Video in language teaching

The video above is a remix which uses extracts from RIP: A remix manifesto in order to convey the importance of copyright knowledge to the teaching profession and to explain how Creative Commons licencing can support a creative, sustainable learning environment online through open educational practice. I created it as a contribution to the ViLTE project, funded by the British Council.

Further detail about the importance of creativity in the digital domain and its relevance to language teaching in particular is explained in this jointly authored article on Produsage  published in the education policy analysis archives journal. 

I was also involved in the EU project Video for All where lots of teaching resources were shared for language teachers to help them cope with the complex landscape of digital media production in their teaching. Unfortunately for us the site (hosted by a pain project manager) has been taken down at the project's end of life as the budget has run out. I find that outrageous and I am trying to bring it to the notice of the funders. The resources were created as open educational resources and  need ongoing support. The Wordpress site which was the host for our work would not be expensive but I do not have any say in budget, I am just a teacher. Does seem strange to me though that tech companies and even project managers of EU projects proclaim their interest in education but often do little to support the real needs of educators or to maintain resources we need. It bears witness to the fact that some are clearly only in it for the money. 

The key word in all of this work is the word open. Kaltura have worked hard to support open standards in video, as a practitioner I work in the open because I believe everyone should have access to education and I also believe that through an open web I can network and learn from other educators. If you get the chance to watch the whole of the RIP video on Vimeo you will see that openness (open data, open education, open source, open access, open practice etc) are key to making headway in solving big problems. Problems we should no longer assume will be solved by politicians - that ship has sailed and we can be clear that they also by and large are busy protecting their own interests. We need to ask ourselves what really matters.  I have of course kept a copy of my video, added it to my YouTube channel and Kaltura gallery and shared widely as well as passing the file to the ViLTE project to help ensure its existence as an OER beyond the confines of a project. 

Update: March 2019 - Kaltura have now closed my free open gallery - so just as well I maintain other ways to share my work!