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Children and Sport

June 15-17, 2006
Athens, Ohio
Conference venue: Margaret B. Walter Hall  

The conference considers how African children are represented andunderrepresented in African audio-visual and print media. The sessionswill explore the role of state, private, and NGO owned media institutionsand organizations, and examine their impact on the lives of African children.Educational media, child produced media,media for development purposesare among some of the panel topics. The conference convener is Firdoze Bulbulia,Chairperson of the Children and Broadcasting Foundation for Africa (CBFA), andthe 2007, 5^th World Summit on Media for Children. This conference will be co-sponsored by the Middle States African Studies Association. Papers from scholarly and practitioner perspectives are welcome. The Conference's agenda will also include round tables, workshops, panels, master classes, plenary sessions and exhibitions.  Key themes for papers and workshops include:

• Government policies & programming relating to children’s media
• Comparative regulatory environments
• Children and newspapers, news etc.   
• Violence, children and media
• Children and alternative media
• Children and the Internet
• African children’s books, video games, films etc.
• Media made by African children
• Globalization of children's media
• Children's media rights
• Investing in children's media
• The role of content providers
• HIV/AIDS and its impact on children's media
• South-south partnerships

The expected outcome will include research and production projects designed
to amplify unique children's voices and cultures through media created locally and shared globally.  High quality content is expensive and difficult to develop, especially in countries where resources are limited; this conference will assist producers and academics to pilot ideas and projects that could be presented at the 5th World Summit on Media for Children that will take place in South Africa in 2007.

“Programming for Young Children: Co-Production of Barney and Friends” 9:00 AM—12:00 PM

Mary Ann Dudko, an expert on media programming for children and vice-president of Content Development at HIT Entertainment, will lead this workshop. This workshop will be composed of two sections. The first section will involve a brief overview of child development from birth to age 3, and it will address the question of what makes good programming for a young audience? The second section will address the dynamics of co-producing popular culture in a different culture, utilizing the case study of the South Korea co-production of Barney and Friends. The workshop will last approximately three hours.

“Digital Story-Telling” 9:00 AM —12:00 PM

Bonnie Bracey, a national and global information technology expert and educator, will direct this workshop. This session will give a perspective on global media practices and it will include a discussion about the international digital divide. There are case studies that will be described and shared as a result of work done under the direction of Sarbuland Khan at the United Nations. We will also discuss the Millennium Goals. There will be a PowerPoint presentation giving global perspectives on the use of media and on education. In addition, there will be a discussion of several case studies in the United Nations Task Force Book that show positive practices in media. Other references to global work will be cited. If there is time, we will showcase the African School net and the Global Teenager project. The workshop will last approximately three hours.

“The Sister School Project: Defining Youth Media’s role in Education and Advocacy” 1:00 PM—3:00 PM

Nicole Opper, a filmmaker and media educator with The Hannah Senesh Community Day School of Brooklyn, New York, will instruct this workshop. The accessibility of media production tools has given birth to new forms of expression among youth, as well as powerful opportunities to spark social change. This interactive workshop will present the case study of The Sister School Project, a collaborative effort between a Brooklyn-based school and a Uganda-based school to increase educational opportunities and meet basic needs for its students. The success of the effort led to the creation of an activist video by the Brooklyn middle school youth, who map the challenges and successes of the project and urge for it’s replication on a greater scale. We will consider youth media production as an educational intervention, as a form of activism and advocacy, and as a means of communication. We will discuss its viability within the school setting, and brainstorm on innovative strategies to ensure that such effective media experiences occur on both sides of a Sister School partnership or any similar transnational student-centered collaboration. The workshop will last approximately ninety minutes.

“Animated Media Tools for 21st Century K-12 Education” 3:00 PM—5:00 PM

Clifford Cohen, founder of AnimaAction, will lead this session. This Master class will consist of a hands-on animation workshop and will also include a small presentation of youthproduced animation from around the world. The primary objective is to share knowledge on this subject through de-mystifying animation and media production in the classroom with simple tools, thereby demonstrating how to integrate media literacy lesson plans with various curricula. Class participants will be arranged in groups of 2 - 4 people forming small production teams and will work together throughout the session. Each group will work through every stage of animation production with the goal of producing up to 10-seconds of animation based on a self selected theme. Important stages within the animation process itself, including timing, character development, storyboarding, production, color, and sequencing will be covered. In addition, each participant will be mailed their own DVD of all the animation produced during the workshop. The workshop will last approximately ninety minutes.

“Education, Public Broadcasting and Children’s Media” 3:00 PM —5:00 PM

Michael Cohen, Managing Partner of the Michael Cohen Group, LLC, will lead this workshop. Education within the sphere of media has primarily meant “enrichment,” and public broadcasting has gauged the success of its mission by scope of viewership. Hence, the integration of public broadcasting and formal education is not as seamless or as clear a fit as it might have initially appeared. This presentation will attempt to map the ways in which there is confluence between the agendas of education and public broadcasting, including the points at which conflicts emerge, and the ability to chart the exciting and creative work that is presently being done at these sites of convergence/divergence. With much to share concerning the obstacles faced and lessons learned in the course of the Ready To Learn Partnership’s work in this evershifting landscape of educational intervention and innovation, there is valuable knowledge to be put to use for the benefit of Africa’s children.

For Workshop Credit:

Please be advised that you can receive 1 credit for each workshop that you attend. If you are taking the workshop in the morning, you should be registered for INST 690 A07, Call # 11363. -If you are taking an afternoon course, you should register for INST 690 A01, call # 11257. Both Courses are permission only. *All pink slips will be signed by Acacia Nikoi.
If you are an undergraduate student, you should registrar for TCOM 486 A10, call # 11637. * For specific cases students need to contact the Institute for the African Child before enrolling.

Acacia Nikoi - nikoi@ohio.edu 

Tentative Program
                                          Thursday, June, 15, 2006 (Day 1)