Science and Media Arts: Sylvia Todd's Youtube Science

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

nydailynews.com

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.