Matthew Baganz is an International Baccalaureate teacher who thrives on provoking curiosity at an international school near Frankfurt. A fiction writer and playwright, Matt is passionate about digital storytelling as a medium for sharing ideas with young audiences who have been raised in a digital world. He recently completed an intercontinental video project that he facilitated with several schools around the world and he shared details with us.
As a Primary Years Programme teacher working in accordance with the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO), the nurturing of international-mindedness in my students is a high priority. It is also a tough concept to teach.' I put teach' in parentheses, because some concepts, like international-mindedness, are not as transferable as knowledge. This is a dynamic perspective, a state of mind. And considering how much the globe has become a village, many of its members seem to lack in this approach to social behaviour.
Many resources for teaching international-mindedness include the Internet and books about other cultures. In my experience, this only takes students so far; rarely do they develop a deep understanding of any culture that they learn about through traditional classroom approaches. These learning experiences often cover the concepts on top of the cultural iceberg, such as festivals, fashion, food, etcetera, but they rarely touch authentically on deeper cultural notions such as perspectives on bravery, respecting personal space, or appropriate conversational patterns.
I have, however, taken students on international trips to learn about different cultures, and these experiences, which build real-life relationships and provide exposure to the countless components that make up a culture, make impressions on students that truly touch their hearts and change them forever. It is the person-to-person experience that accomplishes social realization most effectively. If my students could get to know other children, they'd hopefully shy away from the single story of any given culture and expand not only their own awareness of that particular culture, but also become more conscious of the truth that there's more to every other culture or individual than meets the eye.
A girl writes her first letter to her new pen pal.
Unfortunately, on my teacher's salary, I could not travel the world with my students, but I could foster inter-cultural peer relationships for them. I began the Demo Effect project to serve as a virtual hub where students and teachers could meet and greet one another through recorded clips. I reached out to several schools and requested a feature of the project on the IBO blog. As schools signed up, teachers shared class information and connected individual students through everything from traditional pencil-and-paper pen pal letters to chatting on live Google documents. Clips of these experiences were uploaded in the shared folders for all participants to see and use in projects as they saw fit.
A boy laughs as he makes jokes with one of his international project teammates on live Google Documents.
While connecting kids from different cultures, the project also strived to demonstrate through authentic action the different ways kids could help make a positive impact, or effect, on their communities, hence the project title, Demo Effect.
WeVideo not only connected all of these students, teachers and schools by serving as that online meeting point to share clips, but it did it in real time. Because the program is cloud-based, the video clips were uploaded and available from thousands of miles away within seconds. Soon, the shared folders began to fill up with children taking action in their communities, from kids cleaning up beaches in Mozambique to kids demonstrating the importance of water filters on the streets of Brooklyn. Teachers also filmed their students opening their pen pals' letters, so we were able to watch a group of students sitting in mangrove trees in the British Virgin Islands opening up the letters that they received from their pals in Germany.
Students played with the final movie timeline to discover more features and options in WeVideo.
We'd like to run the experience again as the Demo Effect project 2018, and we are looking for more schools to participate. This time, the project will narrow its goals to focus specifically on students taking action in their school, local and wider communities, although we invite classes to continue fostering new relationships as well. If any educators out there are interested or would like more information, please contact Matthew Baganz at matthewbaganz@gmail.com.
View the Demo Effect movie 2017 below:
For more information about the Demo Effect project, please visit the website at www.demoeffect.net or email at demoeffectproject@gmail.com.
You can also see Matt's classroom blog at http://pyp5bb.blogspot.de/
Search
Video tutorials, lessons and tips
Read More
Guest Blog Lucie deLaBruere: Expanding Collaborative Possibilities
Guest Blog Matthew Baganz: Connecting Cultures, Inspiring Individuals
WeVideo Is Global!
Winter Is Here and so Are New Holiday Season Motion Titles
Introducing WeVideo Business
Follow WeVideo
--
Follow @wevideo
--
lang: en_US
--
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
31/08/2025
Legrand | AV, a global specialist and industry leader in audiovisual solutions, returns to CEDIA Expo 2025, taking place Sept. 4-6 in Denver, with a powerful li...
31/08/2025
Global media technology company Backlight will unveil new capabilities in its Iconik, Wildmoka, and Zype product lines at IBC2025 (booth #1.D09), September 12 1...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
Matthew Baganz is an International Baccalaureate teacher who thrives on provoking curiosity at an international school near Frankfurt. A fiction writer and playwright, Matt is passionate about digital storytelling as a medium for sharing ideas with young audiences who have been raised in a digital world. He recently completed an intercontinental video project that he facilitated with several schools around the world and he shared details with us.
