Surveillance in Schools

Introduction – Raven Kwan

This project is focusing on surveillance and education, through our video program “Education in today’s world” to understand how CCTV works in Deakin. This educational program is created by our group members – Alyce Brightmore, Amy Thompson, Jordan Dutton and Raven Kwan. Quality educational site requires proper diathesis on both security of school and student discipline, and surveillance is the key to keep practice in this category. However, surveillance is a double-edged sword, depends on how the holder use it to utilize its potential. On security side, it can avoid unfair or crime situation; On discipline side, this may improve student’s efficiency and their discipline of attendant in schools.

The different options considered for the video – Jordan Dutton

The decision on what to focus on within our video was an easy enough decision for our group. We joined a Skype call together to discuss all our different ideas we had for where the video should go. Not only ideas for what the video should be themed about but what kind of video we were going to shoot, whether it would be a film or one episode in a series of potential future videos.

We initially used the document with the potential blog post topics as we believed these topics would work best to base our video off. Initially we each had a different idea for the video but we were all willing to use each other’s idea but we had to narrow it down to one. For this reason, we used the idea of education surveillance and its potential positive aspects and its potential negative aspects, this meant we could all film while we were at university and we all had experiences with surveillance in our schools so it made this the logical choice.

Finally, we had to decide what type of video we were going to do, in the end through another Skype call we decided to do the video as one in a series rather than a film as we thought it gave us more freedom and would just be of a better quality.

The processes undertaken to prepare for and make the video – Amy Thompson

To prepare the video we shared our ideas on Skype while co-authoring a Google document. We made a list of elements we wanted to include in the video, for instance including a reenactment of a theft on campus. As we conferred with each other, the ideas became more fleshed out and we set out the structure of the video and a script. Alyce offered to bring a camera from home to film the video with.

To make the video, we met up on campus for one filming session. Because each member of the group has a busy schedule, we made an effort to work efficiently. Every scene in the video, except for the final goodbye, was filmed as planned in the script. Alyce filmed most of the scenes, unless she appeared in them herself. Because Amy communicates a lot of information, we decided to add voice-overs rather than trying to memorize several lines of text. We filmed Jordan’s scenes as if the audience were watching from Amy’s perspective and vice versa. This makes the voice-overs seem more natural than if Jordan and Amy were both in the shot. As a result, it also gives the effect that Jordan is confiding in the audience, and Amy is reassuring the audience. During the filming, Raven took photographs of CCTV cameras that we used in voice-over sections.

Amy was designated as the editor, having access to Final Cut Pro. We also chose this software because Amy has used it before and because it has an effect that worked well for a clip that was supposed to be CCTV footage. While Amy put the clips together and added voice-overs, Alyce and Jordan collected Creative Commons music to use. Amy added a final clip at the end to wrap up the video and then uploaded it to YouTube. Then it was sent to the group message board on Twitter to be approved by the all of the members as the final product.

The intended meaning or message conveyed in the video – Alyce Brightmore

The intention of our video was too look at surveillance in schools and to educate our audience. We approached this by looking at both the positives and negatives of this topic. We explored different ways in which students and teachers are in being surveyed in educational environments. Overall over key message for this documentary was that surveillance in schools can be very beneficial if done in a correct and just way. We explored this by educating our audience on the topic of surveillance in schools.

This was done by alerting the audience to the rules and regulations surrounding CCTV cameras and where they can go to get further information on the topic. Information was also provided by giving suggestions on ways students can approach this topic with their teachers. Further assistance was provided through teaching the audience that CCTV is not the only form of surveillance within schools. Smaller messages within our documentary included showing support that teachers shouldn’t be over surveyed and that CCTV cameras cannot be placed in unregulated places such as toilets.

Through watching our video we want the audience to feel as though they shouldn’t be afraid of security cameras and that there are avenues to go about checking if their privacy is being breached. We didn’t want the documentary to scare our audience but rather keep them engaged and informed.

Conclusion – Raven Kwan

There are 3 key points in this conclusion. First, through this group assignment we believe that the key point is the force of helping each other, and the need to allocate everyone responsible for the work, also, to make a record and full preparation of information. Second, have a sense of problem. To seek the question of “What, Why, How” of surveillance in school. While the humanities in the discipline, although sometimes it is clear that things can be, but in order to clarify the idea we also need this kind of problem. Third, the procedural of the video should not be too much. Taking into account of issues into to a single video might be good use in a formal way, but are not likely to be a good video. A good video should be like a plant specimen that is placed in a box with limited orderly and clarity. So far, this was a good experience for all of us, although there are some insufficient problem, we all did our best and will be constantly improve ourselves and continue to accumulate experience in the future.

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References:

Education.vic.gov.au 2017, Security Risk Management, accessed 17 September 2017, <www.education.vic.gov.au/school/principals/spag/management/Pages/security.aspx>

Photographs by Raven Kwan, 20 September 2017.

Music:

Whiz Bang by Podington Bear (CC BY-NC 3.0) Cathedral by Xenojam (CC BY 4.0) Drama on the Rocks by Cory Cory (CC BY-NC 3.0)