Making Curriculum Pop

QUESTION: Can teachers band together to create a crowdsourced database of pop culture clips?

What if there was a place (and maybe there already is?) where teachers not only could share movie/song clips and other pop culture pieces with one another, but also had these tagged and organized in a way like movieclips.com? Essentially it would be a database for teachers and students alike, and similar to the teaching channel each clip could be supplemented by a few suggested methods of implementation (such as discussion questions or activities). 

I have made a few crude mock ups (check out the English topic for the most concrete version of what I am talking about) of what I am talking about - but I really want to get your ideas and input about such a project. Is't possible?

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Yes, why not. Great work too btw!

The only catch is, as we observe it -- teachers have time to set up a few things like this, then lose the impetus when it comes to building a vibrant community around it all.

One option that some have taken is to then quit your teaching and grab a VC to build it into something bigger!

The trouble with teaching using YouTube clips can be the copyright issues around some of the clips. We all want free education and free sharing of content, but everything on YouTube has a whole bag of rights issues and ultimately it costs money to produce good content which is why we went with the model we did, albeit coming to this space from a slightly different angle -- with social cohesion & personal wellbeing at the heart of it all.

Keen to hear more about how you progress all this though Greg, it's such a moving feast in this space at the mo aint it!!

Exciting times :)

Great feedback Richard - thanks for taking time to check out this idea. 

Yes - copyright and legal issues has always been my biggest concern. I am hoping to find the right people and avenues to get a really good picture to see if this is possible. And now I know where I recognize your name from! I watched one of the campfire videos a couple weeks ago as I was researching previous models of this concept. What a great idea! 

It is wild to think what will/won't be possible as technology and democratization of tools continues to spread and become more quotidian . . . I am young and optimistic :)

cheers Greg.

I'd love to take the best elements of BandCamp / Distribber, Edmodo, YouTube, Vimeo, iTunes, TED... (etc etc) and combine them all into one! Somehow the right models will perculate to the surface eventually. I seriously hope we're among those that will be there when they do!

I still feel young & optomistic too :)

I see you're a fan of This American Life. Fabulous storyteller / great program!

Keep us in touch with what develops with your ideas.

R

Will do!

Thanks

oh, and how we deal with the pay / not pay thing (in case you hadn't had time to explore) -- we have 5 shorts free for all too view in the festival/showcase area, and the rest people pay for.

Incidentally, which short film did you watch on our site?

(then i'll run away -- must get some sleep!)

R

When it comes to payment, I want to find a way to do it all for free. This hinges on the whole copyright issue and "in the name of education" as evidence, but I am in the dark still. The underlying concept to my idea is that students connect to previously created pop culture things, and so like movieclips.com (a free site that apparently hosts their own hollywood movie clips) teachers/educators and maybe even students in flipped classroom environments could be given access to the site to use for education only. 

I really like what you are doing, especially in promoting students making their own films. I think my concept is different from your model in that it is using pop culture as a situated cognitive tool to help students make connections, learn, and see the relevance of what they are learning in the world around them. For this I feel it is essential to be able to use clips/media already familiar and accepted by them - but I could be wrong! This is not to say that I see immense value in students creating their own content to illustrate and explore how they are coming to understand difficult issues around them.

I just watched "scar tissue" but I couldn't find the one I saw earlier - maybe it wasn't your site I thought I stumbled on? Either way, I admire your foundation and need to spend some more time looking at what you are doing. 

Have a good sleep! :)

Be sure to read this book before you begin the project - 

A great book I skimmed a little last month. I spoke with Renee last week and she seems open to chatting more about the idea! She referred me to  Peter Gutierrez , and I just sent him a DM on Twitter. I believe you two work together a bit?

 

That's great that you connected with Renee. Yeah, I've known Peter since way back - we're talking all the way back to like 2004 or something - lol. You might also dig this book that I did not know about until Amazon showed it to me this AM - http://amzn.to/QHz2Xl

2004 - yeah I was a Freshman in high school at the time, that is way back :) That looks like a good book, I will see if I can get my hands on it. Thanks!

I think it's an excellent idea.  Are we talking an online, searchable database?  Where would it be located?  Who would host the expense?

Thanks Tony for your questions. It would be on online and searchable (like movieclips.com with tagging based around education themes, principles, and elements). I haven't thought through the host issues - possibly I could go pitch for some funding and head up something myself after I graduate? I think there are many groups who would be interested in supporting something like this - though I am not sure.

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