The input this week focused on movie making and making use of the iMovie Application (App). The learning intention was to make a movie and this App makes doing so an enjoyable experience. The purpose of the movie was to promote Internet Safety. Beauchamp states “Most primary schools will have in place a policy regarding e-safety, but they are likely to reflect official policies and perhaps not the reality of pupils’ lives…” (Beauchamp, 2012, p.58). Social Media platforms such as SnapChat, Facebook or Instagram offer abilities to chat, and have settings allowing profiles to be public. The platforms have age restrictions and as a Student teacher I would always advocate adhering to these, however Beauchamp’s suggestion is relevant; it would be naive to think that children (underage) are not accessing one, some or all the social media platforms available. Therefore, the importance of advocating Internet Safety remains prevalent.
In 2014, 14-year-old Breck Bednar was murdered after meeting Lewis Daynes in an online Gaming Room. Initially Breck thought Daynes was just another ‘Gamer’. In fact: Daynes was a troubled man with a previous history of sexually deviant behavior. (theguardian.com, 2016). Had Breck been more aware of the dangers of meeting someone who had met online, his story may have had a different outcome. Breck thought that he knew Daynes as they had been chatting for so long.
One of the benefits of using the iMovie App was that it made achieving the Experiences and Outcomes (E’s & O’s) set out in the Curriculum for Excellence achievable. This one lesson had the benefit of meeting numerous E’s & O’s and selecting these in advance helped the group plan for the task. Although I worked as part of a team, we are all asked to consider areas where our iMovie would deliver appropriate teaching. Linking our film to the curriculum for excellence, I have found that we have met the following:
I understand that there are people I can talk to and that there are a number of ways in which I can gain access to practical and emotional support to help me and others in a range of circumstances. HWB 1-03a
I can show my understanding of what I listen to or watch by responding to and asking different kinds of questions. LIT 1-07a
I can create, capture and manipulate sounds, text and images to communicate experiences, ideas and information in creative and engaging ways. TCH 1-04b
(Scottish Government, 2008)
The iMovie App is user friendly and allows for the insertion of multimodality making it a really engaging tool. Matt Jarvis suggests that iMovie “can get a bit fiddly” (Jarvis, 2015, p.80). I did not find this to be the case and found; to make the movie engaging and effective it was worth the “fiddling” and one quickly got used to the “fiddling”. Another consideration is, although it may require a little effort to put together the iMovie will remain part of a teachers’ arsenal for future students.
The iMovie planning sheets were also a useful tool and helped us organize our thoughts to make relevant clips. One of the multimodal effects we used was to insert a screen recording of a “text conversation” made on my iPhone. This added a sense of reality to our video which we had otherwise kept light-hearted.
The movie can be used as an effective tool to introduce the concept of Internet Safety, it can be used to initiate a class discussion and as a starting point for students to create their own video on the subject. “The most successful schools… in terms of e-safety ensured that pupils knew what to do when things went wrong” (Beauchamp, 2012, p.60). The aim is not to stop children from enjoying the benefits of Social Media, rather to assist them to make sensible choices and ensure that children know how to remain safe online. iMovie is a good tool to do this.
Pictures showing our plan, our filming and our use of the App to make our movie.
References:
Beauchamp, G (2017) Computing and ICT in the Primary School From Pedagogy to Practice 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
Jarvis, M (2015) Brilliant Ideas for using ICT in the Classroom London: Routledge.
LaFave (2016) I couldn’t save my child from being killed by an online predator The Guardian [online] Available: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jan/23/breck-bednar-murder-online-grooming-gaming-lorin-lafave [Accessed 19 February 2018].
Scottish Government (2008) The Curriculum for Excellence [Online] http://www.education.gov.scot/Documents/all-experiences-and-outcomes.pdf [Accessed 12 February 2018]
