This video was posted online by Prof Michael Wesch and his 200 students that are enrolled in ANTH 200: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University. Prof Wesch indicates that the video was inspired by “Marshall McLuhan’s ideas as they apply to education, especially as they have been used by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner in Teaching as a Subversive Activity.”
The message is sound and the collaborative effort involved in its creation is impressive. Yet, I grow tired of these videos. Perhaps it is the incidental background music, or the kitsch use of slogans and messages. They seem to state the same thing…. “The world is changing, students are changing, we need to change, we are rich, they are poor, and so on.” I am a little cynical, perhaps not.
I disagree with two of the comments raised by the students. One stated “I did not create the problems”. Students in developed western nations are part of the problem. They are significant consumers and are contributing to an economic model that generates inequity on a global scale. That’s one of the reasons why one billion people make less than $1.00 dollar a day, a figure held up by another student.
Secondly another student held a statement that iterated “When I graduate I will probably have a job that doesn’t exist today.” I disagree. Perhaps, not probably. Many of today’s university graduates face a world where it is becoming increasingly difficult to secure a meaningful career upon graduation. For some their first job will probably be flipping hamburgers in a fast food outlet or serving drinks in a bar so they can repay the debt that they incurred during their study. Many graduates immediately roll over into postgraduate studies. I feel that all education should be free.
Recently at the NavCon2K7 conference a number of presenters and workshop facilitators sprinkled their presentations with a range of YouTube styled videos, each with a message designed to change the world in one form or another. I was dismayed to view one keynote sprinkled with quite a few YouTube styled videos only to see two of the sampled videos resurface during an unrelated workshop later during the day.
At the commencement of my Comic Life workshop on the last day of the conference I promised the participants that there would be no PowerPoints and no YouTube videos. I received a round of applause.
Sure, show a video during a break but not during a keynote, unless of course you were the author of the production.
This post is expressing two messages. Enough of the “world changing” five minute videos and please do not pad out your presentations with one video after another during a keynote at a conference unless you were the author of the included video(s).
Production of these world changing videos is fine. I should not make judgement calls. I do feel happier, however, when I see students and teachers actively involved in projects such as cleaning up the local environment, raising money for worthwhile causes or directly assisting the underprivileged. That’s what I understand life changing to be.
Despite all of my criticisms of sharing videos during a presentation I intend to post a blog regarding two videos on TED Talks in the near future. Is that okay?
