Nobel Peace Prize events change the way pupils study and work
For 5 days in December 2002 pupils from Amot secondary school covered with
text, pictures and streaming video events in connection with all the
arrangements when former President of The United States, Jimmy Carter,
received the Nobel Peace Prize. The pupils met Carter and world known
artists like Santana and Willie Nelson. They wrote about these meetings and
published articles on Internet with many photographs and streaming video
from the events. For weeks before the departure from our small society Rena,
180 km from Oslo, the pupils had to study the Carters political career and
the work for peace this still very active, remarkable man (78) is doing.
Jimmy Carter is a remarkable man. Here he's
together with the Major of Oslo, Per Ditlev Simonsen.
Background
For 5 years pupils from Amot secondary schools have had
the editorial responsibility for the nationally based Internet paper called
The Youth Paper (Ungdomsavisa)
in December. Each month a new school takes over the editorial
responsibility
for the paper. December month is in Europe
connected with Christmas, but in Norway the month is also in Norwegian mass
media, connected with the Nobel Prize Ceremony in Oslo. Off course, mass
media reporters from other countries are also coming to Oslo in hundreds. In
addition to the Ceremony, many important political meetings take place and
world known artists are singing and playing at the Noble concert broadcasted
over television to countries all over the world.
In this setting students from Amot secondary school are
working as:
-
Web
journalists
-
Web
photographers
-
Web video
journalists
Like real
journalists the students have been accredited by the Norwegian
Ministry
of
Foreign
Affairs.
The students take part at the press conference with the winner of the prize,
the Noble prize ceremony, press conference with world known artists and
political meetings. Shortly one may say that the students come close to
leading politicians and world known artists. And as the pictures and video
show – these politicians and artists take the students serious. They answer
questions and are willing to be exclusively photographed.
Accredited: Two of our students.
The project is
integrated into the Norwegian curriculum and we hope that our coverage of
the Nobel Prize arrangements at this web site can be a little
contribution for peace, international cooperation and understanding of the
importance of the Nobel Prize among school pupils and others.
Internet
gives new and unique possibilities in the 21 century
We will try to show that students and teachers now live in a world which
gives them unique new possibilities. Internet has changed the world and the
schools. New technology is transforming the schools and has in many cases
necessitated rethinking of traditional pedagogical practices. The
technological development and Internet have given schools in Europe the
possibility to develop new teaching practices in order to engage, motivate
and inspire young students.
Networking and
partnership
The pupils take the train to Oslo and are living at a hotel.
They begin immediately to work when they come to the capital Oslo. This
seems of course simple, but before the arrangements very much work has been
done. Over years the school has established partnership and contacts with
the press department of The Norwegian
Ministry of
Foreign
Affairs, members of the
Nobel committee, the Nobel Institute, well-known Norwegian
politicians and others. We have got help from private persons, parents,
public organizations and private firms. Establishing private/public
partnership has been very important for the project.
Pedagogical considerations
In the project the pupils work
in a real world setting just like a modern net based paper. The articles
must be delivered with strict consideration to dead line, photos must be
made ready and video edited and saved in the right streaming format.
Teachers must give feedback to students and action must be taken whenever
new situations meet pupils. Suddenly they met Jimmy Carter with family at
the main street, Karl
Johan, in Oslo for example. Actions had to be taken immediately.
Jimmy Carter and his wife walks the main
street of Oslo, Karl Johan.
In a way, this is a new way of
learning, giving students the possibility to publish articles on Internet
which could have been made by professionals, but are made of school pupils.
Especially digital video gives them the potential to make a significant
contribution to our culture in documenting important political events but
also everyday life. Through broadband and digital video students will also
be in a uniquely powerful position - creating, receiving and editing digital
video live on the net. Through this schools can also build up important
media libraries. And may be this is just the beginning. Will digital video
transform the nature of education and our schools?
Examples of
our practise – streaming video
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We met
Jimmy Carter and his family – short interview
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- I
enjoyed very much being with you yesterday,
Jimmy Carter to our reporter
at the official press conference
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Meeting with former
Prime Minister and now chairman of the
standing committee on
Foreign Affairs, Torbjørn Jagland
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Meeting
with MP, Knut Storberget
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Carlos Santana answers our journalist at the press conference with artists
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Technical and
practical considerations
It’s our intention with this web site to empathise use of multimedia,
pictures and streaming video. The school has high speed Internet access
through the Norwegian University Net (Uninett) and fibre connection into the
school. We have our own Internet web server and the streaming video is
published from this server. We have chosen to publish
video in:
The streaming videos are published in 3
qualities and the highest quality is 550 kbps. In the future when high speed
Internet access is more common and speed higher, we want to publish
streaming video with higher speed than 550 kbps. One day we hope we can have
full screen video, even in high definition. The main html pages for this
site are meant for laptops and stationary computers.
In addition we
have a PDA version. In this version the pictures are smaller and the
streaming video is meant for the small screens and published in PDA format. We have chosen also to have a
PDA version because the school have
a project with pedagogical use of PDA’s
and we want to find out more about publishing for small screens.
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