Lights! Camera! Students!

[swee'pea99]

My daughter sent me a link to a little sort-of instructional film put together by the student communications unit at her uni, a sort of 'take care of your stuff' lesson, delivered with humour instead of finger-wagging. I thought it was amazingly well done - nothing amateurish about it at all.

View: https://vimeo.com/187345149

 

[mjr]

Well-made but it's basically victim-blaming, isn't it?

 

[swee'pea99]

Well-made but it's basically victim-blaming, isn't it?

Is it? If I see a kid locking his front wheel to the railings and say 'if I were you I'd loop that through the frame as well' is that 'victim-blaming'? Regardless, I'd still say it.

 

[mjr]

Is it? If I see a kid locking his front wheel to the railings and say 'if I were you I'd loop that through the frame as well' is that 'victim-blaming'? Regardless, I'd still say it.

That would be better, but how small a fraction of that film is advice that's even that useful? Far too many resources (even student time is a resource) go into this sort of "don't..." negative telling-off of victims, rather than more positive measures or enforcement.

 

[swee'pea99]

That would be better, but how small a fraction of that film is advice that's even that useful? Far too many resources (even student time is a resource) go into this sort of "don't..." negative telling-off of victims, rather than more positive measures or enforcement.

The question is where 'resources' are likely to have the greatest positive outcome. I suspect that advising students to keep an eye on their kit, use proper locks and not leave ground floor windows open is probably a worthwhile investment. Also, this is clearly a project undertaken by the relevant student comms unit - there's no opportunity cost; this is the kind of thing they have to do to learn what they're learning, develop and polish their skills, and ultimately make them employable.

 

[summerdays]

I thought it was very well done... maybe just fractionally too long knowing how short my teenage attention spans are?

 

[mjr]

The question is where 'resources' are likely to have the greatest positive outcome. I suspect that advising students to keep an eye on their kit, use proper locks and not leave ground floor windows open is probably a worthwhile investment. Also, this is clearly a project undertaken by the relevant student comms unit - there's no opportunity cost; this is the kind of thing they have to do to learn what they're learning, develop and polish their skills, and ultimately make them employable.

And I suspect that they're not monitoring the size of any outcome and it would have been better for them to learn about being evidence-led. The opportunity cost is the difference between this and the best alternative film that they didn't make, isn't it? If so, how's that's zero?

It looks polished, but seems misguided... but that's sadly typical of lots of public information films now, such as the recent output of "THINK!"

 

[swee'pea99]

And I suspect that they're not monitoring the size of any outcome and it would have been better for them to learn about being evidence-led. The opportunity cost is the difference between this and the best alternative film that they didn't make, isn't it? If so, how's that's zero?

It looks polished, but seems misguided... but that's sadly typical of lots of public information films now, such as the recent output of "THINK!"

We clearly aren't going to see eye to eye on this so, cut!

 

[mjr]

We clearly aren't going to see eye to eye on this so, cut!

Probably not, but I'd still welcome knowing how you worked out "no opportunity cost" because maybe I misunderstand what that term means.

 

[swee'pea99]

The opportunity cost of spending an hour doing a is that you thereby sacrificed the chance to use it for b. In this case, for example, they didn't - in my view - 'waste resources that could have been better employed': they employed their resources in as good a way as they could have been used. To make a really good little film, that employed, honed and demonstrated their skills at scripting, acting, directing etc. Which is just what, as students, they should be doing.

 

[mjr]

OK, it's that we disagree that this was the best possible, not that somehow it was because they were students. Yes, let's leave that there.