Moving Images in the Classroom. A Secondary teachers’ guide to using Film and Television.

Author: British Film Institute (bfi)
Source: http://www.bfi.org.uk [15.06.2004]

Abstract

Why moving images matter The moving image is a shared and vital global language. Educators are aware of the power of the moving image, whether delivered through cinemas, broadcast, video or online; but throughout the 20th century attitudes differed towards its place in schools. This guide is intended to help build a secure place for the moving image in 21st century education. Critical understanding of film, video and television is becoming an integral part of literacy, and the spread of digital technologies means that the ability to make and manipulate moving images will become an ever more important skill. Moving images are also important in their own right as a valuable part of our culture. Pupils need access to the history and worldwide range of the moving image’s achievements in order to recognise what moving images can do, and to encourage their creative ambitions. Education professionals know that the lives of young people are informed and animated by the moving image. From early childhood, we live in a world saturated by audio-visual texts. Children spend more time with moving images than they do with school work, and through this they acquire an enormous amount of knowledge and experience which some teachers are learning to access and develop. These teachers enthusiastically argue that the ability to analyse a moving image text sharpens pupils’ responses to literature and can increase their reading and writing skills. Film and television versions of literary texts or historical events entice further reading and study. In schools which encourage creative moving image work, teachers in many subject areas, including Mathematics, Geography and Science, have seen its value. Pupils can document and communicate their learning in moving images: assembling and selecting evidence, and using digital technology to present an argument or construct a hypothesis. The moving image can often be more appropriate than written texts or still images as a way of presenting ideas or processes, and for some children it offers new ways of succeeding.

British Film Institute (bfi)

bfi Education, the education team at the British Film Institute develops and provides moving image education for schools, colleges and life-long learning, in order to broaden access to moving image media, and raise standards of teaching and learning about them. They organise events, publish resources, offer in-service teacher training, do research and lobby government agencies to encourage appreciation of moving image media and their role in education. For more information go to: www.bfi.org.uk/education

bfi Education publishes a range of resources to support media education throughout the school. Go to http://www.bfi.org.uk/education/resources/ to find out more about these resources.