About

In its original form, Film Education - A user’s guide was a Mass Open Online Course (MOOC) which was available vie a UK organization called FutureLearn. It was a structured course where learners were expected to start at the beginning and work their way through to the end.

In developing this website which contains the contents of the MOOC, we have attempted to offer educators a variety of different ways of using the contents, depending on their situation and intention of using the materials contained herein.

The contents offer a variety of approaches to film education, based on the experiences of the authors. It is NOT the definitive guide to film education, rather a series of starting points, based on the Framework for Film Education (2014 BFI).

We envisage the contents of this website might be used in the following ways:

  • In service training for teachers in schools.
  • In service training for educators in kindergartens.
  • Personal teacher development.
  • University teacher training courses.
  • Guidance on specific areas of film education.

The website is divided into seven sections:

Defining Film Education
Why should we bother about teaching film? and what are the key concepts that should be studied?

Choosing, watching and talking
The processes of choosing film for classrooms, and how to introduce conversation and learning about film.

Critical approaches - Film analysis
Considering ways and means for bringing film into classrooms, and how to talk about them with children and young people; and how to begin some simple film analysis.

Film making and Film Education
Introducing creative approaches to film.

Film Education in pre-school
Looking at ways of addressing film education in the curriculum, illustrated by a project which involves pre-school children. However, the methodology and conceptual background are applicable across age ranges.

Film Education - a wider view
In this section we will be looking at how film education can take place in a variety of different situations - from festivals to film clubs.

Evaluation and Impact
Looking at the different ways in which we can tell whether an activity, project, or structure has an impact, effect, or benefit.

The contents of each section can be accessed through the 'Section' menu on the top navigation bar. You can progress though each section using the arrows at the end of each page or jump to specific subjects with the secondary dropdown menu.

Key aims of this resource are to:

Explain the core and common rationales behind film education: why teachers and other educators think film education is valuable, and the arguments they use to advocate that value.

Explore the wide range of film education approaches that exist, and how they differ between countries, and between age groups and different sectors.

Identify how different cultures and education systems manage and promote film education, and how they evaluate its impacts and benefits.

Propose and advocate for film education programmes of your own, in your own country or setting.

Demonstrate a strong grasp of the key approaches to teaching about film, and how different skills like film analysis and production mutually enhance and support each other.

Useful website features

Keyword search
There is a search facility so that you can easily find any specific area of interest within the website. Try it here

Notepad
At the bottom of each page is a Notepad area. Here you can write down thoughts, arguments and reflections as you progress through the website. Your notes will be saved to a unique cookie file with options to download, copy or email them to yourself. Please note if you clear your browser cookies you will delete your notes.

Padlet boards
Padlet is a free and secure online-‘bulletin’ board for the course. Please click here to learn how to post to padlet and here to take a guided tour around padlet - it’s as easy as dragging and dropping files from your desktop onto the padlet wall.

Accessibility
Every effort has been made to conform to current Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 and best practice. Web pages are compliant with standard screen reader technology and designed to enable the user to increase or decrease the font size without affecting the page layout and readability.

My Notepad

Use this notepad feature to write down answers and your thoughts to questions posed throughout this resource.

Open Notepad

Use the Tag option to insert the name of this section as a reference before typing your notes.

You can Copy, Download or Email yourself these notes for future reference.

TAG COPY DOWNLOAD EMAIL