This presentation provides the context for my current PhD research and evaluates the pedagogical possibilities and limitations of Mozilla's Popcorn Maker.

1. Introducing interactive documentary in the
context of Critical Media Education in
Greece
!
Danai Mikelli
Coventry University

2. !
My research examines the use of interactive documentary as a
tool in the hands of Critical Media educators.
!
This paper provides:
1) the framework for my PhD research project and
2) an evaluation of the pedagogical possibilities and limitations
of Mozilla’s Popcorn Maker, a free web application for enhancing
web content.

3. Critical Media Literacy
Pedagogical approach which promotes the use of diverse
types of media to question the roles of media in society. It
provides the basis for a political project for democratic social
change (Kellner, Share 2007).

4. New Media, combined with a transformative critical pedagogy,
can realise the Internet’s potential for democratisation.
(Kellner, Kim 2009)

5. Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Paulo Freire rejected what he
called the “banking” concept of
education, according to which
knowledge is deposited from
one to another.
He suggested a problem-posing
education, which enables
people to overcome their false
perception of reality.

6. Conscientization:
learning to perceive social, political and
economical contradictions and to take action
against the oppressive elements of society.

7. Why Pedagogy of the Oppressed now?

8. The Age of Resistance
New taxes, salary and pension cuts have been imposed on people in
Greece, at the same time when unemployment rates have risen at
25% and youth unemployment stands at 55% (Douzinas, 2013).

10. –Paolo Favero (2013)
Social and political changes in today’s capitalist
societies are aligned with new media practices.

11. Exploring the idea of a New Media Pedagogy
of the Oppressed

12. Open Media at Coventry University
Open Media is the term which captures a series of interconnected principles
that inform the work of the Department of Media.

13. Open Pedagogies
Educational practices aiming to impact and involve a much
broader range of participants in educational communities
and suggest a process of teaching and learning which is
collaborative, media-enabled and expanded.!
(Woodbridge, 2011).

14. Understanding interactive
documentary

15. New Media
The world in 2001 was in the
middle of a New Media
revolution, as all culture shifted
to computer-mediated forms of
production, distribution and
communication (Manovich,
2011).

16. Definitions of interactive documentary
Any documentary that uses interactivity as a core
part of its delivery mechanism (Galloway, Mcalpine
and Harris, 2007).
Interactive online/offline applications, carried out
with the intention of representing reality with their
own mechanisms, including navigation and
interaction modalities, depending on the degree of
participation under consideration (Gifreu, 2011).

17. The potential of interactive documentary as a new
learning system is based on the assumption that it offers
experiences that combine entertainment with a didactic
and/or educational dimension.
Its main advantages are:
• interactivity
• collaborative learning
• multi-directionality
• freedom of dissemination

18. Methods
Action research:
Fieldwork will be carried out in two Secondary schools in Greece.
Students will take part in interactive documentary workshops and work in
groups in order to create their own productions on themes related to their
society.
Data will be collected in the form of:
1) the interactive films themselves
2) video elicitation interviews with the students and
3) my own research diary.

19. The Popcorn Maker:
free, web based software, which allows the creation of
interactive stories without the need of a team of developers

20. Mozilla Web Literacy: We teach the Web

21. Advantages of the
Popcorn Maker:
!
web based
easy to use
accessible
!
Disadvantages of the
Popcorn Maker:
!
limited capability
no undo or autosave
crashed frequently

22. https://haydnthomas.makes.org/popcorn/1rxh

23. Conclusions
Critical Media Education creates opportunities for
teaching and learning in political environments.
!
Mozilla’s Popcorn Maker provides a good platform
for educational purposes and addresses the
democratic promise of Critical Media Education.

24. Danai Mikelli
mikellid@uni.coventry.ac.uk
@danai_mi
Thank you for your attention.