WEBVTT

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ELIZABETH CHOE: We were
talking about like,

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what is digital media
literacy exactly, because we

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talked about this a lot.

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And I think what it really is,
is not so much being proficient

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in scripting and
filming and editing,

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it's just the self awareness
to know what you're good at,

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and what you're not good at.

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And just the
appreciation for what

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goes into things,
and the knowledge

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of who to tap into to
help you create a project

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or help you
communicate something.

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Go ahead.

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JOSHUA GUNN: I just
have a question

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because I'm not plugged
into the MIT community,

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or even into the scientific
community, for that matter.

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But is there a culture
of sort of individuality

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wherein this notion that
basically, my intellectual work

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is to be done sort of in a
silo, versus the kind of,

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like, I know I'm
not good at this,

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so I need to build a
team where we can build.

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GEORGE ZAIDAN: At MIT, it's
pretty interdisciplinary.

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What I would say, is
not siloed, but there's

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an ingrained culture of is
this idea that real science--

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and I'm doing it now by saying
real science-- that science

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and engineering is work, and
communication is not work.

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JOSHUA GUNN: Oh, I see.

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ELIZABETH CHOE: Or even
that it a separate thing.

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JOSHUA GUNN: Yeah.

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GEORGE ZAIDAN: Yeah.

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CHRIS BOEBELThat's a pretty
good way of putting it.

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GEORGE ZAIDAN: So that's-- it's
not that people are like siloed

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within themselves, it's that
communicators don't have street

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cred with scientists, period.

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CHRIS BOEBEL: And that
part will just happen,

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it will take care of itself.

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I'm not going to worry
about it too much.

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JOSHUA GUNN: I
see, so that sounds

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like the real meat
of what you guys are

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trying to work on, in a way.

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ELIZABETH CHOE: Yeah, I guess.

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I mean it's interesting because
I gave a survey to the students

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at the end of the class,
and they were all like,

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I probably wouldn't make
another video again.

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A couple of them said they
would, but most of them

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are like, I probably
won't make a video,

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but, I have so much more
appreciation for what

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goes into it.

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Now I can't watch a
movie without thinking

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about how much,
you know, how much

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work it took to just
light the scene.

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So even just having
the appreciation

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for what goes into it,
I think, is a big step.

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But, again, with the
whole literacy thing,

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just the awareness of how
important these skills are.

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Because, like you
said, I mean, it's

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just crazy that we think
of them as separate things.

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There's science and
there's communication,

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and you're trained
separately on these things,

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if you happen to be a
science communicator.

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CHRIS BOEBEL: One of
things that I think

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is really interesting about
media is that video or media,

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films, they're really
interesting in that when

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they're well made,
they're so accessible.

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They're so immediately
graspable by those of us

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in the last 100
years who's really

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literate at unpacking video
and understanding the medium.

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They're so kind of
intuitively open

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that people who don't have
any appreciation or awareness

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of how they're made
assume that there isn't

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any kind of effort behind them.

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That they just kind of happen.

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And I can remember as a
kid kind of thinking that.

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Never really
thinking about movies

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and how they were made until, I
was probably, God, in college.

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I just kind of assumed
that they just kind of

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happened out there.

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JOSHUA GUNN: Our clients
think you just hit a button.

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CHRIS BOEBEL: Exactly.

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Yeah, exactly.

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And that's because if things
are well made, it's like,

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didn't that just
always exist that way?

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You mean somebody actually
had to create that?

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It seems so natural.

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And I think that
one of the things,

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a key of media literacy,
is breaking that myth.

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JOSHUA GUNN: Right.

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Or, gasp, it would cost
money to hire people.

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GEORGE ZAIDAN: And take time.

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JOSHUA GUNN: You would have
to hire professionals to do it

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that are trained and pay them.

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ELIZABETH CHOE: So
the biggest thing

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in teaching this
literacy, though, I think,

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is making them go through
the experience themselves.

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Because it's one thing if
you watch like a series of

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lectures.

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Like it's one thing if you
watch this on OpenCourseWare,

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and you can take
the notes on, like,

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this is good framing if
you use the thirds rule.

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Write a script like
you would say it.

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We go through all these sort
of tangible, take home points.

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These sort of plastic
elements, like you mentioned.

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But I don't think
you'll have the same,

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you won't draw the same value
from it as if you actually

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go through and try
to do the projects

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that these students did.

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And that's a big issue, I think,
especially in media teaching.

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That it's easy to
first establish

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a sort of theoretical
principles.

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Like, this is sort of
what makes a good story.

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And then it's another
thing to actually give

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hard, tangible
examples to students.

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Like, look at this script.

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They're able to point out
issues in the scripts.

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They were able to critique
them, but then it's

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a whole other step for them
to be able to integrate

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it themselves into a script.

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So you'd have a student who
understood the principles,

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they took the notes,
they could reiterate

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everything you said to them.

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They were able to look at
the examples you gave them

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and say, oh you know,
this is unclear here,

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this is awkward wording.

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And then they would write the
script, and you'd be like,

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there's this disconnect
to the third step.

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And it wasn't until
they tried it,

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and then we were able to
critique them directly

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that they were able to come
to this final self awareness

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conclusion.