BlogVideo, Education, Open Content and PEG Access TV
On May 22 & 23, I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to attend a conference at Columbia University, titled “Video, Education, and Open Content: Best Practices“. While much of the content was focused around innovative uses of online video technologies in university and public broadcasting environments, there was a hugely missed opportunity to include the PEG access community (particularly those working in educational access) in this conversation. And if we consider new uses of video technologies in education more broadly, I think PEG should have had a much more prominent seat at the table in this discussion of video, education and access to teaching and learning resources within local communities.
One of the main themes of the conference included the question of how educational institutions and other organizations (including public broadcasters) can work to increase access to information and knowledge resources through online video? Increasing access to tools, skills and knowledge lives at the core of PEG TV. Educational access television (and increasingly online) is not just a place to watch school committee hearings, but also a place to find instruction and other educational resources relevant to a local community’s needs.
I will attempt to highlight here some of the conversations from the conference that I think deserve further connection and exploration within this context of video, education, open content and PEG TV.
Peter Brantley (Digital Library Federation) gave an excellent talk about the possibilities of libraries to connect more fully with online networks to provide greater access to resources (including video) for educational use. He started with a simple question, “What does a library actually do?”. It was a great point with which to move forward in understanding how best to utilize library resources for educational use. Here some notes from the end of his talk:
“Libraries can tell stories. A new library is about partnering in a much deeper way with scholars and information technologiies and media creators to find new ways to connect with people in communities. (Goals include to) Engage and make content available.
We’re half way there. Libraries have lots of video content available. But, libraries need advisers from the outside community to help them find ways to make it available.”
It seems to me that folks in PEG access TV, particularly those who are experimenting with new participatory web platforms, could create exciting relationships (if the resources existed) with their local libraries as partners in this quest to increase opportunities for gaining access to knowledge through online video platforms - particularly with regards to local cultural and historical resources.
Peter also added,
“Because video should not be passively consumed. Video can teach. Libraries should deeply engage in understanding how to use video resources to provide educational enrichment for student and faculty.”
As more access centers begin to incorporate new methods for online video distribution, how might we think about connecting metadata from libraries and PEG TV video to increase opportunities for a much more rich online user experience for educational and cultural use?
Other discussions from the conference included challenges of archiving digital video, commercial uses of video and its impact on the law, as well as other big picture views on everyday use of online video.
It was an exciting conference and I again feel privileged to have been invited. My hope for the future is that similar convenings will begin to recognize, with greater depth, the contributions from PEG TV to this discussion of video, education, and open content.
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