Social Media Education Film Project

April 10, 2025

Over the past 10 months, our Education Officer Lesley delivered a social media education project, funded by Screen Scotland, with a group of learners at Paisley Grammar School.

The project gave learners the opportunity to explore and critically analyse online media, helping them question algorithms and debunk online disinformation.

It was created to allow a group of S5 and S6 learners the ability to critically analyse the media they consume, provide tools to teach them how to read and process information effectively, and teach them film production skills at the same time.

Learners were given a brief to create a film for project coursework that aims to educate young people about how prejudice and disinformation arise online and on social media. Throughout the project, they participated in a series of educational workshops covering a range of topics, then had to translate their learnings to short films of 5-10 minutes, aimed at an audience of their peers.

The project launched with the ‘Experts Day’. This comprised a series of workshops where professionals shared their expertise to educate the young people on different areas they could build upon when making their films.

Dr Navan Govender, Lecturer (SFHEA): Applied Language and Literacy Studies from Strathclyde Institute of Education, Zander Murray, ex-professional footballer and social media influencer, and Ash Toner-Maxwell, Police Scotland, discussed topics including critical literacy, online hate, and navigating social media.

Daniel Hughes, filmmaker and project mentor, delivered a workshop called ‘The Skill of Short Filmmaking’, which showed the learners the different approaches they could take to sharing their stories through film.

It was a pleasure to work with Screen Scotland and Paisley Grammar, promoting both Film Education and the critical literacy skills learners need to navigate the spread of disinformation online.

Working with specialists in their field is invaluable for learners and I feel very privileged to have had a rich cast of experts onboard for this project. The learners surpassed my expectations, creating nuanced films that made the audience think and respect their voices. They were outstanding in the panel discussion, showing a depth of knowledge gained about filmmaking and critical media readings.

Lesley Eadie Education Officer

The project continued with weekly timetabled classes in school, to assist the learners in storyboarding, storytelling, film techniques and editing.

During the project, the young people also had a day at Sky Arts Academy, where they created news reports based on the subjects they were considering for their films and were able to record and edit these using the Sky Arts Studios.

As the entire project was built around the learners being able to create these films using iPads, they also spent the day at Apple Glasgow, where the Apple team gave them tutorials on photo and video techniques, creating sound with GarageBand, and editing with iMovie.

At the end of the project, the young people had created two short films which were premiered in Paisley Arts Centre for friends, family and their teachers.

The films, which focused on homophobic bullying and online misogyny, were shown and followed by a panel discussion hosted by Lesley with the young people, where the audience members could ask questions and the young people could share their experience of the project and the reasons behind the films they made.

This project embodies the future of education—where students take charge of their own learning, collaborating with experts and professionals to tackle real-world challenges that deeply affect their lives.

I'm incredibly proud of what the young people have learned and created, but what truly stands out is the individuals they've become. This experience has been as transformative for them as it has been for me. The growth, creativity, and resilience they've shown has been nothing short of inspiring.

Kim Reid Teacher & In-School Project Lead in Paisley Grammar School

The evening showcased how much the young people had learned through the duration of the project and allowed them to celebrate their learning with their friends and family.

We have recently launched the Digital Discourse Initiative Professional Learning which provides teachers with support, tools and resources to help counter the effects of online hate. The course can be completed by teachers and school staff in Scotland through digitaldiscourse.scot.

More information on this and all of our professional learning can be found on our Teachers page and further information on all of our Secondary school resources can be found here.