-solving practices through multimodal engagements in digital activities. The study is based on analyses of a video recorded peer group activity in which two children, within the context of a project on computational thinking using the software Scratch, collaboratively work to solve a coding problem. Drawing on work on epistemics-in-interaction and the cooperative and transformative organization of human action and knowledge, the analyses focus on the interactional strategies that the children use to establish, sustain, and develop knowledge within the peer group and the role of affect in the unfolding organization of actions. By analyzing the multimodal cultural production in children’s interaction with digital technologies, it is shown how children learn creative and artful skills, thus positioning them as consumers as well as producers of media.     

Empowering parents of pre-school children

This paper describes a project undertaken with parents from an inner city primary school in Hartlepool, England. The main objectives of the project were to increase the self esteem of the parents, to give them an understanding of the pre-school curriculum and to enable them to develop their skills, knowledge and confidence to become involved in school life and to take ownership of their own children's education. The project focused around the production of a video to show nursery life in the school and this production was used as a vehicle to encourage the fulfilment of the objectives described above. The paper concludes by describing the successful outcomes of the project. Some of the outcomes were planned for, but we were equally delighted with the unexpected ones.     

‘Use Condoms for Safe Sex!’ Youth-led video making and sex education

Situated at the intersection between child-led visual methods and sex education, this paper focuses on the potential of youth-led video making to enable young people to develop guiding principles to inform their own sexual behaviour. It draws on findings from a video-making project carried out with a group of South African young people, which engaged them in identifying and tackling critical issues of HIV and AIDS. By analysing one of the youth-generated videos using critical visual analysis, we conclude that youth-led video making can be an effective tool to allow young people to talk about their interests and concerns and to develop guiding principles for their own sexual behaviour. This tool is especially relevant to young people whose needs are not being met by the current sexual health curriculum and can be a fun medium through which to engage participants in ensuring that sex education needs are met.     

Imagining the Audience: language,creativity and communication in youth media production

This article provides an analytical case study of the production of two films made by young people as part of the VideoCulture project, and of the ways in which they were interpreted. The case study raises key issues to do with the question of audience, which has been a major theme in debates around the place of production in media education. The article suggests that awareness of audience may enable young people to ‘decentre’, and hence to develop a more reflective analysis of their own work. However, it also points to the social differences in the media ‘languages’ that young people use, and the contrasting models of creativity which they imply. Discussion of these issues suggests that media education should avoid the more individualistic approach to creative production which is made possible by digital technology     

Passion play: Will Wright and games for science learning

Researchers and instructional designers are exploring the possibilities of using video games to support STEM education in the U.S., not only because they are a popular media form among youth, but also because well-designed games often leverage the best features of inquiry learning. Those interested in using games in an educational capacity may benefit from an examination of the work of video game designer Will Wright. Wright designs through a constructivist lens and his open-ended, sandbox games (SimCity, The Sims, Spore) present wide ??possibility spaces?? that allow players to exercise their critical thinking and problem solving skills. His games invoke a delight in discovery that inspire creative acts and interest-driven learning both during and outside of the game. Finally, he reminds us that failure-based learning is a viable strategy for building expertise and understanding.     

Nurturing Independent Learning in the Undergraduate Student in History: A Faculty–Student Mentoring Experience

Four undergraduates and a history professor planned for and carried out research in the Belgian State Archives in an attempt to answer the call from the Boyer Commission’s seminal report that identified the need for meaningful undergraduate research opportunities in the American higher education system. Our faculty–student mentoring experience provided an opportunity to develop practical skills for historical research. Success of the mentoring project was determined through ongoing dialog and through analysis of student reflective essays. While an international project of this scope may not be feasible for many institutions, mentoring projects in domestic or even local archives could be similarly beneficial.     

跨学科课程发展与交换学生项目：日本和美国两所高中教育可持续发展项目研究

从2010年开始至今,日本北海道札幌市大通高中和美国路易斯安娜州立大学实验学校的学生,以及两校12个学科34位教师,联合开展了一项跨学科课程发展与交换学生研究项目。日、美两国师生通过视频、网络、电子邮件、DVD光盘和书信等各种媒体交换观点。尽管日本的学校面临着应试压力,但是该项目的实施表明了跨文化理解教育对于两国学生来说十分必要。通过对国内、国际和平以及民族、文化多样性特征的理解,项目提升了两国学生的跨文化理解力,也有助于培养他们的批判性思维能力、审视自己和社会的能力。     

影视多媒体实验教学对大学生媒介素养的影响

影视媒介素养教育是媒介素养教育的重要组成部分,通过影视多媒体实验教学对大学生进行媒介素养教育是一项新的举措。在影视多媒体实验教学中,指导教师把影视原理,影视设备的使用,影视作品的构思、拍摄、制作方法和技巧传授给学生的同时,也把影视媒介素养教育的内容传授给学生。通过这一途径提高了学生对影视作品的选择能力、理解能力、评鉴能力和创造能力。     

What They Learned: Using Multimedia to Engage Undergraduates in Research

Today’s employers seek high levels of creativity, communication, and critical thinking, which are considered essential skills in the workplace. Engaging undergraduate students in critical thinking is especially challenging in introductory courses. The advent of YouTube, inexpensive video cameras, and easy-to-use video editors provides opportunities to increase students’ skill levels in these areas. In this article I explain the assignment of producing a public service announcement that integrates research, collaborative learning, and creativity into an introductory survey course; and I discuss the support necessary for students’ success. Their products demonstrate increased levels of media literacy, creativity, and critical thinking skills.     

The Use of Video for Training Engineers in the Presentation of Technical Information

The effective communication of complex information is a key task for professional people in general and for engineers in particular. The education of engineers often, therefore, contains studies designed to show the context in which physical systems will be used and to offer students the opportunity to explain their ideas in writing and speech. This paper describes an activity of skills training for engineering students in which a simple video system gives a sense of occasion to spoken presentations; offers the possibility of instant feedback about performance; and proves useful in increasing students' confidence in their powers of communication. Notes are included on some additional uses of video in the education of engineers.     

The use of personal video conferencing with special needs pupils from three schools serving rural areas: a case of successful adoption of new technology

Abstract

This article will focus on the use of desktop (or personal) video conferencing to link groups of special needs children from three secondary schools in a rural area of Wales. The collaboration developed out of a Superhighways project which introduced video conferencing to a network of schools and which was aimed mainly at supporting geography teaching through the use of satellite images of the Earth. The link was used with the special needs pupils to develop communication and social skills and to overcome their relative isolation from other pupils with similar needs. The article will examine how the technology was used and identify factors that might have influenced its adoption amongst the teachers involved. (N.B. Throughout this article, the terms ‘desktop’ and ‘personal’ video conferencing refer to the same thing, i.e. a system consisting of a small video camera mounted on a desktop computer.)     

The role of technology in gifted students' motivation

Although technology by itself may not be motivating, a relationship seems to exist between the opportunities that technology presents and motivation for gifted students. When technology use aligns with authentic or “real‐world” applications, motivation can be enhanced. This article explores the overlap between factors that have historically been shown to increase motivation and the unique affordances of technology tools to meet the needs of gifted and talented students. Some examples of this overlap include skills related to control and autonomy (e.g., time management, project management, and decision making about choices provided), challenge (e.g., perseverance and patience through hard work, proposing a project and following it through to completion), collaboration and cooperation (e.g., teamwork, people skills, social skills, anger management, and communication with students at other schools), curiosity (e.g., finding resources online, finding the work interesting, and learning new things), and recognition (e.g., the opportunity to communicate beyond the school walls, a “real” product). © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The Development of Research Skills in Young Adults with Intellectual Disability in Participatory Research

There is limited information about specific research constructs developed by adults with intellectual disability in undertaking research despite increasing involvement in research with rather than on these individuals. Participatory research was used with three young adults with intellectual disability to collaboratively develop a training programme and investigate the skills used and developed when undertaking the research project. Three research domains—Knowledge, Conceptual understandings and Skills, were identified, within which 18 subsets were categorised. Development in all domains and subsets occurred for all young adults, with variations in gains across subsets and participants. These young adults attained research knowledge, understanding and skills that enabled them to become collaborative researchers within this project.     

Voice,empowerment and youth-produced films about ‘gangs’†

This article explores the dissonance between the expansive discourses imagined by the advocates for youth media as helping foster ‘empowerment’ and ‘voice', versus the more circumscribed realities of participatory media production. I focus on a two-part case study – considering both a film-making project for ‘at risk’ young people in South London and the English national government funder that provided the resources for the young people to take part. This case study allows for an exploration of the political economy of youth media, and the relationship between youth media funding and how and why young people in my research often chose to make films about ‘gangs', a striking topic of concern across 11 youth media case study sites. I use this empirical example as a means to analyse how ‘empowerment’ in youth media projects, understood as both critical media literacy and youth voice, moves from abstract discourse to on-the-ground practice.     

Evaluation of an action learning programme for leadership development of SME leaders in the UK

This paper presents the findings from an evaluation research project undertaken by Henley Management College in 2006. This project followed an earlier research study that focused on identifying the leadership development needs for leaders of small and medium sized-enterprises (SMEs) in the UK, developed a leadership development model and made recommendations for a leadership development programme. The principle challenges facing the SME organisations overwhelmingly concerned leading change in their organisation. Their personal challenges concerned implementing change initiatives, communicating these and motivating the people in their organisation. In consideration of the challenges identified, one of the key recommendations was to pilot an action learning programme and evaluate the effectiveness of action learning to develop leadership skills in SME leaders. Henley Management College then conducted a research project to evaluate the pilot programme. This pilot consisted of three learning sets, run in three geographical areas in the UK and facilitated using three very different styles. Following the pilot programme, there were several wider reviews by academics, advisors and representatives of relevant government boards. This has since resulted in a significant programme of action learning for SME leadership development being implemented. This paper provides an overview of the relevant literature and research methodology and then presents the evaluation results from the pilot programme. The dominant theme was that action learning does indeed deliver significant business benefits and provides a real opportunity for SME leaders to develop their leadership skills.     

Exploring students’ perceptions of service-learning experiences in an undergraduate web design course

Service-learning is an experiential learning experience where students learn and develop through active participation in community service to meet the needs of a community. This study explored student learning experiences in a service-learning group project and their perceptions of service-learning in an undergraduate web design course. The data showed that the service-learning project helped students learn the course material, feel more connected to the surrounding community, and improve their communication and problem-solving skills for their careers. The participants appreciated the opportunity to work with the service-learning partner and will be likely to look for more opportunities to get involved in the community. Time constraints, group work, working with real clients, and technical limitations were reported as major challenges in the group project.