The Media Explosion in Student’s Lives

With editing stations on laptops and video cameras everywhere, students and teachers have become moviemakers. Making and watching movies is fun and engaging. Yet, not every piece of video will be worth sharing beyond those who made it. At the same time, there will be those gems, the videos that perfectly capture a concept, a moment, or an emotion that deserve to be shared beyond the classroom door.

Steve Springett, Vice President of Technology & Engineering at New Dimension Media sees the future of learning as incorporating existing learning assets with those generated in the classroom–on a smart board, video, audio or other sources, into new learning materials. Students and teacher learn by the process of assembling the media and make it available to other classrooms in their community.

What I like about using media in the classroom is the team effort required. Different students with different skills and strengths may work together to create a project better than any of them could have done alone. The best part about having a way to publish and share work is to receive feedback and see it in a larger context. Hopefully, this will encourage students and teachers to push the standards of their own work to be higher quality, more meaningful, and better produced. I’m excited about the future of YouTube. In five years, we will be seeing amazing and sophisticated work that takes the video craft to a new level.