Moving Image Education

Throughout my placements so far, I have not had the opportunity to see moving image education (MIE) being used in the classroom and so before researching it did not fully understand what it really was. 
However I now know that  the term "moving image education refers to learning and teaching practices which develop moving image media literacy." (Moving image Education no page given). These practices involve analysing moving image text, creating them, exploring,  appreciating and sharing them and being able to make judgements about them. This can all be shown through the 3 C's of media literacy which are creative, cultural and critical. Many people believe that the 3 C's  overlap each other as one whole and help to support the development of each other rather than each one being a separate learning experience.


In relation to A Curriculum for Excellence Scottish Screen (2009 no page) believe that "Moving Image Education (MIE) – the analysis, creation and appreciation of film texts – can and does provide many broad opportunities for pupils to develop within the four capacities of A Curriclum of Excellence." I agree with this as I feel that the use of MIE motivates the children and it gives the children opportunies to work in groups, allows them to give their own opinions about the different aspects of the moving images including character, sound and setting and learn to respect others opinions. It will also allow the children to communicate in different ways and in different settings. Therefore MIE will help to develop the children in to successful learners, confident individuals, effective contributers and responsible citizens.


In reflection I now believe that MIE has a definite place within the classroom as children are exposed to  moving images from an early age through watching cartoons, films and adverts and it is a large part of our culture. Within the classroom it is possible to use films as a stimuli for creative writing or allowing the class to write, film and edit a short film. This was something thatmy group and I did last week about the Discovery ship in Dundee. I realised by doing this the different cross-curricular areas that can be included and that it is definately a way of engaging and motivating children. 


MIE in practice


One way in which MIE can be used in the early years is a through a model that Mairi Flood one of Scottish Screens lead practioners developed. One of examples was the children were firstly given the role of film detectives and they then had to watch various films and discuss and analyse them using the crtieria of colour, camera and character and story, setting and sound. They then used what they had learnt to create their own short clips using photography and sounds. 


To learn more about the different areas that were included in Mairi's model go to:


http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/earlyyearsmatters/m/genericcontent_tcm4453413.asp

References

Creative Scotland (2009) Moving Image Education.

Available online  http://www.movingimageeducation.org/ [Accessed 29/01/12]

Scottish Executive (2006) Moving Image Education and A Curriculum for Excellence.

Available online  

http://www.scottishscreen.com/images/documents/MIE_ACfE_for_ScottishScreen_email.pdf  [Accessed 29/01/12]

Social Media Tools

In our ICT elective yesterday we were discussing social media tools in education and the theory that underpins it. We firstly discussed the different types of social media tools we use for example email, facebook, twitter, skype, google docs etc and whether these were syncronous or asynchronous. Synchronous means that the response is instant for example skype or facebook chat. Within the classroom this could be used to share ideas with the teacher,other memebers of the class or to share videos and photographs. On the other hand asynchronous means that there is a delay in the response and so is not instantenous for example twitter, facebook and email. In the classroom this could be used to support collaborative learning and group work. There are endless possibilites when using social media tools within a school setting. It can give classes the opportunity to communicate with different schools within the UK and further afield. This would allow children to learn about other countries, their cultures and education systems and compare the similarities and differences to their own.


We then began to talk about communties of practice. Wenger(2006) believes that "Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly". Communities of practice are found everywhere and anywhere. I believe that a class is a community of practice as the children are all working together to achieve the same outcome. Teachers also form a community of practice with community, learning and development officers and social workers in realtion to child welfare. This relates to a module I studied during first year called Working Together to Achieve Social Justice.


The people that form communities of practices all bring different personality traits to the group which aid the success of the community. 
This is shown by Belbin's 9 team roles(right).  
It was interesting to discuss these roles in our group 'iCan' and see which roles we all thought we would play. I felt that I would definatly be a team worker as I feel I am a good listener, I enjoy working co-operatively, I like to avoid friction and confrontation and I am an extremely indescisive person. Not all of us knew exactly which role we would take but I am positive that the more we work together throughout this elective, we will find out.


References
http://www.ewenger.com/theory/index.htm

I believe

The Beginning

This is my first blog.