MediaStage

www.mediastage.net

KS4 (Years 10 - 11)

Media Studies & English

The title did load very easily when I eventually found a computer powerful enough to run it. The back of the software box specifies the minimum software requirements and describes a computer which is rarely found in a school environment. As a result of this, you may need to get your computer technician to upgrade your computers to run the software. This should not put you off as the upgrade will not cost a huge amount and the performance of the software is well worth it. The main issue which you must be aware of is the need for a 128Mb graphics card (most of our school computers had 32 or 64MB). While the software will run using these graphics cards, it will freeze in more complicated scenes. In terms of the size of the program, once it was installed it took up 331MB on the hard drive so it is important that your computer has enough memory to cope with this.

The software was easy to uninstall through the control panel, so it would not necessarily need to be left on a computer all the time but could be added and removed as needed. The title runs on machines connected to a network, but should be installed locally owing to the size of the software. For some of the actions, a three button mouse is essential.

What This Product Offers

The title's beauty is that it is interactive. Students do not passively watch the information and instead are forced to interact and manipulate the figures on the screen. In doing so, they must demonstrate a clear understanding of the content being covered. The other main advantage is that the learning is placed within a context that makes it far easier to understand. There are ready-made activities provided within the software which explicity link to the GCSE Media Studies Curriculum and provide a realistic context for students to work within. For instance, when learning about the difference between tabloid and broadsheet papers, the students work through an activity where they actually take on the persona of one of the reporters and ask the questions themselves (with one student even managing to record himself asking the questions so the reporter used the student's voice).

Two major benefits of the title are that it enables students to become totally absorbed in their studies and it gets around the problem that almost every school must suffer: that of a lack of resources. Most media courses are limited, not by imagination but by the fact that the school only has one camera and a few good lights. This title enables students to focus on the task of creating pieces of media without being constrained by a lack of equipment. They can experiment with angles and types of shots that they would never be able to produce in reality and in doing so, are able to demonstrate and develop their understanding of the course.

This software would be of major benefit to Media GCSE students in completing the practical aspect of the course. Sheets that talk students through the process of evaluating their coursework are available as part of the Teacher's Guide .

Purpose of Using This Product

The software was used with a Year 10 group who were studying GCSE Media Studies. The class were being introduced to the issues surrounding audience and bias. One of the activities in the program shows reporters for tabloid and broadsheet newspapers asking questions at a press conference. Through using the title, I was able to expose the differences between them, make the study and analysis of papers much more interesting and get across the idea of audience and bias.

Before the lesson the students had spent a couple of lessons using the Quick Start Guide included within the software to get used to the program. The students were familiar with basic media terminology. The activities can be used independently by the student but I found it worked better if I used them as my prompts so that I could ensure that all the students thought about the issues before they started to use the software. Throughout the lesson the class was brought back together so that we could share ideas and possible slants to the story.

Differentiation

This title is not an easy one to get to grips with and it is not suitable for students with special educational needs. However, it does offer some useful spin-offs which might be very useful outside of Media Studies education. The title does provide some differentiation support: In the Teacher's Guide, each activity describes learning outcomes for 'all', 'most' and 'some' students.

One of the features of the title is that speech can be entered and the characters will appear to speak the words. Speech may be entered by typing in text, loading a pre-recorded sound file or by recording your voice. It is also possible to display subtitles as the characters speak. This feature can be used within any topic in any subject and can make the introduction of a new topic a little more exciting.

Finished pieces can be exported as .avi files so that they can be played within PowerPoint presentations.

Classroom Organisation

The software was used with a class of 17 pupils using six computers. The fact that students were sharing was important as I wanted them to talk about what they were doing rather than just playing with the 'game'. It was important that each of the students knew what roles they had at different times of the lesson, so they alternated between notetaker (recording what they did and why), instructor (responsible for keeping the other two on task and explaining what they had to do as well as feeding back to the class) and programmer (the one with the keyboard). Roles changed every 10 minutes so that they were all able to use the software but were also forced to focus on the media aspect of the lesson.There was a data projector in the room so that students could be clearly shown what to do and how to do it. An interactive whiteboard was also used but this was not essential to the lesson. As only six computers were in use and sound was not the main issue, headphones were not needed, but they might well be needed in other sessions.

Context of Use

Whilst it is possible to let students use the software without teacher intervention, teacher involvement should be encouraged and is recommended. The beauty of the title is that students can discuss their ideas prior to using the software in order to achieve the best results.

Before the students could successfully use the software we spent a couple of lessons working through the Quick Start exercises included in the software. These lessons enabled the students to get to grips with the software and experiment with how to achieve different effects. It was not, however, a time in which the students were left to find their own way round the software as the title is so huge that they would most certainly get lost within it.

The pack that comes with the software shows the students what to do using step-by-step instructions. These instructions do not just tell them about the software but are clearly focused from a Media perspective on why things would be done. It is also a useful way of introducing key terms to students. The instructions are available onscreen, or alternatively can be provided to the students as copies from the Teacher's Guide. The onscreen instructions can be closed and then reopened at the point you left off by clicking on the information browser tab.

The students worked through the exercises in their groups of three; then they each used the notes they had put together to write an evaluation of the differences between the two types of papers, and how they each catered to their particular audience.

Ease of Use - Design & Navigation

The Information Browser tab allows access to both the Quick Start Guide and to the Media Studies activities provided with the software. The Quick Start Guide introduces the features of the software and leads the students through step-by-step. It is crucial that the teacher has had a chance to work through this beforehand so that they are familiar with the software and how it works. Although not all the features of the software were needed for the part of the program we actually used, it is a piece of software that I expect to use frequently during the Media course.

Once students had been shown how the software worked, it was relatively easy to use, although using the lights and cameras were more complicated. The title is similar in design to other Immersive Education products, with icons rather than text on the screen. Students can bring up the Quick Start Guide at any point. It is clear what the icons refer to and they can be selected by a click of the mouse. The different characters and elements of the set are selected by clicking on them and are moved within the set by clicking and dragging or by selecting drop-down menus to change their mood or stance.

It is very easy to use the software at different levels as students can start on a totally clean sheet and build up a set from nothing, or they can start with one of the pre-designed sets and focus on one aspect of production.

Students can save their work easily and are able to name their work so they can find it again.

Monitoring & Assessment

The software itself does not monitor student achievement in any way but does provide frequent opportunities for their knowledge to be assessed. The activities that are provided are clearly structured and provide frequent opportunities for feedback - oral, written, individual and group. It is this feedback as well as the written outcomes that enables a student's understanding to be assessed.Throughout the title the media objectives are central to the work and students could not be adequately assessed in their ICT skills.

It is easy to take snapshots of particular sets and these can be pasted into a word processor package alongside the evaluation of the work. This helped the students to focus far more closely on what they did and to evaluate their work closely.

The outcomes from the software can be varied. It is possible to produce word processed evaluations which include snapshots of the scenes. It is also possible to view the whole scene as individual shots or continuous scenes within the software. Finally, scenes can be saved as .avi files and shown externally to the software. This offers a clear opportunity for oral assessment.

Feedback from Pupils and Other Staff

Students found the software easy to use and greatly enjoyed the fact that they could control the characters and literally put words into their mouths. They found that they were able to make the scenes very realistic and had to concentrate carefully on what the characters said, depending on what type of paper employed them. They felt that their discussions were a lot more focused because of the work they had done. Comments included: 'Difficult to start with but it was easy after the first lesson.' 'I liked the fact that we could make the characters speak our words.'

Ease of Use

MediaStage is not an easy piece of software to use initially and both the teacher and students must spend some time working through the Quick Start Guide and activities before it can be effectively employed. However, the design of the software is excellent and the Quick Start activities take students and teacher alike through the title, showing them how to perform everything from choosing the set to adding cameras and choosing the type of shot needed. MediaStage uses simple mouse operation (it does need a three button mouse) to perform all the actions and students can quickly achieve amazing results.

MediaStage brings the subject to life. It enables teachers and students to overcome a major problem that usually hampers Media education - that of a lack of resources. Students don't need expensive cameras and lights and editing facilities to demonstrate their knowledge as they are able to develop scenes in a digital environment. The software has massive possibilities within Media education and could be effectively used throughout the course on numerous occasions.

Classroom Experience

The class were able to clearly study the conventions of newspapers and examine issues of bias and audience. After a couple of lessons which taught the class how to use the title, they used one of the activities provided within the software. In this activity, they had to analyse a press conference and identify the tabloid and broadsheet reporters. Once they had done this, they were able to add to the scene by taking on the role of a reporter and asking questions appropriate to their paper's stance. They had to produce an evaluation which explained the differences between the papers and which used their press conference to provide examples. The students loved using MediaStage and it enabled them to achieve a high level of understanding.

Read KS4 Content evaluation...

Product Overview

This product is published by Immersive Education (Tel: 01865 811000)