November 20, 2008
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Jeffery Rudkin, Video Production Teacher, Batchelor Middle School, Bloomington, Indiana; Milken National Educator Award Honoree; and Best Buy Teach Award Winner
Jeff Rudkin started his teaching career as a middle-school social studies and music teacher—and then, like so many other “techies,” he became the computer teacher. That small elective course blossomed into what is now a very popular—and successful, judging by its film-festival awards—video production program with more than 300 students enrolled. In the process of building the media production program, Mr. Rudkin was honored as a Milken National Educator and received an AECT Connelly Award, as well as two Best Buy Teach Awards, the second of which allowed the Monroe County (Indiana) Community School Corporation to purchase more computers and video equipment for all levels. His students will participate again this fall in AECT’s International Student Media Festival in Orlando. Technos spoke to Jeff in July, between voluntary media lab sessions with his video production students.
Technos: How does student-produced media affect teaching and learning?
J.R.: I think it offers the opportunity for differentiated learning, because any subject area can be supplemented with student media and in meaningful ways. Students can take a real in-depth look at a project, more so than they can with just writing a report or taking a test.
Does it take more or less time to work with students in a media class?
Usually more time. For instance, my students worked on a documentary about the Holocaust and World War II, and it was a yearlong project. Some projects take longer, like the whole semester; some take shorter amounts of time to complete.
What attributes do teachers need to work with students on media projects?
At the middle school level, it takes patience. You have to give kids a little more time to work through the planning, research, and learning how to use the technology. You have to allow them the time they need to go deeper into a lesson. So it takes a lot of patience, first. Then, a middle-school teacher has to be able to keep the kids motivated to stay on task, and finally you have to trust the kids a lot. I move around the class from group to group, and if I can’t trust them to work on their projects, it could get hectic.
How many students do you typically have in a media production class?
This year, I had six large video production classes, and the smallest had 25 students. I have 300 students in the course. This is considered an extracurricular activity, and the students who are in the lab with me today are giving up their summer vacation time to work on their projects. There are nine kids here today, but I’ve had up to 72 at a time doing voluntary lab work.
How do these students get into your class? What are the requirements?
They first have to fill out an application form, and then their parents have to sign a release form because we post images, films, and such on the Web and in email. We’ve had a lot of exposure recently, and our students entered 25 film festivals last year alone—so their parents have to understand that their kids may have their projects seen by a lot of people, and all around the country and the world, in fact.
How long have you been teaching this class?
It’s been 13 years. We started with 15 kids the first year; then it grew to 30 the next year, and within two years, we had 200 kids signed up. That was when our middle school had 1,100 students enrolled—when we split into two middle schools, we ended up with an enrollment of 550 students, and now we have 300 students signed up.
That’s a huge number! How do you handle it all?
Well, I’m the only teacher for all the classes, so it is a lot of work. Right now, the course is a one-semester course for the seventh graders. The eighth graders have the option of becoming student producers and can help with the younger kids. They have to apply and be selected for that. This year, we have about 30 kids in each class, so it helps to have the older kids work with the younger ones.
What happens when they leave your middle school? Do the high schools have similar video production classes?
Both high schools in Bloomington have programs in place. There is a seniors program, for students in grades 9 through 12, where kids can volunteer to work with the middle school kids. And there is a juniors program where students can work with elementary school kids on media projects.
If you’ve been at this for 13 years, you must have some idea of how far your former students have taken their interest in media production.
We know that about 30 of our students have gone on to college or film schools. And we’ve taken our kids on field trips to some of the better-known schools, like USC, UCLA, and Chapman University, when we’ve attended film festivals—so they’ve been exposed to what is available to them, if they’re interested. For instance, last year we were able to take 33 students to the International Student Media Festival in Anaheim, so we stopped in at Chapman, where I know some people, and had a great visit to their studio and talked to the professors. Their film and media arts department is very well known.
You recently won a $10,000 Best Buy Award for your school. Has that allowed you to add to your collection of production equipment?
Yes, we bought more computers for editing and video and digital cameras for our program with that money—and then we got an additional $100,000 award from Best Buy, which meant we could purchase computers for all the schools in our district. We’ve also won an iMAC from Apple through the NSBA Movie Fest, so now we have Apple, Adobe Premier, MAC Pro, and Casablanca available for the kids. We’ve gone from two work stations last year to 10 editing stations this year!
Wow—I’ll bet the workload hasn’t tapered off any with those acquisitions!
Nope. We had 40 projects in the works last year, and this year we have 82 projects.
Tell me about some of these projects.
One of the most interesting was the Holocaust and World War II video project. Just a few years ago, we were able to take a group of four students to Poland to cover the 60th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz and talk to Holocaust survivors there. Our kids were able to get full press credentials to cover the event. It was really a wonderful experience for all of us, and the kids produced a terrific nine-hour documentary video project that became six DVDs and eventually resulted in a book about it.
Are these items for sale?
Yes, we sell them through [Batchelor Middle School] to help fund our program and to give the kids the opportunity to travel to the film festivals.
How do you manage to fund this enterprise? Do you get any financial support from your school district?
We’ve been fund raising for a while, and we’re really lucky to have the strong support of the parents and the community. The kids take care of business. When we had the first ISMF winner, the students and their parents had an auction that raised twice the amount of money needed to send the kids to the Festival. We’ve been to ISMF for seven years now and have had winners every year—and every year, our parents’ group has managed to raise enough money to send more kids to the Festival. Last year, they brought in $25,000 for that.
I understand you were named a Milken Educator just last year. How has that changed your life?
Well, first I have to say it was very humbling. Plus, it was a total surprise—we were told that the Indiana State Superintendent of Schools was going to make a speech at our middle school and were asked to tape the event. When the Milken Educator Award was announced, I was just shocked! Of course, with it comes the responsibility to represent other teachers and our program and media production in a favorable light. For instance, I was asked to speak at the Indiana University School of Education Celebration of Teaching Awards event.
Did you attend IU?
Yes, I have two degrees from Indiana.
Does IU have a video production course for teachers?
No. No one does in the whole country. When I was an Armstrong Teacher in IU’s School of Education, I proposed that they set up a series of four classes to lead to licensure or endorsement in this field, but it hasn’t happened yet.
Why do you think there is so little interest in higher education for this training?
I’m not sure they know where to put it…Indiana has a course of study in industrial technology, but that’s not the same thing. It seems to be just some of us who are really interested are working with the kids who are also really interested.
How did you get interested?
I started out as a social studies and music teacher and had some ability to work with computers, so I became our school’s computer teacher, basically. At that time, if you had a teaching license, you could teach computers. There was also a time when students had to take electives to round out their education, and computer or technology courses fulfilled the requirement.
What projects are your students planning this year?
They have an interesting movie project in the works, which grew out of the Holocaust documentary. It’s about Max Schmeling, who hid two young Jewish brothers during the Second World War, and they’re using both kids and adults in dramatic situations. They’re researching it, scripting it, casting it, taping it. It’s not the first drama our students have produced, and in fact we’ve produced a feature-length film. But it will be the first drama our students have attempted with adult actors in adult roles with students directing them. We’re excited about the prospects to learn more about the topic and about movie making.
If you could have one wish granted for your program, what would it be?
One thing we’re looking at is some kind of sponsorship that would allow us to take more students on the kind of trip we took to Poland. Our parents really thought that would be the kind of thing we ought to be doing for the kids, maybe every couple of years, maybe a large group of 20 or so. We think it’s important for them to be exposed to other countries, other kids, other cultures—and to find a way to document all of that and communicate it to others. We’re considering traveling with a group to Australia and New Zealand to tape the Maori tribe and the Great Barrier Reef. But, we’d need some sort of sponsorship for that, so that’s my wish.
What’s the most important thing to remember about student-produced video?
Our program is a diverse one that gives kids lots of options. It is differentiated learning at its best—100 percent of what we do.
Read our Featured Interview with Phillip Harris, Executive Director of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology, to find out more about his organization’s International Student Media Film Festival.