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.