On Ebola from Africa: Students Putting st Century Skills to Action

Consider this for a moment. As the blight of Ebola decimates populations in West Africa and carves room on the cover page of every major press release, a group of teenagers in Accra, Ghana took it upon themselves to dispel misinformation surrounding the deadly virus. Seemingly unperturbed by the proximity of the outbreaks, they used one of their class video assignments at Lincoln Community School to offer simple hygienic solutions.

Predictably, the end product is serious and dreary. Yet, the opening sequence is almost childlike in its sincere attempt to entertain. The video stirs in a brooding way. And precisely for that reason it also meets its purpose, because the kind of learning that sticks often occurs at the outer limit of our comfort zone.

As a company with a global reach, one advantage we have is the benefit of observation. When we take notice of students who use visual stories as a means to seek social impact or reach for deeper truths, questions naturally come to mind.

What motivated the storytellers' choices? Was it something inherent in the educational process they went through or something extrinsic or personal? What lessons can we draw from such projects and then share with the larger educational community?

Many teachers ask themselves similar questions every day, albeit in the confines of their physical classrooms. We believe that engaging in an ongoing dialogue surrounding these issues will prove valuable to educators seeking a firmer grounding for their practice.

As a result, this is the first in a series of blog posts that look at projects from around the world in their original context. We seek to shed light on the underlying pedagogical processes that have gone into creating such projects and to expound on the power of digital storytelling as a viable way to support improved educational outcomes and meaningful social action.

Media Literacy and the Four C's There is stable truth behind the push for 21st Century Skills. Polemics aside, the importance of honing in on competencies such as communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking the so-called Four C's corresponds to a growing awareness that the world around us is, paradoxically, anything but stable.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 65% of the jobs of tomorrow havent yet been invented. Seen from this sharp angle, economic implications like workforce readiness loom large on the horizon for leaders of educational reform and educators alike.

Polemics aside, the importance of honing in on competencies such as communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking the so-called Four C's corresponds to a growing awareness that the world around us is anything but stable. Of course, reducing educational outcomes to a common economic denominator isnt necessarily the most useful approach. How many 5th-grade teachers see it as their chief task to make sure that fifteen years from now their students will be gainfully employed?

Theres a sense of renewed optimism when we realize that the seismic shifts at our economic foundations are precipitated exactly by the type of technological innovations cloud-based video editing being one of them that simultaneously serve as catalysts for more seamless global collaboration and more equitable access to meaning-making. Technology empowers. True, the stakes for teachers and students have gotten higher but the possibilities for broader impact and creative solutions to intractable global issues have also multiplied manifold.

Technology empowers. True, the stakes for teachers and students have gotten higher but the possibilities for broader impact and creative solutions to intractable global issues have also multiplied manifold. Take video, for instance. A student equipped with nothing but a smartphone can put together a story with a global reach. As the Ebola video illustrates, teenagers tend to find such pursuits worthwhile despite the ostensibly modest scope of their class assignments. Watching the fruit of their labor is captivating. And once we manage to look beneath the veneer of frightful imagery, we begin to appreciate the students intelligent application of essential 21st-century skills that we hope will take root in more schools and classrooms.

Communication To state the obvious, video projects are visible. They are easily shared, viewed, appreciated, and evaluated not only by teachers but also peers, parents, and often the broader school community. Unlike many traditional school assignments, a digital storytelling project almost always feels bigger to a student than a classroom exercise.

Digital content creators know intuitively that for a story to be appreciated it must make sense to a community of other individuals. It is noteworthy that the West African high-schoolers created their video podcast with a mass audience in mind. Being aware of potential viewership gives students a tangible sense that their projects are vehicles carrying a message. Technique, in this sense, becomes a means to an end. Effective communication takes precedence.

Digital content creators know intuitively that for a story to be appreciated it must make sense to a community of other individuals. Technique, in this sense, becomes a means to an end. For young video makers, the basic elements of storytelling the various clips, edits, sounds and transitions lie in plain sight from the get-go. Nevertheless, when they begin to mix these elements for the first time, students are rarely conscious of the tremendous energy they have at their fingertips. It is only after they finish and screen their first video and experience the reaction of a live audience that they come to realize the whole is more than the sum of its parts. As one teacher aptly noted, from that point on

LINK:	http://blog.wevideo.com/2014/11/06/on-ebola-from-africa-students-putti...
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