Clearly updating the sites has been long and the choices so many, particularly considering a move to WORDPRESS but that's not to be worried about for you guys just yet!
On top of this potential change of underlying structure for the webpages, the tragic choices made for the new specifications for Media Studies and Film Studies at both GCSE and A Level (and the upcoming T Levels?) and the other changes to the vocational structure of Media Education (that is changes to the Btec, the Cambridge Nationals and Technicals that followed) have all meant not just significant changes to content but also to routes to be followed for students.
This sadly means that a lot of what went before is now focused on different topics; This literally means some topics are no longer covered at all (Media in the online Age? Music Video? Critical Persepctives anyone? Full end to end Productions in Moving Image and Productions in the area of Videogaming are mostly gone as are the exciting, innovative and frankly apt methods of not only working, providing production logs and evaluation; gone are the electronic and online forms of exhibition of your work and your evaluations and those forward thinking and industry-standard skills and techniques are lost to some old 'die hard' traditional areas of study and teaching and assessment methods have been brought back to the fore with examination by paper and pen under short timed conditions ressurected - Yes it's the same old ideological state apparatus interference doing its best to make sure you don't get the education in media that you both NEED and DESERVE!
What do I mean? Well just briefly, moving study away from moving images forms and from online content to the traditional 'gems' of newspapers and radio is not only an attempt to make what you study at GCSE and A Level less relevant to your expereince of media on a day to day basis but also an obvious and 'sad' attempt to continue to control the (future) population by 'inculcating' you into certain beliefs and mindsets, to accepting particular ideologies... BUT more of that in the teaching and learning areas of the blog...
What we mean by all this as Media Teachers is that the 'powers that be' have a vested interest in making sure that the current youth cannot either effectively READ the media texts they are surrounded by but also cannot effectively WRITE them either. It is from pixel to page rather than 'Page to Pixel' (Thanks David Crystal!).
Here at EMS we believe that Media Studies is the new 'English' and 'English Language' for the 21st century; tasked with teaching how to both READ the meanings intended and subtle nuances within the media texts that you. the people, are engulfed by today, all day, everyday - thus teaching you to be CRITICAL and KNOWING receivers of media texts and not just passive 'believers' or even 'victims'* of this continual bombardment BUT ALSO hand in hand with this, we believe you should also be taught how to be EFFECTIVE writers of those same media forms so that you yourselves have a fighting chance to make your own voices and messages heard in the (media saturated) 21st Century.
(*if you do not know how to unpick the intentions and hidden messages and motivations in something media related that is being repeatedly shown to you, aren't you a kind of victim if we refuse or withdraw your rights to have those techniques and messages explained to you?)
We believe that NOT to teach you to effectively read and write media texts in the 21st century is the equivalent of us sending you out in to the world sort of 'illiterate', unable to read and write in the world you find yourselves.
This reasonable sounding underlying understanding of why and how we see Media and Film Education, this reason to act, to teach even. might seem... STANDARD (You'd think so, right?) but unfortunately it is still considered a RADICAL point of view!
So we fight on - Never Give up standing up for what is right! (Or what you believe to be right)
ANYWAY
There are lots of pages on this hub that are still covering the same, core elements of MS and FS (such as Representation and Moving Image Language) which you can still use to support your teaching and learning AND there are many VIDEOS amd VIDEO examples still 'live' on the sister Youtube Channel MediaMonkeyMovies2 - even if links aren't still working. Its easiest to find them by using the 'Playlists' function.
It will take time to upgrade everything and make everything so much much better but not starting is to never finish right?....
so long for now, and thanks for all the fish ;)
