An online collection of links, articles and websites relevant to the teaching of Media and Cinema Studies in the 21st Century. Designed with the needs of the contemporary student in mind, this blog is intended to be a resource for teachers and students of the media alike.
Hold on to your hats! Here are 100 tips, tricks, and hacks that you can use on your next project. In filmmaking, we all need a little help along the way, and sometimes, we need that help to come in tiny bite-size portions that pair well with our short attention spans and ability to get the gist of just about anything within seconds. Well in their latest video, The Film Look unfurls 100 tips, tricks, and hacks for filmmakers like little fortune cookies, giving you a ton of short but oh so sweet advice on how to do a myriad of things from labeling batteries to properly handing off expensive equipment. Gorge yourself below:
Now, that's a lot of fortune cookies! There are tons of great pieces of advice in the video, especially for those who are just starting out. I mean, let's get real; when you're a newbie, you want and need to learn everything about the craft. The Film Look covers all phases of production in their video compendium, from screenwriting to editing, so you're definitely going to learn a little bit of everything. And for all of you more experienced folk, maybe most of this stuff was a review for you, but hopefully, you found at least a handful of things in the video that will help you on your next project. What about you? What are your top five filmmaking tips, tricks, and hacks that you've learned over the years? Let us know down in the comments below! Reblogged via No Film School
Ask yourself: What is the subject/purpose/theme of my film? What are some good questions I can ask my interviewees? Why am I conducting these interviews; what do I hope to gain from this? Where do I want to take this film or what do I want to do with it when I'm done? Who do I want to film? Do I want to be on or off camera when I ask the questions?
Watch television or documentary interviews.
Try to find films or television shows that have a similar subject to yours or that offer a style you hope to imitate.
Ask yourself these questions when viewing: How is the interviewer asking their questions? Where is the interviewee looking when answering the questions? Where is the camera's focus? Where is the light hitting on the subject's face? How close or tight is the camera shot? At what angle is the camera pointed and what angle is the interviewee sitting in relationship to the camera?
Prepare your interview questions. Have at least 10 to 20 good questions prepared, and be prepared to ask more on the fly. Be prepared to stray from the questions you have written down; your interviewee might offer information that you weren't expecting taking you in an entirely different, yet more interesting, direction. Start with topical questions that will make your subject feel at ease; e.g., "What is your name?" "Where are you from?" These kinds of questions are easy for the interviewee to answer, which will help them to feel comfortable. Save the hard questions for the tail end of the interview. A person tends to forget the purpose of the questioning and becomes more comfortable talking with you in front of a camera after about ten minutes.
Find willing participants. The biggest fear of anyone that agrees to be on camera, is that the person interviewing them will make them look like a fool. Be upfront with your interviewee with what you are doing and why you're doing it. It is imperative that your subjects are okay with you asking them questions and comfortable with the idea of a camera being pointed at them. If they're not, you will have a resistant person and the interview will be difficult. Some people will want a list of the questions before they agree to do the interview. They would not be what you would call an open-minded or willing participant. Think of them as apprehensive and consider asking someone more agreeable.
Filming the Interview
Have the set ready. Your interview location and background are as important as the interview. Know if you want the set to play a role and shape the tone of the interview, or if you want the subject to pop out from the plain or dark background. Let the interview subject know you are not wasting their time. Have a place for your subject to sit and all the lighting in place at least 15 minutes prior to their arrival. Adjust the lighting based on your subject's height and what they're wearing. Place the camera where you want it to be before they arrive. Plan to adjust the height of the tripod and the camera settings once your subject is in place. Have the camera on and be ready to shoot before the subject arrives. Be prepared for last minute changes. Rarely do things go precisely according to plan in the business of filmmaking.
Follow the rules for camera and subject placement. Know the rule of thirds. Place your subject's face on one of the axis points; i.e., where the vertical and horizontal lines intersect - also in red in the picture. Film the interview subject straight on or at an angle (45 degrees is ideal). Filming straight on requires that you place the interviewee in the left third or right third of the camera's screen. Have the interview subject speak directly to the person asking the questions, not directly into the camera. Sit near the camera (within 45 degrees), but not behind the camera, when asking questions.
Be comfortable interviewing. Relax. If you're relaxed, you will put your interview subject at ease and they will relax. Be confident. If you're prepared with your questions and you arrive early to the set, there's no reason to feel uncomfortable. You can do this, it just takes practice. This calm confidence will be silently communicated to your interview subject, and things should go well.
Ask open-ended questions. Ask thought-provoking questions that cause the interviewee to pause and contemplate an authentic response. These are contemplation centred questions as opposed to content centred questions. For example, ask: What do you like/dislike about driving a car? What have you learned about driving over the years? Rather than: What is the purpose of the gas pedal? The last question leads the interviewee to your desired answer rather than letting them contemplate a personal response.
Listen actively to your subject. Ask your subject a question, then listen to the answer. Pay close attention to the content of what they are saying, the context in which they are saying it, and what their face, body, voice, and eyes are really saying to you. Notice if they are uncomfortable with the question, and find out why without forcing the issue. Nod with your head and focus your eyesight to acknowledge you are listening. Insert the occasional, "Yes", or "Uh-huh". Make sure you don't overlap or interrupt the interviewee. Your voice will be recorded also.
Knowing What to Avoid Avoid a lawsuit. You can be held legally liable for many things such as defamation of character if the subject(s) of your film does not like the way you portray them. Get your interviewee's permission. Get a signed release form from your film subject if you plan on showing this film anywhere other than your home. Ensure you have location permission, too. Get a location release if you are filming in a location that does not belong to you; i.e., you do not own the property. Avoid filming minors. Children under the age of 18 come with parents and a lot more responsibility for the filmmaker. Avoid minors until you are an established filmmaker and more aware of the legalities that come along with this. Avoid filming professional actors, especially union SAG or Equity actors (Screen Actors Guild). Again, until you are an established filmmaker, this is not an area you want to enter into because there are many laws and regulations when working with professional actors and minors or both. Avoid running out of time. Make sure you have plenty of time booked at your location, charge left on your batteries and at least one back up battery, and storage space on your recording media (e.g., SD Card). An interview with one willing participant is likely to run 25-35 minutes, so be prepared. Avoid asking yes or no questions; e.g., "Do you live in San Francisco?" The interviewee will most likely give you one-word responses. Don’t let the subject see any emotion on your face except pleasure. A person on camera is very aware of everything around them. If it is a bad interview, you may need to do another one, but it is more likely that you will find usable pieces of the interview when you head into post-production editing. It may take some people longer to really open up on camera than others.
Fourteen-year-old Isabel Catalan stares intently at her laptop as she walks me through a recent assignment one sunny morning a few weeks before summer vacation. The studious eighth grader and I are sitting in a tiny, colourful classroom at Norwood-Fontbonne Academy, a small private elementary school in the tree-lined Philadelphia suburbs, which also happens to be my Alma mater.
In most ways, Norwood feels a lot like I left it nearly 20 years ago. Catalan wears the same plaid kilt and golf shirt combo that I did, and lugs her books from class to class in the same blue canvas tote we used to call our "daily bags." In the hallway I pass my old social studies teacher, who’s been working here for almost half a century. On a bookshelf in Catalan’s classroom, I spot a roughed up copy of The Face on the Milk Carton that I’m almost certain I checked out from the library sometime around 1999.But in other ways—important ways—the school is radically different. The clunky desktops and overhead projectors have given way to flatscreens and laptops in every classroom. And while back then Microsoft Encarta was our main research tool, today Norwood students have a world of information—and misinformation—ever at their fingertips.
Which brings us to Catalan’s assignment. On the screen in front of her is a viral tweet written by one TrumpsterMarty: "Muslims were already banned from the United States! 1952 US LAW! RETWEET." It comes with a screenshot describing the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which barred immigration by anyone who seeks to overthrow the government "by force, violence, or other unlawful means."
Image by Issie Lapowsky
"This, by its very definition, rules out Islamic immigration to the United States," the screengrab reads.
Catalan, who wears her pin-straight brown hair brushed all the way down her back, pauses for a beat. “This one, I had to think about,” she says. Then she talks it through. "I looked at who posted it: TrumpsterMarty," she says. "The person who posted this wanted you to retweet it. It just doesn’t sound accurate."
She decides the post is fiction, and Checkology, the online platform she’s showing me, tells her she’s right. Checkology is the latest creation of the News Literacy Project, a non-profit founded by former Los Angeles Times reporter Alan Miller. Since 2009, the tiny eight-person non-profit has been working one on one with schools to craft a curriculum that teaches students how to be more savvy news consumers. Last year, in an effort to scale its impact, the team bundled those courses into an online portal called Checkology, and almost instantly, demand for the platform spiked.
“Fake news is nothing new, and its impact on the national conversation is nothing new, but public awareness is very high right now,” says Peter Adams, who leads educational initiatives for News Literacy Project. Now, Checkology is being used by some 6,300 public and private school teachers serving 947,000 students in all 50 states and 52 countries.
Norwood began using the program in March following one of the most frenetic elections in American history. Inspired by the avalanche of "alternative facts" and fake news they were seeing in their own social media feeds, teachers Lindsey Sachs and Shannon Craige decided to launch a four month-long course in teaching students to sift fact from fiction online.
Checkology
"News has shifted so much. Everyone can be a reporter now," says Sachs, the school’s technology teacher. "It’s about them realising you can’t take everything at face value."
The platform offers lessons on the First Amendment, the difference between branded content and news, and how to distinguish between viral rumours—political and otherwise—and reported facts. Teachers help the kids understand sourcing, bias, transparency, and journalistic ethics. The platform also includes interviews with working journalists such as Matea Gold at The Washington Post, who help put a face to the boogeyman that has become known as "the media."
"This is no longer something that if we have time to expose children to, that would be great," says Michelle Ciulla Lipkin, executive director of the National Association for Media Literacy Education. "This is a crisis situation. We do not teach our students enough about what they need to understand about the world they live in." Checkology, she says, is one important tool helping to change that.
Infograzers
On the day I returned to my Alma mater, the students were categorising online posts as news, entertainment, propaganda, publicity, advertising, raw information, or opinion. As Craige stood by, 13-year-old Catherine Aaron, an 8th grader already dressed in her softball uniform for that day's game, puzzled over a headline from the left-leaning outlet Daily Beast. It read, "And Then They Came for Big Bird: Public Broadcasting Reels From Trump’s Plan to Destroy It." The sub-headline continued, "Next on President Trump’s hit list: public broadcasting. His plan to de-fund it will have a decimating effect on access to nuanced journalism and educational TV." Aaron had a hunch this was the author's opinion. "What makes you think that?" Craige prompted the 8th grader.
"The language of it is more of an opinion," Aaron says. "Decimating. Destroying." Sophie Giovonnone, 14, isn't so sure. She thinks it might be working as publicity for Democrats, "because it could cause some conflict" for Trump.
I ask Giovonnone whether she knows what the Daily Beast is. She doesn't. In fact, most of the students say that outside of class, they rarely encounter much news online at all. Only one student in the whole class uses Twitter. No one even has a Facebook account. Their social media lives consist mainly of Instagram and Snapchat, one of the few platforms that still meticulously curates what news is and isn't allowed in its Discover feature. (WIRED recently joined Discover.)
For a moment, I think, maybe the fact that these students aren't using Facebook or Twitter is a promising sign. Maybe the very nature of the platforms this generation is growing up with will shield it from the internet's onslaught of misinformation. But Adams stops me short. Kids today, he says, are "infograzers." Without realising it, the memes they share and and viral videos they watch each day are telling them stories about the world they live in—not all of them true.
"What counts as news has broadened for this generation," he says. "Unless they learn to flag content and figure out why something might not be sound evidence, it sticks with them." And even if they're not skimming social media, it's become second nature to them to whip out their smartphones and Google the answers to any questions they don't know. Tools like Checkology encourage them to dig deeper than the first headline that turns up.
As they get older, the spectrum of online sources they use will broaden even further, and that's when these skills will matter most, says Ciulla Lipkin. "When we were growing up some of the work we’re doing in school might not have seemed relevant at the time, but it’s teaching students skills they need for the future," she says. "It gets students to practice asking questions." Or, as Sachs puts it, "We're arming them before they hit the battle."
The question is—as it is for all school subjects—will that practice stick as students grow up and technology evolves? The company is currently crunching the numbers on its first quantitative survey that measures how students' understanding of the topic changes from the beginning of the course to the end.
Catalan, Aaron, Giovannone, and the rest of the 8th grade class walked away from Norwood on Monday for the last time. This fall, they'll head off for high school. If by some chance they return to this place 20 years down the road, as I did, they will no doubt find that the world of communication has changed even more drastically since they sat in these very seats. Now, as the country continues to fight over the fundamental definition of truth, it falls to educators across the country to prepare their students for whatever mayhem those changes may bring."
An incoming high school principal has resigned after the school's student reporters investigated and raised questions about her credentials. The Booster Redux, the student-run newspaper at Pittsburg High School in Kansas in the United States, started researching Amy Robertson after she was hired. Their research uncovered revelations about Corllins University, the institution Ms Robertson said she received her master's and doctoral degrees from. When the students tried to look up the university, the website did not work and they were not able to find evidence Corllins was an accredited institution."There were some things that just didn't add up," student Connor Balthazor told the Washington Post.
Ms Robertson, who currently works with an education consulting firm in Dubai, told the Kansas City Star she received her degrees in 1994 and 2010 with "no issue" before the university lost accreditation. She said all three of her degrees were "authenticated by the US Government". She declined to comment on questions posed by the students about her credentials because "their concerns are not based on facts". The Pittsburg School Board accepted Ms Robertson's resignation, saying she felt the decision was "in the best interest of the district ... in light of the issues that arose".
'They weren't out to get anyone to resign'
Superintendent Destry Brown praised the student reporters' work.
"I appreciate that our kids ask questions and don't just accept something because somebody told them," he said.
Mr Brown said questions were also being asked internally within his office, but that the students' public reporting "probably speeded that process". He said the district, which does not typically ask for official transcripts until after a hiring decision has been made, will likely change its vetting process. The school's journalism adviser, Emily Smith, said she was "very proud" of her students. "They were not out to get anyone to resign or to get anyone fired," she said. "They worked very hard to uncover the truth." ABC/AP
Most students can’t tell the difference between real news articles and sponsored content, according to a study from Stanford University, raising concerns over how young people consume online media. As The Wall Street Journal reports, the study is the largest to date on how young people evaluate online media, involving 7,804 students from middle school to college. It will be published on Tuesday.
According to the study, 82 percent of students could not distinguish between a sponsored post and an actual news article on the same website. Nearly 70 percent of middle schoolers thought they had no reason to distrust a sponsored finance article written by the CEO of a bank, and many students evaluate the trustworthiness of tweets based on their level of detail and the size of attached photos, according to the Journal.
The US presidential election has sparked a debate over how Facebook and other web companies treat fake news articles, which some have blamed for spreading misinformation ahead of the vote. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said the company is working on systems to limit the spread of false information, and Google will ban fake news sites from its lucrative ad network.
But the Stanford study suggests that students still struggle to evaluate the credibility of online sources, making it difficult to sift through more subtle forms of misinformation such as advertising and sponsored posts. Schools have begun offering more media literacy courses, the Journal reports, but they also have fewer librarians to help teach basic research skills. Stanford professor and lead author Sam Wineburg tells the Journal that students should learn to cross-check the legitimacy of websites using other sources and to not always equate a site’s high Google search rankings with accuracy.
The familiar narrative of teens and technology is one of natural proficiency — that young people just get technology in a way that older generations don't. But research suggests that just because children feel at home using smartphones, it doesn't mean they're more aware of the nuances of how the web works. In a new report published by the UK's telecoms watchdog Ofcom, researchers found that only a third of young people aged 12 to 15 knew which search results on Google were adverts, while this figure was even lower — less than one in five — for children aged 8 to 11. "The internet allows children to learn, discover different points of view and stay connected with friends and family," Ofcom's director of research, James Thickett, told the Financial Times. "But these digital natives still need help to develop the know-how they need to navigate the online world." 31 percent of 12- to 15-year-olds couldn't identify the ads in Google's search results In the tests carried out by Ofcom earlier this year, children were shown screenshots of Google search results for the term "trainers" and asked whether the results at the top of the page were either a) ads, b) the most relevant results, or c) the most popular results. Despite the fact that these topmost search results were outlined in an orange box and labelled with the word "Ad," they were not recognised as such by 31 percent of 12- to 15-year-olds and 16 percent of 8- to 11-year-olds. Other tests showed that one in five 12- to 15-year-olds (19 percent) believed that if a search engine listed particular information then it must be true, while just under half of all children (46 percent) could say for sure that Google itself was funded by ads. More young people preferred youtube to TV for the first time This lack of awareness of the role of advertisers in the web's ecosystem was also noticeable when it came to young people and YouTube. Ofcom's researchers found that for the first time since they had conducted the annual survey, more 12 to 15-year-olds said they preferred watching YouTube over traditional TV than the other way round. Additional, more than half (53 percent) of those surveyed in this same age group were unaware that vloggers might be paid to endorse certain products. For organisations worried about the relatively unregulated world of online content these findings aren't good news. Earlier this year, for example, several US consumer watchdog groups filed a complaint to the FTC claiming that Google's YouTube Kids app blurs the lines between ads and original content. And in the UK, the Advertising Standards Authority has even banned videos on YouTube that were not clearly advertised as paid-for content. (The videos in questions featured a "Lick Race" challenge to lick the filling off an Oreo. Some of the UK's most prominent YouTube stars participated, with the videos paid for by Oreo makers Mondelez.) Although Ofcom's research only examined children's awareness of advertising with regards to Google and YouTube, other social networks — including Instagram and Twitter — have also been criticised for letting paid-for promotions slip under the radar. Instagram is especially well known for its often unofficial celebrity endorsements of products like weight loss teas and teeth-whitening oil. In the US, the FTC says that any commercial relationship between a brand and an endorser online must be "clearly and conspicuously" disclosed, but as Ofcom's tests show, children often do not recognise ads, even when they're clearly labelled as such. [via The Verge]
The BBC-commissioned report comes just over a year after former Countryfile presenter Miriam O’Reilly won her landmark ageism case against the BBC. Photograph: Rex Features
The survey of viewers and industry experts found that more than 40% of young people were dissatisfied with the way they were portrayed on screen.
Younger viewers complained that they were stereotyped as being "disrespectful" and living "unproductive and vacuous lives".
Older viewers also thought they tended to be stereotyped on television, but of more concern was the lack of middle-aged and older women on the small screen.
"There was a particular and strong concern voiced about the lack of middle-aged and older female representation on television," said the report.
"This view was expressed by both men and women of all ages but was much more ardently voiced by middle-aged and older women who believed that a person develops a 'face for radio' at a certain point in their middle years."
More than a third of women over 55 said there were too few of them on television.
The negative portrayal of older people revolved around the perceived incapacity of old people and "perceptions about a reluctance to move with the times and tendency to moan", said the report.
Viewers accused the media of being "insulting" and "out of step" with the ageing society.
"There is some concern about the way different ages are sometimes at best presented as slightly humorous but exaggerated caricatures and at worst as negative stereotypes," concluded the report.
It said the audience would "welcome more middle- and older-aged women on television providing positive role models and greater genderequality".
The research was commissioned by the BBC on behalf of the Creative Diversity Network, a forum of UK media organisations set up to improve diversity across the industry and chaired by BBC director general Mark Thompson.
It followed O'Reilly's high-profile tribunal victory in January last year.
The report, called Serving All Ages and carried out by independent social research institute NatCen, interviewed 180 participants, aged from 13 to 92, as well as industry experts.
It investigated how people felt they were portrayed in relation to their age in the media as a whole, including TV, radio and the internet.
I recently stumbled across this website after seeing Stephan Schultz give a lecture on Why Sound Matters on YouTube [click here to view his lecture in 5 parts]. In it he mentions his project "Sound Librarian" a great, free sound library for schools and amateurs. Below is the text from their Home page. Please check it out, it is an amazing body of work, a great resource and the result of a passion for helping students to learn how to utilise sound.
Welcome to Sound Library a free online audio resource centre with over 17,000 high resolution sound effects. Sound library also includes tutorials, equipment reviews and a blog that spans five years and three continents.
My goal is to create a large online audio resource centre that is beneficial to all users from students and amateur users to casual professional users and large studios with a regular need for high quality material. By offering the entire library free in its download format as well as offering DVD sets for purchase I can provide a high quality resource for students and casual users to access free, while professionals gain instant access to the complete library for well below the average cost of high quality professional sounds.
There are two main motivations for creating Sound Library in this way,
Firstly I am tired of living in a world where people produce poor quality goods and services and still charge top dollar for them. I am proud of the work I do and I will stand by its quality. I will always make all the content I record available at its highest quality free to download. It is completely impossible to protect digital data from piracy anyway so rather than waste time and effort trying to prevent the unpreventable I would rather spend my time creating useful assets that people can use. If someone wants to access digital data without paying for it they will, if however they feel they are getting good service and a good quality product I believe most people will appreciate the value of that service.
The second reason for Sound Library is to create the kind of resource that didn’t exist when I was studying. I want to create a large, useful, high res sound library for students, teachers or anyone interested in audio design. The site will continue to grow regularly with more sounds (at least 100 a week), new tutorials, gear reviews, journal entries as well as exhibits, video journals and projects logs. I would like to create a community around the site that can be a useful educational resource for audio for film, TV, radio, games and media production.
This is what I do, and this is what I love doing. Sound and music recording, design and creation are my passion and if you are not doing something you are passionate about then you may be wasting your life. I have created Sound Library to give people the tools and some of the knowledge to help them create their own audio material. Sound Library is available for everyone, both amateur and professional to access and use in project production.
Eighty students at Prairiewood High School in Sydney's south-west have been suspended for illegally accessing a teacher's internet account. A statement from the New South Wales Education Minister says the students logged into the teacher's departmental computer account to access sites like Facebook and Twitter, which students are not allowed to view from their own accounts.
The statement says no illegal, pornographic or student record material was accessed, but police were called. The 80 students have been suspended for four days. They will have to attend a meeting where they will be warned by police about the criminality of accessing computer material without authorisation. All Prairiewood High School teachers have now changed their computer passwords and have been reminded about following appropriate IT security measures.
A NSW school whose students participated in a Facebook site used for cyber-bullying has threatened to expel students under 13 who are using the social networking site. In an email to parents the principal of Northern Beaches Christian School, Stephen Harris, warned that students registered on Facebook and under the social network's age limit of 13 would have their enrolment reviewed. Either children had lied about their age or their parents had helped them join Facebook, he said. ''Let me be very clear - it is an immense parenting mistake to allow for either to happen,'' Mr Harris wrote in the email sent on Tuesday.
Yesterday the Heraldreported that thousands of Sydney students from various schools had joined websites on which teenagers had been subjected to malicious sexual slander and cyber-bullying. The Christian school's general manager, Alan Schultz, said yesterday that conversations on sites such as Facebook could ''become an Animal Farm-style environment''.
''It's just complete anarchy and so open then for bullying and all sorts of negative things to happen,'' he said. Having a child's enrolment reviewed was a ''last resort'', Mr Schultz said.
The Education Department has arranged for police to run a cyber-bullying workshop at a school attended by recent victims. The department also admitted that one of the schools whose students were bullied in the sexual slander postings had received a complaint from a parent earlier this month, but the email was deleted. The principal of the school said on Thursday she had not received complaints of cyber-bullying until contacted by the Herald. But the department conceded yesterday that a clerical officer at the school did recall receiving emails addressed to the school's email account that referred to Facebook. ''As such emails are often spam or contain viruses, these were deleted, without being read,'' a department spokesman said.
The father of a victim of the bullying has threatened to report administrators of the sexual slander pages to police if they do not remove the content. The father, who did not wish to be named, said he had sent emails to his child's school and others with students involved on June 16 but had received no reply.
Cory Doctorow, has a great Ted Talk in which he gives an inspired and radical solution to the lack of privacy on the internet. To begin, he notes that Facebook, as just one example, doesn’t just allow, but incites disclosure by rewarding it, but only intermittently (a la B.F. Skinner and the Skinner box).
Meanwhile, parents try to protect children from disclosure and exposure with surveillance tools that block and report content. This, Doctorow argues provocatively, only trains kids to accept surveillance as normal and unproblematic. Instead of spying on our kids, he suggests, we should be teaching them to manipulate and avert involuntary disclosure, such that they grow up learning to question instead of accept the use and abuse of their personal information.
A 12-year-old boy has worn a skirt to school in protest against ''discriminatory'' rules which ban boys from wearing shorts.
Impington Village College pupil Chris Whitehead wears a skirt in protest at his school's policy of making boys wear long trousers in the summerPhoto: SWNS
8:53AM BST 10 May 2011
Chris Whitehead wore a girls' knee-length skirt to classes at Impington Village College, near Cambridge, Cambs.
He is protesting against a school uniform policy which bans boys from wearing shorts during the summer months.
He also addressed 1,368 pupils at morning assembly wearing the black skirt, which boys are permitted to wear due to a loophole in the policy.
Chris believes that forcing boys to wear long trousers during the sizzling summer months affects concentration and their ability to learn.
He said: ''In the summer girl students are allowed to wear skirts but boys are not allowed to wear shorts.
''We think that this discriminates against boys. I will march in a skirt with other boys waving banners and making a lot of noise.
''I will be wearing the skirt at school all day in protest at the uniform policy and addressing the assembly with the student council, wearing a skirt.''
Teachers at Impington Village College imposed a ban on boys' shorts two years ago following consultation with parents and teachers.
But when aspiring politician Chris joined the school he was outraged by the policy and pledged to overturn the ban.
The year 8 pupil marched to school through Impington alongside half a dozen pupils waving banners.
Chris's mum Liz Whitehead, 50, has praised her son for standing up for ''what he believes in''.
She said: ''I am delighted that Chris is taking action on what he believes in, which the school actually encourages, so he is only doing what he is taught.
''I am really proud he is brave enough to wear a skirt to school for what he believes in and back him all the way.''
Headteacher Robert Campbell said the ban on shorts was imposed following consultation with students, teachers and parents in 2009.
He said: ''Our uniform policy had a significant consultation and ours is typical of most schools in Cambridgeshire and the consensus was we were going to go for that.
''The issue creeps up during the summer months.
''Ultimately the boys can wear a skirt to school because it doesn't say they can't in the uniform policy and we would be discriminating against them if we did not allow it.
''Chris is a very bright and articulate student and we have got a very strong student council. He is one of only two year 8 pupils on it.
''I know he wants to go into politics and has got strong principles - so maybe Parliament is not the best place for him.''
Screengrab from Sean Bonner. But this is not a joke! In a company blog post today, Yahoo reported that two-thirds of people searching for "Who is Osama Bin Laden?" today were teenagers. Yes, that's right, a non-insignificant number of teenagers in America do not know who Osama bin Laden is.
According to Yahoo!, The Top Searched Questions on Osama bin Laden are (based on Sunday, 5/1):
1. Is Osama bin Laden dead? 2. How did Osama bin Laden die? 3. Who killed Osama bin Laden? 4. How old is Osama bin Laden 5. Who is Osama bin Laden 6. Where was Osama bin Laden killed? 7. Is Osama bin Laden dead or alive? 8. How tall is Osama bin Laden?
News of Osama bin Laden's death seemed to have struck a chord with younger folks who grew up during the war on terrorism. - On Yahoo!, 1 in 3 searches for "how did osama bin laden die" on Sunday were from teens ages 13-17. - According to Yahoo!, 40% of searches on Sunday for "who killed osama bin laden" were from people ages 13-20. - However, it seems teens ages 13-17 were seeking more information as they made up 66% of searches for "who is osama bin laden?"
VICTORIAN teenagers are ignorant of the legal pitfalls of using social media - such as posting explicit photographs of themselves or others online - and only 1 per cent would ask an adult for advice about dangers online, a study has found.
A Monash University-led study of more than 1000 year 7 to 10 students at 17 Victorian schools found social media was almost universal: 95 per cent of students used at least one social networking site and six in 10 updated their profile at least once a day. And 72 per cent had received unpleasant or unwanted contact from strangers via their online profiles.
But the study, Teenagers, Legal Risks and Social Networking Sites, found students were often blase about online dangers, with almost 30 per cent believing sites such as Facebook were risk-free. Parents and teachers also had little awareness of the ''potentially serious consequences'' young people faced, such as stalking, identity theft and harassment. Of concern was the prevalence of teenagers posting explicit photos of themselves or others online, the study found, citing the case of the 17-year-old girl who released nude photos of two St Kilda footballers on Facebook. Doing so could breach laws of privacy, confidentiality, defamation and copyright.
Children sending and receiving sexually explicit images on mobile phones - ''sexting'' - are also potentially liable under child pornography laws. The focus on cyber bullying had overshadowed the need to educate young people against breaking laws about privacy, copyright, defamation and distribution of offensive material, the study found. Students were ''really not aware of what the legal risks are'', said co-author Melissa de Zwart, associate professor of law at the University of Adelaide. ''Kids are taught at primary school that you don't walk into the toilet when someone is in there. Now nobody actually teaches them at any point in the classroom that posting really unpleasant photos of a friend is not appropriate; those social norms have to be learnt as well.''
Although nearly half the students were aware of some risk in using social networking sites, 28 per cent considered such sites safe and one in five felt any risk was irrelevant because social networking was ''what everyone does''. Although sites offered social and educational benefits, young people failed to understand the ''significant legal implications'' of their actions online. Many admitted posting third-party content: 26 per cent said they shared music online and 38 per cent shared videos, potentially breaking copyright laws. Less than 14 per cent were concerned about security risks such as identity theft.
Michael Henderson, a senior lecturer in education at Monash University, said students also needed to learn about the risks to reputations created by posting personal material online. The study, which will be released tomorrow, calls for ''cyber-safety'' lessons to be incorporated in school curriculums. ''Every school would have some sort of approach to social networking use, but what we are seeing is there is no concerted, clear effort across schools in this regard - partly because they don't know how to approach these issues,'' Dr Henderson said. Victorian Privacy Commissioner Helen Versey supported the call for cyber-safety education, saying young people were ''putting themselves at risk of running foul of the law''.
Former schoolteacher Mike Phillips, a co-author of the Monash study, said it was difficult to keep pace with digital technologies. His son Riley, 14, uses social networking sites such as Skype and Steam, a multiplayer games site, about five times a week. ''Even though I trust my son, it's when information gets online and falls into the hands of friends of friends that you tend to lose control - and that's a real concern,'' he said. Riley, a year 8 student, said he was careful online. ''With Skype video calls, I never show or do anything inappropriate because they could be recording and I'm very careful with my passwords because there's people out there who can hack into your account.''
Last week police charged a 17-year-old schoolboy with harassment in Sydney for allegedly hijacking a girl's Facebook page and posting an open invitation to her 16th birthday party, which drew more than 200,000 replies. The Victorian Council of School Organisations, which represents more than 500 school councils, said there was a need for a state-wide program on safe, respectful use of online networks.
The rise of digital music resulted from the convergence of different forms of technology. First, the development of MP3s which allows the average song to be compressed down to approximately three megabytes. This enabled files to easily be distributed over increasingly fast broadband networks. The development of peer to peer file sharing software - such as Napster and Kazaa - meant that users could share their digital music files easily across networks. The decreasing cost of computers and the introduction of portable MP3 players like the iPod drove consumer interest in this new format of music. These developments have had implications beyond the music industry, leading to the rise of podcasting and the creation of new copyright movements.
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