French Primary – Live Lesson for Languages

The new Discovery projection kit for Live Lesson for Languages and other outreach screenings in schools took place on Monday at Edzell Primary School, Edzell, in Angus, that beautiful region of Scotland sustaining a firm reputation for being a ‘hub’ of Moving Image Education success. The specially purchased kit (macbook and new digital projector with portable PA system) made possible an interactive MFL lesson that was well received by around 70 pupils and their teachers from Maisondieu (P6 and P7) Stracathro (P7) and Edzell (P5, P6 and P7) primary schools.

Lynne Jones, Modern Language Primary tutor based at Murrayfield PS, Bathgate, used call and response technique for delivery of dialogue and simple interactive games to highlight key vocabulary from topic relative to all three films (food, animals and parts of the body) to get pupils moving around and really engaging in the experience in addition to viewing the three short animated films.

The pupils were noticeably responsive and critically tuned in to the opportunity and I am convinced I could relate the success of it to the long term effect of the Brechin MIE project and its subsequent rollout by Angus Education Director Jim Anderson. Although I’d be first to own up to being biased about the MIE project having been around it all along to see the effect, Edzell DH Sheena Farquar and Angus ML Language Tutor Suzanne Milne agreed they would at least partly attribute pupil confidence and positive approach to learning to the use of MIE in Angus schools, using 21^st Century literacy skills to deliver the outcomes of the new curriculum.

The 4 year project is soon to have its last stage Gala event at Brechin Town Hall on 24 and 25^th June. I will be there frock and all to congratulate project leader Andrew Gallagher on 4 years fine work and significant achievement and look forward to viewing some great new work by young people in Angus for this year’s Discovery Festival competition and in the years to come.

Live Lesson Tutor Lynne has also received a Certificate of Professional Recognition for Fully Qualified Teachers in Modern Languages (Primary) issued by the General Teaching Council for Scotland in recognition of her work with film for Discovery in developing the Live Lesson short films (German Secondary as well as French Primary) resources and delivering the Live Lesson for Languages.

Do get in touch with me joe.hall@dca.org.uk

if you would like to give it a try at your school, or a venue near you, for just a small fee for the tutor. (we provide and arrange the rest) See details of all the resources on the Discovery Festival website.

JH

I have discovered many new facts and rediscovered many colleagues and friends of old from the ECFA ‘family’ a term coined by NFI moderator Ivar Kohn. Discovery, it turns out has evolved to work with school audiences independently and unknowingly sharing many of the practices utilised by Ale Kino Director, Jerzy Moskowitz. Which is encouraging , as Ale Kino Festival, Poznan, Poland, has been around since 1969 and under Jerzy’s directorship have doubled their schools audience to 7,000. In view that there are 250 schools in the Ale Kino Festival catchment region, and Discovery has only a fraction of that, our 3.5 thousand Festival audience last year after just five years all of a sudden sounds like more of an achievement than I had realised. The efficient and attractive (very important for teachers) presentation by Jerzy bullet pointing all their best practice points has been the day’s highlight, bolstered by frequent references to good things going on in Scotland via the new curriculum by Dr Mel Gibson http://www.dr-mel-comics.co.uk re graphic novels and the manga anime genre as a really great way in to multi modal learning. We will be seeing Dr Mel in Dundee before long as she has given me all sorts of ideas for Discovery 09 programme. She is the best kind of educationalist, with a real passion for her field.  

The only slight disappointment was the still vague sense of our EU godfathers not quite catching up with the huge and complex needs of our large and complex ECFA family of festivals, film institutes, distributors and educationalists.  Media representative Niels was charming and his presentation very well executed. Just nothing really there to satisfy the appetite of the ECFA membership, who share a real need to get schools understanding the value of film as the magnificent teaching resource that it can be. At the ECFA conference we heard many ideas how to effect this common goal.

Here are my notes from the presentation of Norwegian Niels B Bekkhus – Assistant programme manager MEDIA European Media Literacy speaking about his contribution in writing up the EU approach to media literacy in a digital environment, published end of 2007.

Consulting with a Media Literacy expert group from across member states and backgrounds. There is also a Digital Literacy group. Niels suggested they should perhaps merge. The consultation process was found to be both quantitatively and qualitatively successful. Basically, they came up with the 3C’s that we have in the UK already (opportunities to Create, Cultural access and Critical skills) Good practice examples – Film X (DFI) and FIS (Film in School, IADT, Dublin)

If you haven’t already devoured the policy objectives – http://ec.europa.eu/avpolicy/media_literacy/ec_com/index_en.htm 

Finally the big breakthrough was unveiled. At a recent Slovenain summit it was agreed that they think that there might potentially be the possible move forward towards an opportunity to discuss the planning of the next stage of the implementation of the process through which funding might be possible, potentially. 

We have a little longer to wait but essentially sustenance is on the way, I guess. JH

Thank you to everyone who came along, contributed and made it a really useful day, according to what has been fed back electronically and verbally. You can read a great piece about one of our speakers, teacher and Scottish Screen Lead Practitioner, Athole McLaughlan, on Ewan McIntosh’s  edu.bog.com. from the Glenrothes meeting.  I am gingerly entering the world of blogging with the help of Adam Seddon, Education Development Manager at Scottish Screen. Just spent a good hour reading Ewan’s fascinating posts and now have at least a sense of the kind of pyschological shift (upgrade?) I’m going to have to undertake to get up to speed…So for a start, here are the summary notes of the collective points made in the breakout discussion groups that day. No suprises and at least a few good ideas, we will have to accept that is the nature of bringing together such an unwieldy alliance of practices and agendas, but I think everyone got a sense of direction at least, last Wednesday, which was encouraging ? Patience will be required until we really see the MiEast network fulfilling its potential – and action -  I will be meeting with the Stirling Creative Links team soon to discuss a format for MiEast 4, I urge you to get in touch to help us design the next meeting.

Remarks from all 4 groups are matched under issue headings. Don’t dwell too much on the barriers, as there’s plenty of salient points and a list of actions at the end of the document to enable everyone who attended to make something move forward in your area between now and MiEast 4 in September. (macrobert, Stirling tbc) One important point to keep thinking about meantime, GLOW was discussed in context of having potential to solve many of the issues of communication and publishing MiE projects. Harnessing the amazing potential to support learning via mie is just one of the very exciting prospects.

Here’s what we found;

Key Barriers Time in the classroom.Teachers don’t have time to play. Probationers don’t have the freedom to learn and explore, take risks. Secondary schools – subject silos prohibitive.  Understanding what MiE is. A clear understanding of what MIE is and how it enables delivering the new curriculum. All four groups made this point. Cost Funding viewed as an issue, MiE perceived as expensive for stand alone projects. Provision varies greatly between LA’s, schools.  Kit and supporting technology Kit often inadequate, Network issues, Attitudes, IT Development support – Fear  Sharing best practice Red tape involved in publishing via councils. No network, clear pathways of progression, Heavy reliance on key individuals. 

Factors for current success; Trust in CPD trainers and relevance, Critical skills key, start by viewing, More accessible than teachers might think – start with analysing short film in the classroom (critical) and simple software packages intro to technology; ie photostory, crazyface, comic life.Teachers need opportunities to share enthusiasm, Head Teacher support, SMT input (funding, encouragement, profile Mi projects) Publishing media (Pupils have the opportunity to share outside leads to parent education.) 

Wish list for future success; 

• Need strategic thinking across 3 levels with lead people responsible in school, SMT and LA levels. (Regional, Education Management and in schools)
• Initial teacher training
• A development plan for each school, cluster and LEA
• Clear roles for cultural cinema venues and Arts Dev in strategic development.
• Accreditation and Assessment
• Networks to share best practice (Regional, Education Management and in schools)
• Embedding in practice at all levels.
• Time in the classroom.
• A model of progression from Early Years to HE and FE
• Influencing attitudes at strategy level, EIS, LTS, GTCS, SQA HMIE.

 Sustainability; The Angus Model in summary; 

• Management led
• High Profile External Evaluation
• Time – 4 years development
• Enthusiastic Staff
• Peer Support
• Team Teaching
• Children demonstrating learning
• Secondary and Primary teaching exchange
• Progression

  Actions MiEast 3; Do something today  

Go through Athole’s resource list and find out about something new today, the links are below.

Can you contribute to your LA ICT network having creative MIE input, e.g. suggest team teaching and peer support ? Meet them and invite one of the Lead Practitioners along ?

Run cross curricular CPD in simple approaches to multi modal literacy, e.g.Work on all staff using Digital Blue with confidence.

Go into a secondary school and get them team teaching.

Continue to work on Senior Education Managers in your LA to develop MiE.

Set up an MiE blog (This would be a start, then ?)

Contact Scottish Screen for resources and run a cross regional SMT/HT MiE course for 2009. Joe Hall

Web links are on a google doc herehttp://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcw237wh_22dmfwzhgp

And PowerPoint can be viewed and downloaded from here… http://www.slideshare.net/crazyAP/get-the-image-moving/

This movie is going to be screened at Filmhouse in Edinburgh and GFT in Glasgow in the coming months as part of the Discovery Festival tour. There’s a few more potential screenings in discussion, with Art and Theatre Trust, Fife, The Robert Burns Centre, Dumfries and Eden Court in Inverness. Dundee Education Development Services are funding a new updated resource to go with the film.  There was one written for the Festival, that is still currently downloadable (Promethean Software for use with interactive whiteboards).  The resource was themed ‘sharing cultures’ and designed for use with 3 of our films from the Discovery programme. Would love to hear if anyone has or will use it. I have the rights for this film until Oct 08, so if you have a space to screen (DVD or Beta SP) and a willing young audience and want to know more just let me know. Two teachers from Dundee will be developing the new resource further to explore the cultural issues in the story more in depth, funded by Margaret Foley, Dundee literacy QIO and the Discovery Festival’s best friend. The resource is planned to be finished for presentation at our teacher training CPD session for mie, taking place April 22 at DCA, Dundee.  This is just one session in the CPD programme for 13 March to 29 April, and Margaret will also be presenting the delights of our mie core resource boxes currently available in Dundee Primary Schools at this session. All the CPD programme and more info will be on the Discovery Festival website soon.  Am working on all the update now, as well as the programme for 08.

The sequel – Where is Winky’s Horse – is just as wonderful as the first film, but I understand London Film Festival are going to invite it there so our young Winky fans will have to wait till Discovery Festival 09 to see it. Unless I find a way.