Media teaching

From: JEFFREY PAULL (email suppressed)
Date: Thu Mar 19 2009 - 04:29:39 PDT


Mind that the teaching does not focus on the tech.
If these are elementary school-middle school age kids, they need to learn
stuff like (not all in one media course, obviously)
   - how to really SEE, and USE the frame,
   - how to make ideas visual, what to show and how to show, and why,
   - how to shape those ideas so they are clear and coherent,
   - musical aspects of media: rhythm, beat, mood, movies as visual music
   - animation + non-narrative / alternative possibilities
   - how to tell a story visually,
   -how to use media to make a report or do an assignment
       (in ways that don't shift the learning over to using the media rather than expressing worthwhile ideas)
   - the principles of caring about your craft,
   - patience and practice,
   - the importance of planning, thinking, feeling
   - how they are being manipulated by visual popular culture,
   - how to "question" images - what images "mean" and how this works,
   - about why we have both images and text and how we think in each,
   - Integrate their media knowledge so it extends to their other learning
      INSTEAD OF KEEPING MEDIA AS IT'S OWN SEPARATE WORLD.
   - the importance of

Electronic gegaws are no more appropriate than giving kids
30 colours of markers to teach them how to write well.

In other words, the teacher should develop (over time, probably)
a coherent philosophy of why media workshops really might be a good idea,
what of lasting significance can the students carry away from this learning,
how might media workshops be used to question their visual culture,

stuff like that.

FCPro?
How about Prada ipods, too?

Jeffrey Paull

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For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.