In Retrospect: Filming Through the Ages (LS-GR-262)
This Learning Scenario aims to help students learn about the use of the Europeana platform so as to develop their inquiry skills while searching to find information about the history of cinema through the use of various tools.
Kinetoscope, cinematograph, camera obscura, Chinese shadows, etc. serve to highlight important moments of the cinema evolution, enhancing communication, collaboration and critical thinking.
The history of cinema
This learning scenario is organized around the history of cinema and in particular the cameras, movie posters and their evolution over time.
After discussing the ways in which people have been trying to convey information and messages through images since ancient times, students visit Europeana and start a journey through the history of cinema, using photos of the first cameras, a video with camera sounds and movie posters. Through this flashback, they learn about the role that cinema played and continues to play in people’s lives as a new technique of movement recording and visualization and as a means of transmitting messages and entertainment.
Europeana and Erasmus+
The activities of this scenario will be part of an Erasmus + & eTwinning project activities entitled CIAK! Cinema International Animations and Kids, in which students from 6 countries, including Greece, are invited to perform.
Concluding the activities, students play a millionaire quiz game to test their knowledge of what they learned, assess their collaborative work using a questionnaire and present their work to the whole class as well as to their partners through the project platform.
Conclusion
The implementation of this learning scenario made students feel excited while learning about cinema’s first tools and, furthermore, about the history of cinema and its evolution over the years.
The most interesting part for them was the fact that during the exploration, they learned about Europeana and what it offers to students. Studying at the school computer lab to create presentations about the topic, and collaborating to give life to a simple photo camera, a phenakistoscope, a thaumatrope and movie posters, they highlighted that:
“team work means sharing opinions, working together, helping each other”
Studying the history of cinema through the use of Europeana or several foreign links didn’t discourage them as they asked for help from the teacher. They even wrote related comments while filling in the evaluation questionnaire:
“My best memory is when my team finished the project in two languages”, “When we were studying cinema tools and history of movies”.
Would you like to know more about this learning scenario? You can download it below:
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CC BY 2.5: the featured image used to illustrate this article has been found on Europeana Collections and has been provided by Tekniska museet.