Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Video for Dealing with Sensitive Issues

I've just been checking out TrueTube, which is an impressive UK based site aimed at teens + and which deals with a wide range of sensitive social issues.

The site allows users to upload and edit their own videos which tell their own stories.
The site describes itself like this;

"Anorexia, poverty, depression, sex and crime are but a few of the social issues you’ll find on TrueTube. There are hundreds of real stories, voices from the “man in the street” and “expert” interviews, all brought together to highlight different angles to the issues at hand. Many videos and animations are made by us; others come to us from all over the world. TrueTube doesn’t judge, we don’t take sides and we certainly don’t think we have THE answers. We just want to give you food for thought."


There's a really impressive collection of videos and advice on how to use them. I really enjoyed this one Young British Muslims and Ramadan's joys and struggles.


The website also has an 'Action' section with Masterclass, which has videos showing how to create and edit your own videos for the site. Choose your cause, which has people talking about different causes and Start a revolution, which has people talking about how they got involved in campaigns.

The content is all authentic and has some great examples of various regional UK accents. Dealing with these kinds of topics in class can be very difficult, but having this kind of content as a way in can be very useful. Just getting students to look at the Choose your cause section and asking them which of the causes they most sympathise with could be a useful way to get started.

To upload or comment on video you have to be a registered user, but registration is reasonably painless and once you register you are also able to download video from the site to use in class with out an Internet connection etc.

I hope you find this content useful.

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Nik Peachey

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