Next generation filmmaking and media arts in the Australian curriculum

Media education has been included as a mandatory component of the Arts within the new Australian national curriculum, which purports to set out a framework that encompasses core knowledge, understanding and skills critical to twenty-first century learning. This will position Australia as the only country to require media education as a compulsory aspect of Arts education and one of the first to implement a sequenced national media education curriculum from pre-school to year 12. A broad framework has been outlined for what the Media Arts curriculum will encompass and in this article we investigate the extent to which this framework is likely to provide media educators the opportunity to broaden the scope of established media education to effectively educate students about the ever-changing nature of media ecologies. The article outlines significant shifts occurring in the film and television industries to identify the types of knowledge students may need to understand these changes. This is followed by an analysis of existing state-based media curricula offered at years 11 and 12 in Australia to demonstrate that the concepts of institutions and audiences are not currently approached in ways that reflect contemporary media ecologies.

Social media and journalism during times of crisis

Around lunchtime on 22 February 2011, the New Zealand city of Christchurch – the country’s second largest city – was hit by a magnitude 6.3 earthquake. Built on a geological faultline, like Los Angeles and Tokyo, Christchurch is no stranger to tremors; indeed, it had experienced a magnitude 7.1 quake just months before, in September 2010, and technically, this new earthquake was no more than an aftershock of the earlier tremor. That earlier quake had caused significant structural damage, but no fatalities, but the February earthquake was different: with its epicentre located no more than ten kilometres from the Christchurch city centre, at a depth of only five kilometres, it proved considerably more destructive – and it affected buildings whose structural integrity had already been severely compromised by the September quake, in the middle of a weekday when schools and city offices would have been fully occupied. While the full death toll has yet to be determined, it is estimated at close to 200.

‘Teachers flipping out’ beyond the online lecture : maximising the educational potential of video

While video is recognised as an important medium for teaching and learning in the digital age, many video resources are not as effective as they might be, because they do not adequately exploit the strengths of the medium. Presented here are some case studies of video learning resources produced for various courses in a university environment. This ongoing project attempts to identify pedagogic strategies for the use of video; learning situations in which video has the most efficacy; and what production techniques can be employed to make effective video learning resources.

Challenges of elementary science teaching: an Australian perspective

This chapter profiles research that has explored the role of affect in the teaching of science in Australia particularly on primary or elementary science education. Affect is a complex set of characteristics that relate to the interactions between an individual’s knowledge and emotional responses to a stimulus. Thus, there are many dimensions and theoretical frameworks that inform our understanding of how and why people behave in particular ways.

The competing-complementarity of social media

This study presents the unique benevolent and malevolent nature of social media, intertwined to its capabilities, which influences its role as a benefactor and a competitor. We conceptualize this phenomenon as the competing-complementarity of social media. We explain competing-complementarity using Teece’s (1986) concept of complementary assets and Porter’s (2001) work on competitive forces shaping strategy and business on the Internet. We observe this phenomenon of competing-complementarity of social media on news firms and offer its evidence through opinionated data analysis.

Body stories

This research is in the field of arts education. Eisner claims that ‘teachers rarely view themselves as artists’ (Taylor, 1993:21). Situating professional dance artists and teacher-artists (Mc Lean, 2009) in close proximity to classroom dance teachers, spatially, through a shared rehearsal studio and creatively, by engaging them in a co-artistry approach, allows participants to map unique and new creative processes, kinaesthetically and experientially. This pratice encourages teachers to attune and align themselves with artists’ states of mind and enables them to nurture both their teacher-self and their artist-self (Lichtenstein 2009). The research question was: can interactions between professional dance artists, teacher-artists (Mc Lean, 2009) and classroom dance teachers change classroom dance teachers’ self-perceptions? The research found that Artists in Residence projects provide up-skilling in situ for classroom dance teachers, and give credence to the act of art making for classroom dance teachers within their peer context, positively enhancing their self-image and promoting self-identification as ‘teacher-artists’ (Mc Lean, 2009). This project received an Artist in Residence Grant (an Australia Council for the Arts, Education Queensland and Queensland Arts Council partnership). The research findings were chosen for inclusion in the Queensland Performing Arts Complex program, Feet First: an invitation to dance, 2013 and selected for inclusion on the Creative Campus website, http://www.creative-campus.org.uk.

Dance literacy: An embodied phenomenon

Literacy in dance involves conscious awareness of cognitive, aesthetic and physical activity along with the skills to articulate these activities as required in any given context. Dance literacy, perhaps uniquely, also entails unconscious, tacit, embodied knowledge within the holistic body, a corporeality: knowledge which is physically experienced but only articulated in the dance. The essence of this corporeality has a transcendent quality which contributes to the universality of dance. The degrees to which a dancer’s awareness is refined, the physical activity articulated and the embodied knowledge universal, will define the level of development of the dancer’s literacy. This literacy can be learned, though not every body and mind has equal capacity for development. If we wish to develop dance literacy, qualitatively encompassing more than dance technique, the art of learning must be carefully cultivated to allow the art of dance to flourish. The pathways of learning dance are individuated; transcendence is realised through the common experience that what we are learning is coming from within.

The art of co-creative media : an Australian survey

This article describes how - in the processes of responding to participatory storytelling practices - community, public service, and to a lesser extent, commercial media institutions are themselves negotiated and changed. Although there are significant variations in the conditions, durability, extent, motivations and quality of these developments and their impacts, they nonetheless increase the possibilities and pathways of participatory media culture. This description first frames digital storytelling as a ‘co-creative’ media practice. It then discusses the role of community arts and cultural development (CACD) practitioners and networks as co-creative media intermediaries, and then considers their influence in Australian broadcast and Internet media. It looks at how participatory storytelling methods are evolving in the Australian context and explores some of the implications for cultural inclusion arising from a shared interest in ‘co-creative’ media methods and approaches.

The role of the non-government organisation (NGO) in practicing editorial photography in a globalised media environment

The news media industry has changed dramatically in the last 10 to 20 years into a global business with ever increasing attention being devoted to entertainment and celebrity. There is also a growing reliance on images produced by citizens (citizen photojournalism) by media outlets and publishers. It is widely acknowledged this has shrunk publication opportunities for professional photographers undertaking editorial projects. As a result, photographers are increasingly relying on non-government organisations (NGOs) to gain access to photographing issues and events in developing countries and to expand their economic and portfolio opportunities. This increase of photographers working for and alongside NGOs has given rise to a new genre of editorial photography I call NGO Reportage. By way of a case study, an exploration of this new genre reveals important issues for photographers working alongside NGO’s and examines the constructed narratives of images contained within these emerging practices.

Building indicators in media assistance; four ways evaluation reports present “change”

The international aid and development community has supported programs that aim to build the capacity of media professionals or contribute to an enabling environment throughout the past 20 years. However, two decades on from the first modern media assistance programs, the sector is still struggling to identify, measure and understand the changes effected by their programs. There are questions raised as to whether it is even feasible to identify impacts on society and governance. This paper draws on some preliminary findings from a comparative thematic analysis of 47 evaluation documents of media assistance programs. The aim of this analysis is to identify trends in impact evaluation practice in the media assistance field, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of different evaluation approaches. This paper presents four types of social change claims commonly presented in reports; hypothetical changes, introduction of new opportunities, concrete examples of immediate impacts, and analysis of ongoing social and political changes. Although these types may appear as a spectrum from weak to strong, the interactions are perhaps more accurately understood using metaphors such as building blocks. This paper explores these types in more detail and suggests that a robust set of impacts-types could be useful in developing more grounded theories of change and indicators.

Using cost-effective multimedia to create engaging learning experiences : Resources Manual

A guide to utilising multi-media for teaching and learning.

Cinema studies : Women's Experimental Cinema edited by Robin Blaetz

Women’s Experimental Cinema provides lively introductions to the work of fifteen avant-garde women filmmakers, some of whom worked as early as the 1950s and many of whom are still working today. In each essay in this collection, a leading film scholar considers a single filmmaker, supplying biographical information, analyzing various influences on her work, examining the development of her corpus, and interpreting a significant number of individual films. The essays rescue the work of critically neglected but influential women filmmakers for teaching, further study, and, hopefully, restoration and preservation. Just as importantly, they enrich the understanding of feminism in cinema and expand the terrain of film history, particularly the history of the American avant-garde.

Technological tools for science classrooms : choosing and using for productive and sustainable teaching and learning experiences

In this age of rapidly evolving technology, teachers are encouraged to adopt ICTs by government, syllabus, school management, and parents. Indeed, it is an expectation that teachers will incorporate technologies into their classroom teaching practices to enhance the learning experiences and outcomes of their students. In particular, regarding the science classroom, a subject that traditionally incorporates hands-on experiments and practicals, the integration of modern technologies should be a major feature. Although myriad studies report on technologies that enhance students’ learning outcomes in science, there is a dearth of literature on how teachers go about selecting technologies for use in the science classroom. Teachers can feel ill prepared to assess the range of available choices and might feel pressured and somewhat overwhelmed by the avalanche of new developments thrust before them in marketing literature and teaching journals. The consequences of making bad decisions are costly in terms of money, time and teacher confidence. Additionally, no research to date has identified what technologies science teachers use on a regular basis, and whether some purchased technologies have proven to be too problematic, preventing their sustained use and possible wider adoption. The primary aim of this study was to provide research-based guidance to teachers to aid their decision-making in choosing technologies for the science classroom. The study unfolded in several phases. The first phase of the project involved survey and interview data from teachers in relation to the technologies they currently use in their science classrooms and the frequency of their use. These data were coded and analysed using Grounded Theory of Corbin and Strauss, and resulted in the development of a PETTaL model that captured the salient factors of the data. This model incorporated usability theory from the Human Computer Interaction literature, and education theory and models such as Mishra and Koehler’s (2006) TPACK model, where the grounded data indicated these issues. The PETTaL model identifies Power (school management, syllabus etc.), Environment (classroom / learning setting), Teacher (personal characteristics, experience, epistemology), Technology (usability, versatility etc.,) and Learners (academic ability, diversity, behaviour etc.,) as fields that can impact the use of technology in science classrooms. The PETTaL model was used to create a Predictive Evaluation Tool (PET): a tool designed to assist teachers in choosing technologies, particularly for science teaching and learning. The evolution of the PET was cyclical (employing agile development methodology), involving repeated testing with in-service and pre-service teachers at each iteration, and incorporating their comments i ii in subsequent versions. Once no new suggestions were forthcoming, the PET was tested with eight in-service teachers, and the results showed that the PET outcomes obtained by (experienced) teachers concurred with their instinctive evaluations. They felt the PET would be a valuable tool when considering new technology, and it would be particularly useful as a means of communicating perceived value between colleagues and between budget holders and requestors during the acquisition process. It is hoped that the PET could make the tacit knowledge acquired by experienced teachers about technology use in classrooms explicit to novice teachers. Additionally, the PET could be used as a research tool to discover a teachers’ professional development needs. Therefore, the outcomes of this study can aid a teacher in the process of selecting educationally productive and sustainable new technology for their science classrooms. This study has produced an instrument for assisting teachers in the decision-making process associated with the use of new technologies for the science classroom. The instrument is generic in that it can be applied to all subject areas. Further, this study has produced a powerful model that extends the TPACK model, which is currently extensively employed to assess teachers’ use of technology in the classroom. The PETTaL model grounded in data from this study, responds to the calls in the literature for TPACK’s further development. As a theoretical model, PETTaL has the potential to serve as a framework for the development of a teacher’s reflective practice (either self evaluation or critical evaluation of observed teaching practices). Additionally, PETTaL has the potential for aiding the formulation of a teacher’s personal professional development plan. It will be the basis for further studies in this field.

Social media, data analytics and videogames development : Halfbrick case study

Social media platforms are of interest to interactive entertainment companies for a number of reasons. They can operate as a platform for deploying games, as a tool for communicating with customers and potential customers, and can provide analytics on how players utilize the; game providing immediate feedback on design decisions and changes. However, as ongoing research with Australian developer Halfbrick, creators of $2 , demonstrates, the use of these platforms is not universally seen as a positive. The incorporation of Big Data into already innovative development practices has the potential to cause tension between designers, whilst the platform also challenges the traditional business model, relying on micro-transactions rather than an up-front payment and a substantial shift in design philosophy to take advantage of the social aspects of platforms such as Facebook.