Helen Barnard, currently Deputy Director of Policy and Partnerships at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, has created a Vimeo Channel (an up-market version of YouTube that we like so much we have our own dedicated ShortCutstv Channel) filled with a number of very short films on and around the topics of poverty and welfare.
Most of the films (there are currently around 25+) are less than 45 seconds long – although a couple, such as Poverty and Mental Health, run to between two and five minutes – and consist of Barnard speaking directly into her smartphone.
Although this means the films basically have zero production values – no fancy sets, sounds or graphics – this is actually part of their charm: they’re simply short, pithy, commentaries on key concepts in poverty and welfare delivered by someone who knows what she’s talking about and can speak clearly and confidently to camera.
As such, they’re both ideal as discussion starters and inspirational as lesson content.
Students can, for example, finally be encouraged to use their smartphones constructively in the sociology classroom to create similar levels of content: Gone in 60 Seconds video explainers on a range of key concepts, ideas, methods, theories and perspectives they can share using their preferred media of choice.