Science and Media Arts: Sylvia Todd's Youtube Science

Sylvia Todd, whiz kid behind ‘Sylvia's Super-Awesome Maker Show,’...

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Sylvia Todd is a bright young tinkerer on the go. She addressed TEDx conferences and showed her latest D.I.Y. creation, a robot that can paint, to President Barack Obama — and she has not yet turned 12. 

       If you check out this link, you'll see that 11 year old Sylvia Todd creates sophisticated, entertaining youtube videos about science concepts. This is an excellent example of learning through media arts, and of STEAM. We learn a lot by watching them. That's the first level of learning. But, as I have stated previously, by producing a film, the student herself comes to understand the given topic in a much deeper manner by enacting it through multimodal project development. In this case, Sylvia is synthesizing these topics using her own constructed language, contexts, analogies, metaphors, props and multimodal actions. This is deep learning. And it's fun!!

Some thoughts come to mind about these examples.

        

       Is this art? Yes, obviously this is an arts-based medium through which she is communicating. This question itself might arise because we consider this kind of video somewhat utilitarian, even if it is imaginatively produced. It's a documentation of a technical process. It's only about Science. It's very simple in its production. Who needs arts instruction to achieve this? True, it is not fancy, professional video. But it is complex. This media arts product consists of these main components:

• meaningful sequencing - structuring the presentation for meaning; timing; pacing
• visual/spatial composition - how is the frame structured in each shot?
• visual narrative - creative script-writing that works well with synched imagery
• dramatic enaction - Sylvia's winning, playful persona shines through
• audio - sounds and music enhance imagery and pump up the presentation
• animation/graphics - we get lots of extra information through well produced graphic texts
• effects - many production and editing tricks jazz up the appeal, they have commercial sophistication, and yet they retain the child-like quality of Sylvia's persona
• presentation - consideration of audience; youtube upload and distribution; channel development and promotion

       These components are probably taken for granted because of the polish of this work. She makes it look easy. Certainly, Sylvia's presentation is fantastic in conveying the topic. But we need to step back to appreciate that the aesthetic components are extremely important to its effectiveness and popularity. Sylvia has already thoroughly considered these, which make them great productions. But we need to consider their contribution to Sylvia's cognitive development as she and her work matures. Clearly, if she is thinking on all of these various levels, she's understanding not only the given topic, but is becoming a skilled and creative producer of media, a critical and discriminating viewer of media, and a proactive, empowered participant in a media-based society. When we consider the entire enterprise, science and media integrated, the learning achieves a holistic level.

         Is it rigorous? Does it really "teach" the topic for the producing student? This question arises because we assume that "real learning" only exists in texts and tests. Would we dismiss this as a frivolous activity and say, "Well, of course she should study and take tests too to make sure she 'got it'. This is just the fun part."? I would disagree to some degree. In my mind, this can be the assessment for specific standards, particularly when we're looking at the Next Generation Science Standards.  Creation is the highest process in Bloom's Taxonomy because one must have truly integrated the topic in order to produce original content with it. This goes beyond rote memorization of some fact into its performed demonstration. She is obviously confident and fluent in her knowledge. She's raised to the level of teacher here. She has demonstrated her ability to self-direct her own and others' learning. Media arts exhibits and validates that somewhat internal process.

       The implementation of media arts as a distinct arts discipline will present an open, creative space for this kind of work to occur for all students, PK-12. This represents the true integration of art and science, and the performance-based assessment of core content that media arts offers.

Media Arts as Culture-based Learning

       As seen in the example below, the integrative and cultural nature of media arts as a learning vehicle positions it as a “nexus”, or intermediary hub subject. It connects with all the other arts disciplines and subject areas. It is multimodal; potentially incorporating all senses, physical and mental capacities. It creates a contextually rich learning environment that is authentically real world. This makes the learning meaningful and engaging for students. They are really doing and making things, instead of just studying about doing them.

       This posits a dramatic re-orientation of the educational institution. It suggests that learning can now be situated within robust, cultural productions and experiences, rather than within traditional, teacher-centered presentations and test preparation. Given the premise that students learn better through contextualized, meaningful application, rather than through passive absorption and repetitive drills, then media arts would be a vital means of enhancing the contemporary learning process.

Learning Through Media Arts - Imagine Mars

       This blog will present a practical example for how media arts integration works from my own school ArtLAB in 9th grade. We want these young students to learn to be imaginative, creative and self-resourceful. We want to show them worlds of possibilities, while they learn more about their own worlds and themselves. We have partnered with our local space agency, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)/NASA in a STEM/STEAM, design-based project called “Imagine Mars”. The driving challenge is for students to “create a sustainable community on Mars” and finally present their findings to the scientists there in a final, rigorous review. We want to structure this over the school year.

Through some initial presentations by the collaborating teachers with introductory media from JPL, student questions are generated. This initiates the whole process of inquiry. Curiosity is the beginning of the student-centered learning process. What do they need to know in order to accomplish this seemingly impossible task? The students have many questions, of course. What’s it like on Mars? How do they get there? What exactly is meant by “sustainable”, and “community”? What kinds of resources do they have in order to accomplish this? What is JPL’s role? Soon they are imagining the answers to their problems, or at least making lists of the things they need to consider, research and test in order to reach their goal, which we can bring to a video conference with the Mars scientists at JPL. They immediately begin to own the learning process.  

       This whole project is very broad and transdisciplinary. It is not based solely in “media arts”, which is the point of “media arts integration”. We can start to blur the lines between disciplines and emphasize the higher order meaning and learning of the project as elevated by media arts processes.

       To get to the final result of a “sustainable community on Mars”, students have to know what a community is. In other words, they need to study their own community, as well as the factors of travelling to and living on Mars. How does a community sustain itself over time? What is necessary to form that kind of community? And what are the most essential components that can be retained in such an inhospitable, alien, distant environment? The question ultimately becomes, “What makes life livable”?

    Through this investigation, students will understand:

• Integrative Science - a comparison of Mars vs Earth - environment, physics, resources, etc.
• Sustainability - how do people keep their communities alive over time? How are we learning to use renewable resources and to conserve energy on Earth?
• Community - What is a community? What is absolutely necessary to create an ongoing group of people? How do we not only live, but enjoy life? What is the nature of culture itself?
• Design - How do we create things that have never existed before? How do we make sure they work? Are they really livable and durable? What are the little things in life (e.g. color, sound, diversity) that we will realize that we need and how do we include them?

     The project can involve a number of activities, including investigating and presenting findings on the Mars environment; prototyping various technologies (landers, base-camp, vehicles, clothing, physical exercises, etc) to be used on Mars; creating Mars news programs; creative and technical writing assignments; gamifying portions of the assignment, etc. The project culminates in a virtual 3D design project using Google Sketch-up.

       Over time, students actually come to understand the nature of their own world, their own community and environment and the importance of sustaining them. To learn about Mars is to understand the nature of Earth and our relationship with it. The arts and sciences are naturally intertwining and interwoven as STEAM within this kind of inquiry-based, open-ended project. This project could potentially unify even four years of high school study! Actually, perhaps it should become the standard high school curriculum!

      The media arts aspects of this particular project can be:

What is media? What media are we seeing in order to research and find things? What does this media convey and how does it convey it? What media can we make about our project to exhibit to our community and partners what we are doing and learning? How do we use media, design and art to imagine and create our worlds? What are the capacities and limitations of these various mediums and technologies? What media makes up a community? What is the function of media, design and art in a community? What is creativity and expression? How are they vital to communities and individual well being? What is the nature of the systems of media production and presentation? etc.

      The media arts forms can be:

Documentation, promotional media, informational presentations, graphic design, scientific vs. artistic photography, aesthetics, virtual design, animation, special effects, websites, website production, interactivity in virtual design, programming, modeling and prototyping, architecture, industrial design, environmental design, game design, sound - ambient, soundtracks, music for effect, music as cultural necessity, etc, etc.

       In reflecting on this integrative project, we see here that media arts has very diverse aspects and uses as an interconnective "hub" discipline. It is an underlying force for bringing all of these seemingly disconnected components and aspects into a unifying, active environment of exploration and invention. We live and learn in a multimedia and “media arts” world, where we can imagine anything, and what we imagine can become real.

      Thus, media arts serves a central, integrative role within 21st Century learning. Due to its ubiquity and social force within our culture, it is necessary for all students to understand and consider the aspects of media arts in how we understand, represent and create our current and future worlds. That is why these media arts standards are vital to our current educational transitions.

Why “Media Arts” Standards Now?

      Media Arts is all around us. We live in a world of multimedia. You are reading this through a media arts form - a graphically designed, globally available website with interactive, multimedia capacity. This has become such a common process that we don’t even think about it anymore. This has been a technological revolution which has quickly become the primary communication mode of our globalizing culture. Yet, this medium is still relatively underrepresented in classrooms, both in viewing and producing by students. This is mainly because technology has been underfunded, actually due in large part to the extreme budget crises we’re just beginning to come out of. Teachers have generally been anxious to receive and integrate technology, but with computers a rare commodity, it makes little sense to emphasize it.

      With budgets increasing again, and new portable devices gaining power and affordability, we are certain to be turning the corner in technology deployment. Media arts, both as a vehicle of delivering curriculum and for active production by students, is due to increase dramatically. Common core standards are designed to be assessed through technology, and have technology and media references specifically embedded within them. Are we prepared for this transition?

       Media Arts Standards and Model Assessments will assist in a coherent, sound transition into the 21st Century. Media arts is framed as an integrative arts and design discipline. To describe it more specifically, it is nebulous and connective, with synthesizing capacities. The term ‘media’ itself describes the connecting process or force between things. So, media arts has many different types of interface, and many ways of conveying information and expression. Media arts can serve as a nexus point between different contents and physical processes.

       This is a significant benefit because traditional education is challenged by its regimented, siloed categories in subject areas and learning processes. It is difficult to create interdisciplinary learning that crosses those borders. Each core content has competing priorities and mandates. Each teacher is pressed for time to cover his or her material in preparation for testing. Getting together to make those connections is a lot of extra work and is not inherently supported by the institutional infrastructure.

       Media arts can provide a vehicle for overcoming these barriers so that disparate vocabulary, concepts and processes are connected coherently and made more meaningful for students. If you look around at the world around us, which is very multimedia rich, this is how we live and learn in everyday life.

National Media Arts Standards - A New Discipline

      The idea of new media arts standards may seem a bit dull. Who gets excited about educational standards?! My two young boys think I’m working on the kind of “standards” one writes on the chalkboard 100x! But these standards actually represent a major step forward in education. The establishment of a new subject area, such as a new form of math or science, does not happen every day. This is a newly declared arts discipline! Media Arts is now the "5th" form after Dance, Music, Theatre and Visual Arts! This is unprecedented and historic. When this development is finalized, it should be celebrated with something a billion times bigger than the BET event in LA this last weekend! Our global society is experiencing a renaissance of creativity and unification because of media arts! Now, we can use it within classrooms for dynamic and effective forms of learning!

       This is the opening of a new and very innovative door in institutionalized learning. These standards frame a discipline that is project and design-based. Kids can create their own media - films, tv shows, radio shows, websites, interactive games, virtual worlds, transmedia, etc, etc. This offers tremendous possibilities for teaching and learning!

       Media arts is integrative across all arts and subject areas. When I produce a film, I’m engaged in an array of activities: imagining, brainstorming, organizing, discussing, planning, storyboarding, scripting, negotiating, rehearsing, etc, etc. And that’s just pre-production! Production, post-production, distribution and critical reflection incorporate an immense range of modalities and skills: directing, shooting, acting, speaking, editing, analyzing, evaluating, sound and music. The list is rather endless. This easily covers the gamut of Bloom’s Taxonomy, which is the spectrum of cognitive processes educators use to structure learning. This also includes the 21st Century skill set - collaboration, communication, creativity and critical thinking. Media arts can truly aspire to a holistic description.

      All of this learning is contextualized. It takes place in a real world setting which makes it more meaningful and engaging for students. It’s active learning where students move around and construct the presentation. It is not just for the teacher. It’s for the world to see so it can be more purposeful. And finally, the content of the film, perhaps a historical event, or science concept that students are enacting, is absorbed by the students in a much deeper way. They become experts in that content. They’ve studied, rehearsed and reviewed it multiple times.

      In the full breadth of the discipline (described in greater detail here) it provides something like a magical, inter-dimensional black box for student creativity and invention. In effect, students are provided the opportunity to create and design whole worlds of experience. The sky is not even the limit to the possibilities!

      So there is much more to this discipline than might first be considered when we talk about standards, assessments and curriculum. This blog will start to lay out the basics of how media arts, framed by these standards, is situated to support a transformation in education and learning.

National Media Arts Standards - Notes for the Open Review

      First of all, let me make a call out to anyone with an invested interest and/or expertise to participate in the review of first ever draft National Media Arts Standards PK-8 until July 15! Your input is crucial to the quality and relevancy of these standards.

To participate, go to http://nccas.wikispaces.com/NCCAS+June+30th+Public+Review

     For the past 18 months, I've had the privilege of leading a smart, experienced and dedicated team of 14 writers from across the country in developing these standards to represent media arts as a trans-disciplinary and integrative form spanning: cinema, animation, imaging, sound, virtual and interactive design.

     This newly distinguished discipline provides engaging opportunities for students to produce their own media and:

·       integrates all core academic content and arts disciplines (e.g. STEM=STEAM);

·       incorpoarates multiple modalities and 21st Century skills in project and design-based learning;

·       empowers student voice and creative expression;

·       promotes emerging multi-literacies - media, tech, culture, systems

      We are at an exciting moment here with this new development and this open review. This post will provide some basic points of emphasis in addition to NCCAS’s Media Arts Position Paper and the NCCAS orientation.

      First of all, these standards are voluntary. They are not imposed from top down. States, districts and teachers can choose to access and tailor them for their particular needs. The intention here is to provide a service and support for any and all teachers who might include media arts in their instruction, specialist to novice generalist. Hopefully, all teachers will find them accessible, useful and practical. The online design should support a more interactive use of these standards.

      The standards are not “the curriculum”. They should not prescribe specific lesson plans, or “performance tasks” - the teacher-designed student activities that fulfill the standard. The standards are at a high level of generalization. Media Arts Standards need to span the very broad range of disciplines listed above, as well as a broad range of factors - expertise, resources, approach, etc. Model Cornerstone Assessments (in development) are where you will find the detailing of specific example lessons with student activities for enacting the standard.

      These standards aspire to Enduring Understandings, the “Big Ideas” that should drive instruction as the learning that is most valuable and lasting. This form of “backwards planning” is based on Wiggins and McTighe’s “Understanding by Design” that stresses actual performance, or “playing the game”, as opposed to its passive reception by students in a lecture-based classroom.

     Media arts standards represent a complex discipline that is often project-based, design-based, technical and systems oriented. This is not only a singular art form. It is often an intermediary discipline that combines forms and contents for their mutual complement. Therefore it is difficult to restrain the wording and concept. The formal wording of the standard may sometime seem overly complex and unapproachable. The actual wording of the teacher’s direction and the activity of the student will be much simpler and direct. For example:

Responding - Evaluating 8.2: Evaluate a work of media arts through analysis of key elements, components, and complex interrelationships within the work.

Teacher: What stood out about the editing in this music video?

Student: The beat and image were totally matched up. They made it stronger.

     Hopefully, this provides some helpful background to understanding and evaluating these standards. We are very excited to hear input from everyone on the coherence and practicality of these standards. Please participate and let us know what is working and what needs work!