Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

11.2.06 | America’s youth are become media-makers: they are blogging, designing their own websites, podcasting, modding games, making digital movies, creating soundfiles, constructing digital images, and writing fan fiction, to cite just a few examples. While many educators want to integrate these media production activities into their instruction, they often lack the vocabulary to talk with students about these new media and have no standards to evaluate their projects;  the students lacked role models to help them understand future opportunities or ethical issues they may encounter as media makers.

Responding to these challenges, Project NML is producing a library of exemplars, short digital documentaries exploring the craft and ethical choices media makers confront in producing and distributing their work.  Our first exemplars include profiles of blogger and science fiction author Cory Doctorow, independent comic book creator Nick Bertozzi, radio news producer Sean Cole, and graffiti collective, Tats Cru. Future projects may feature such emerging practices as podcasting, djing, alternate reality games, the Wikipedia movement, and much much more.

We surround each exemplar with other resources, such as vocabulary sheets, classroom activities, and guides to the tools deployed, designed to support the pedagogical use of these short segments. We also imagine that interested students will want to access these films on their own via our website.

Right now, these videos are being produced by a team of Comparative Media Studies graduate students led by research manager Margaret Weigel and production manager Anna Van Someren. Long term, we expect to make this an open library where anyone can insert their own content: teachers and students may produce and share films about artists in their own local community.