Media and Learning 2013

Educational Radiotelevision (EduTV) organised the MEDEAnet workshop “Developing documentaries in schools” on 5-7 April 2013 in Athens, Greece. The workshop was dedicated at primary and secondary level teachers who already have a prior experience in video production, basic knowledge in ICT, and Web 2.0 tools.

Lead speaker of the workshop was the Film director and Media Educator, Maria Leonida. She focused on methodologies related to documentary, exploring how various tools and resources can be used to enhance creativity in schools and finally understanding how documentary can be a multimodal, effective, informative and expressive medium. During the 3-day workshop the 24 participants learnt about ways to refine their shooting and editing techniques, enhance their creative techniques, focus on methodologies and educational content that could make teaching exciting and attractive to young people.

Sofia Papadimitriou (EduTV, Greece) presented the whole activities of the MEDEAnet project and how to publish and disseminate videos in social media and embed them in learning environments.

In addition, two successful webinars were held on Saturday and Sunday morning, exchanging experiences of creating videos with other European teachers. Sally Reynolds (ATiT, Belgium) first presented the history of MEDEA Awards and the experience of teachers’ training in media and the challenges that are emerged. In particular, Annamaria Lisotti (Italy) talked about the recordings of Science experiments in the classroom with her pupils and Anca Irimina (Romania) presented the use of video in a vocational school of Romania and her relevant experience. An active discussion was developed after their presentations, providing a good opportunity for the participants to ask questions about best practices of using the video in classroom settings.

Petros Michailidis, the winner of MEDEA Awards in the category “User-Generated Educational Media” last year, presented via Skype the ways he creates videos with his pupils and how he integrates this process in the curriculum.

The French website 1jour1actu - Des outils pour mieux comprendre l'info contains hundreds of contents (articles, videos, activities, dossiers, games, interactive sheets) on many different topics, ranging from Art, Literature, History, Biology, Science, to media literacy, sport, actualities.
The contents are aimed at the use in primary education classrooms. Each content is composed by attractive images, clear and short texts and a list of related contents for further deepening.
The teacher section provides them with “The highlights of the week”, files to download for the use in the classroom and an overview of the news and activities of the week.

This guide book provides its readers with the ideas, methods, and critical understanding to support successful documentary making.

Considering what it means today to be a documentary filmmaker and the new technologies and forms of documentary that are emerging, this book helps the aspiring ‘total filmmaker’ understand the contemporary contexts for production, equipping you also with the understanding of creativity and visual storytelling you’ll need to excel. Bridging the gap between the theory and practice, it outlines the contemporary institutional, practical and financial contexts for production, always encouraging innovation and originality.

It gives an overview from the creative thinking process over production to financing and distribution, provides practical case studies support analysis and reflection, exercises, checklists, interviews with professionals and further reading materials that accompany each chapter. A historical overview of world documentary is also available.

Ce site web recence un certain nombre de web documentaires typiques avec une description des caractéristiques de certains web documentaires.
Ce site web peut être utilisé pour découvrir ce qu'est un webdocumentaire mais aussi comme un site où l'on peut facilement retrouver une liste importante de webdocumentaires .

Curation of typical web documentaries .
Website used for the MEDEA 2020 French workshop during the online training before the face to face workshop(Design and use a web documentary as a learning resource )
Collection de web docs typiques
Utilisé lors de la formation en ligne précédant l'atelier français de MEDEA 2020 sur la conception et l'usage de webdocs utilisés comme uen ressource pédagogique

Documentary Guide’s founders claim this repository to be one of the largest OPEN SEARCH platforms for curated documentaries and films from around the globe available freely on the Internet for educational purposes. The content is curated from anthropological, geographical and social issue based perspectives. This resource enables film makers, educators and students to access to video-based content for research, awareness, and academic purpose. On this platform visitors can explore all kinds of content from extremely popular and well known to rarely seen. The content is very valuable when it comes to learning about a region, culture, event, issue or other aspects such as science, consciousness or environment.
Documentaries are the most influential form of content and can have sustaining visual and emotional impact. Documentary Guide is conceived to provide the widest collection of documentary films from around the World Wide Web. It is one of the few CURATED search engines on the Internet. Its founders have researched and indexed thousands of films, hundreds of sites and numerous databases from around the globe. All items are organised, tagged and curated for education and general public use. This platform is intended for film makers, researchers, filmgoers, students, educators and all individuals who like to learn.
Documentary Guide already has tens of thousands of films, festivals and schools indexed for research and education purpose, claiming to be one of largest databases of its kind on the Internet.
Documentary Guide is a non-commercial initiative that believes in the use of the visual medium as the core method since it appeals to every gender, race, and individual, irrespective of age or education.

The UNESCO Audiovisual E-Platform is an online catalogue for independent producers and broadcasters providing access to video material from all over the developing world. It currently contains over 650 productions from more than 85 countries and also contains some really interesting programmes (short fiction films, documentaries and TV magazines).

The Greek programme “Green Energy” is an educational documentary created in 2008 by the Educational RadioTelevision of the Greek Ministry of Education about renewable sources of energy.
It is available on TV, DVD and the Internet and it highlights the types of “green energy” that can substitute petroleum and petrolic byproducts in Mediterranean countries are demonstrated in an educational Centre of Renewable Sources of Energy. Pupils of secondary schools can view this documentary as part of their environment education, but teachers can of course use the video continuously in other lessons and throughout the year.

By viewing this documentary and discussing it in class, pupils can:
- get to know the types of green energy (solar energy, wind energy, geothermic energy and biomass)
- learn how they are utilized
- realize the environmental, economical and social consequences in modern societies
- promote green energy as a shield to climate changes.

A detailed English description of the project is also available in the Showcase on the MEDEA Awards website: http://www.medea-awards.com/showcase/the-green-energy

"A virtual home for science communicators

Launched in the spring of 2005, AthenaWeb is a video portal and workspace for European audiovisual communication professionals in the areas of science and scientific information. Contributors and users of the service include institutions, universities, labs, corporations, not-for-profit organisations, and of course the television and film industry (broadcasters, journalists, documentary makers, producers, people who commission TV programming, etc.).

AthenaWeb is 100% backed by the European Commission’s Research Directorate-General and is run by the science communications agency LAB TO MEDIA."

Editorial note 3 August 2011: Athenaweb seized its functions from 31 July 2011 onwards, the website is currently still accessible, but we cannot predict for how long. It is unsure at this point what will happen to the resources.

NATURE Online is the Web companion to a broadcast series where visitors can stream full episodes of NATURE programs, watch behind-the-scenes videos with filmmakers and producers (also available at iTunes), view program excerpts (also available on YouTube), and find fun interactive content, teacher lesson plans, and more. The videos are segmented, tagged and provided with user comments.

Thirteen has a separate tab "For Educators" where it collects its educational materials available free of charge to the elementary and middle school teachers in America. These include a Teacher’s Guide, classroom poster, DVD of select NATURE episodes, and take-home activities. A NATURE comic book for children ages 10 to 12, also free, is distributed through retail outlets, education centers and museums nationwide, including the American Museum of Natural History.