Educational Video Center - New York City, USA

EVC uses face-to-face training to empower youth and members of the NYC community with media-related skills so that they might communicate in creative ways about the issues that impact their lives and put them at risk. EVC's methodology of media education brings together the traditions of student-centered progressive education and independent community documentary making. EVC media educators aim to:

• actively engage students in authentic, real-world tasks related to issues that are of interest to them
• facilitate small-group, collaborative work so that each student can serve as a resource and amplifier for his or her peers' learning
• organically link the processes of students' creative media work and critical analysis
• teach students abstract concepts by linking observation, experience, and discussion
• draw on visual, print, and aural literacies for learning and expression
• share student-produced media work with school and community audiences to support learning and discussion
• incorporate student reflection and self-assessment throughout all work.

The idea is that, through the process of creating their own documentaries, young people experience the entire city as a learning space. A project researched, scripted, shot, and edited by students is designed to engage them in a creative group learning experience, one that is perhaps different from any other they might have in traditional school settings. The social and academic problems they carry with them to school each day, on this model, can become opportunities for research and problem solving. The hope is that their media projects will provide them with a positive and directed focus that, after hard work, will result in a concrete product that can be shared with teachers, family, and the community.

Specifically, EVC offers 3 programmes:

1. High School Documentary Workshop - each year, 60 NYC students learn to shoot and edit documentaries on issues that impact their lives as urban teens. EVC students learn media analysis and video documentary production during a semester-long workshop. Students earn high school credit for their work while they develop production skills such as script writing, interviewing, camera work, and editing. At the end of each semester, students present their work in public screenings and are assessed in portfolio roundtables. The tapes are then made available for distribution, with viewer guides. For example, one group of students produced "Youth Activism" (20 min), which highlights the work of several young, outspoken NYC activists and the organisations through which they work. In this documentary, EVC youth producers encourage their peers to become socially active as they explore questions such as: What are the issues that affect young people's daily lives? What are the challenges to being a socially active young person? Why and how can young people become socially active? What are some of the many different means youth are choosing to express their socio-political beliefs and to make change? And historically, what have young people actually achieved through activism?
2. YO-TV (Youth Organizers TV) - provides an opportunity for the most talented graduates from EVC's High School Documentary Workshop to work as paid interns producing a documentary for a professional client. In this year-long programme, YO-TV members develop skills, contacts, and confidence designed to bridge their transition between student life and the professional workplace. Organisers say that this process is important for youth who have talent and commitment but can't afford to volunteer to gain necessary hands-on experience and personal contacts.
3. Teacher Development Program - workshops, seminars, summer media institutes, and in-school consultations designed to give educators the framework to integrate video production, multimedia and media analysis into the classroom. For example, the Summer Media Institute trains educators in video camera operation, interviewing, editing, and media literacy techniques to engage students across the K-12 curriculum. EVC visits schools to work alongside teachers, coaching them in the planning and facilitation of student media projects. EVC teacher seminars explore theoretical and practical applications of video and digital technology for student inquiry, literacy, problem solving, and assessment.

Through these programmes, EVC students have produced over 100 documentaries on issues such as media and youth culture, gun violence, race relations, and environmental pollution. (To view clips of these tapes, or to purchase them, visit EVC's screening room). To guide media educators hoping to draw on EVC's experiences, various publications are available for download in PDF format on the EVC website. These resources include classroom curricula, research papers, viewer guides, production handbooks, and articles on teaching youth media.

Youth, Media Education.

In 2001, the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities honoured EVC with the Coming Up Taller Award, presented to 10 cultural organisations in the country. EVC's youth-produced documentaries have been broadcast on the NBC, ABC, and PBS television networks. The videos have won more than 100 awards nationally and internationally, including an Emmy.