Last month I AROUSED the videomaking interests of 25 Norwegian science graduate students at University of Tromso with our three day videomaking workshop. They, in turn, FULFILLED my hopes and dreams by doing the best job ever of producing 5 one minute videos in just 48 hours of effort. And now they are doing the magical third part — actually FOLLOWING THROUGH with their newly aroused interests by keeping the flame going after I’ve left.

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DOESN’T GET MUCH BETTER THAN THIS. I have to post this video again. I really can’t get over the motivation level of the Norwegian students. While doing our videomaking workshop they had a friend shoot “the making of” footage, then after I left they put it together into this amazing video. That’s never happened before in the 8 previous runnings of this workshop in the U.S.

LIGHTING BRAIN FIRES

In the beginning, as an “educator” (blah, what a foul tasting term) you hope to light fires in minds. But then, over the years, as you see how hard it is, you eventually let go of that crazy notion and just hope you can do something that the students will at least not hate.

At Scripps we have definitely lit some fires in minds with our videomaking workshop over the past 6 years. A number of students have gone on to produce their own videos as part of their science work, or gone entirely into video production. For pretty much all of them the workshop was their first experience with making videos. So we’ve seen some flames ignite.

But what’s happened in Norway has turned into a bonfire. Yesterday the students copied me on yet another email about their on-going meetings with administrators at the University of Tromso. They’re locking in funds for further workshops, courses and films. I’m too swamped right now to follow the details (just back from Puerto Rico where we had a great “Video Analysis” workshop at the Aquatic Sciences Meeting), but I can see from the level of activity there’s no sign of the fires subsiding.

What more can you ask for.