POV vol.3 no.1: your troika of editors...Jon Wardle, Ian Wall, Pete Fraser
Editorial by Ian Wall
Welcome to POV's special online Media Literacy Conference edition. In these pages, you will find videos of the plenary sessions, vox pops with delegates, PDFs of most of the research session powerpoints, a few photos, an overview of the conference from the co-organisers, material from some of the workshops and some extended reflection on the conference by some delegates and MEA executive members.
As Cary Bazalgette points out in her introduction, the “annual conference” has always been a central concept of the MEA. It’s first conference, held at Warwick over two years ago was aimed solely at classroom teachers and was a tremendous success, although only attended by 80 delegates.
A Saturday conference in London a year later again allowed practitioners to compare experiences and attend workshops which offered fresh insights into approaches to media education. The 2010 conference was far more ambitious in its aims, attempting to mix CPD with educational research. Cary points out one of the key aims – that the event exists so that “members can meet face to face, exchange ideas and share their practice.”
However, she also points to one of the dangers of such an event:
“enabling members to meet colleagues from other countries and to hear about a range of classroom-based research ought to make the event even more attractive.” Reading the comments from delegates, mainly from the teaching fraternity, Cary’s “ought” stands out as the crux of the success or failure of the conference.
Andy Wallis’ comments highlight what possibly many of the (few) teachers who attended might have felt.
“I was one of several “tweeters” who publically voiced their concerns about the shift in emphasis away from sharing innovative and practical classroom knowledge (something that I believe has been what the MEA is about) towards a celebration of academic research. Although I firmly believe in the worth and merit of this field of research and also how it often helps to inform classroom practice, I felt that the conference left me a little short changed.”
Was there a “silo” mentality going on? Or were we all prepared to “think outside the box” ? How many teachers were prepared to tear themselves away from CPD workshops in order to attend research presentations? And how many researchers went to workshops?
The funding demands and co operation between the MEA and the CSCYM offered many possibilities for a fascinating mix of practice and research, where both sides could learn from each other. The fact that it was an international conference also offered the chance for us “little Britainers” to learn from other experiences. Did we?
Reading Pete Fraser’s comments on Henry Jenkins' session one gets the feeling that perhaps we believe ourselves “ahead of the game” (and in fact this is borne out by many who have attended “international “ conferences elsewhere in the world:
“to many of us from the UK, there was a surprising air of familiarity in some of the approaches he suggested. ..UK English teachers have been using such methods for many years; indeed, the whole catalogue of materials from the English and Media Centre could be seen to have adopted such strategies for the whole of my teaching career!”
BUT, it happened and there were some excellent outcomes. As someone who has put on annual conferences my first observation is.. year one you don’t get it all right, as David Buckingham admits in his introductory piece. Perhaps the major pitfall of any first, big conference is that you try to do too much and offer everything that you can think of.
The conference certainly avoided what Cary calls the “endless discussion of definitions and policy documents”, and “so-called histories of media education that are nothing more than a tedious parade of “resolutions” and “outcomes” .” As Steve Goodman points out, the conference offered both theory and practice. Many of the sessions were vibrant, “relevant” and “hands on”; the problem was, as John Potter points out, trying to be in four places at once! Possibly putting research papers against workshops in the programme was not, in hindsight, such a good idea. But this relates back to my first point.
My second observation would be that plenaries should relate to what follows in workshops and presentations. The opening session was interesting but it was then difficult to plot a way through the conference to follow up many of the ideas that were raised. The other plenaries offered some interesting insights but overall, I could not see a “theme” to the conference. Perhaps, given the diverse content of media education on the 21st century this is no longer possible?
My final observation would be that all delegates need time to relax together and mull over what they have experienced. Easy to do at a residential conference, more difficult at a “day only” conference. As Andy Wallis says “the most meaningful dialogue at a conference occurs during the coffee breaks or in the bar during the evening. It is within these spaces that connections are made, ideas are exchanged, and often changes are made.”
I was lucky enough to chair one of the research presentations (media education across the curriculum) and an interesting point was made about a number of the projects – whilst students found the process incredibly enjoyable and worthwhile, the learning outcomes were not always blindingly obvious! Looking back at some of the materials here and having had time to think through some of the ideas and practices which they contain, I now want to go back, question some of the presenters and discuss the ideas with colleagues. The conference has made its mark and its legacy continues!
The mere fact that over 250 people from around the world gathered in London for two days is in itself a great achievement and the organising group must be given tremendous praise for not only pulling off such a feat but also for putting together some excellent panels and workshops.
So, enjoy your reading (in all media senses of the term!) and feel free to comment back on the main site. This is the start of an ongoing dialogue. And here’s to 2011.
Welcome to POV's special online Media Literacy Conference edition. In these pages, you will find videos of the plenary sessions, vox pops with delegates, PDFs of most of the research session powerpoints, a few photos, an overview of the conference from the co-organisers, material from some of the workshops and some extended reflection on the conference by some delegates and MEA executive members.
As Cary Bazalgette points out in her introduction, the “annual conference” has always been a central concept of the MEA. It’s first conference, held at Warwick over two years ago was aimed solely at classroom teachers and was a tremendous success, although only attended by 80 delegates.
A Saturday conference in London a year later again allowed practitioners to compare experiences and attend workshops which offered fresh insights into approaches to media education. The 2010 conference was far more ambitious in its aims, attempting to mix CPD with educational research. Cary points out one of the key aims – that the event exists so that “members can meet face to face, exchange ideas and share their practice.”
However, she also points to one of the dangers of such an event:
“enabling members to meet colleagues from other countries and to hear about a range of classroom-based research ought to make the event even more attractive.” Reading the comments from delegates, mainly from the teaching fraternity, Cary’s “ought” stands out as the crux of the success or failure of the conference.
Andy Wallis’ comments highlight what possibly many of the (few) teachers who attended might have felt.
“I was one of several “tweeters” who publically voiced their concerns about the shift in emphasis away from sharing innovative and practical classroom knowledge (something that I believe has been what the MEA is about) towards a celebration of academic research. Although I firmly believe in the worth and merit of this field of research and also how it often helps to inform classroom practice, I felt that the conference left me a little short changed.”
Was there a “silo” mentality going on? Or were we all prepared to “think outside the box” ? How many teachers were prepared to tear themselves away from CPD workshops in order to attend research presentations? And how many researchers went to workshops?
The funding demands and co operation between the MEA and the CSCYM offered many possibilities for a fascinating mix of practice and research, where both sides could learn from each other. The fact that it was an international conference also offered the chance for us “little Britainers” to learn from other experiences. Did we?
Reading Pete Fraser’s comments on Henry Jenkins' session one gets the feeling that perhaps we believe ourselves “ahead of the game” (and in fact this is borne out by many who have attended “international “ conferences elsewhere in the world:
“to many of us from the UK, there was a surprising air of familiarity in some of the approaches he suggested. ..UK English teachers have been using such methods for many years; indeed, the whole catalogue of materials from the English and Media Centre could be seen to have adopted such strategies for the whole of my teaching career!”
BUT, it happened and there were some excellent outcomes. As someone who has put on annual conferences my first observation is.. year one you don’t get it all right, as David Buckingham admits in his introductory piece. Perhaps the major pitfall of any first, big conference is that you try to do too much and offer everything that you can think of.
The conference certainly avoided what Cary calls the “endless discussion of definitions and policy documents”, and “so-called histories of media education that are nothing more than a tedious parade of “resolutions” and “outcomes” .” As Steve Goodman points out, the conference offered both theory and practice. Many of the sessions were vibrant, “relevant” and “hands on”; the problem was, as John Potter points out, trying to be in four places at once! Possibly putting research papers against workshops in the programme was not, in hindsight, such a good idea. But this relates back to my first point.
My second observation would be that plenaries should relate to what follows in workshops and presentations. The opening session was interesting but it was then difficult to plot a way through the conference to follow up many of the ideas that were raised. The other plenaries offered some interesting insights but overall, I could not see a “theme” to the conference. Perhaps, given the diverse content of media education on the 21st century this is no longer possible?
My final observation would be that all delegates need time to relax together and mull over what they have experienced. Easy to do at a residential conference, more difficult at a “day only” conference. As Andy Wallis says “the most meaningful dialogue at a conference occurs during the coffee breaks or in the bar during the evening. It is within these spaces that connections are made, ideas are exchanged, and often changes are made.”
I was lucky enough to chair one of the research presentations (media education across the curriculum) and an interesting point was made about a number of the projects – whilst students found the process incredibly enjoyable and worthwhile, the learning outcomes were not always blindingly obvious! Looking back at some of the materials here and having had time to think through some of the ideas and practices which they contain, I now want to go back, question some of the presenters and discuss the ideas with colleagues. The conference has made its mark and its legacy continues!
The mere fact that over 250 people from around the world gathered in London for two days is in itself a great achievement and the organising group must be given tremendous praise for not only pulling off such a feat but also for putting together some excellent panels and workshops.
So, enjoy your reading (in all media senses of the term!) and feel free to comment back on the main site. This is the start of an ongoing dialogue. And here’s to 2011.
For previous editions of POV, click here
Future editions of POV will all be online, linked from the main MEA site. This edition concentrates solely on the MLC conference; there will be a special POV Reviews edition in March, where lots of books, resources and events from 2010 will be reviewed by MEA members.
Conference programme PDF
with details of all sessions and speaker biographies
| mlc-programme-v7.pdf |
