James Thompson, Special Education; Kenneth W. Fansler, College of Education Dean’s Office
Freshmen as Film-Makers (Thompson - PowerPoint)
Each fall semester an honors section of SED 101: The Exceptional Learner is offered to Illinois State University freshman majoring in Elementary or Special Education. For the past three years, students have created short films for their final projects. Requiring a movie as an end-of-term project for an introductory education course would have seemed bizarre until recent years. The prospect of splicing home movie footage and syncing it with audio from a tape recorder would have been overwhelming, and, even under the best circumstances, the production quality would have been poor. However, times have changed. No longer is student movie-making the sole purview of film school students; all that it takes to create a good film today is access to a computer with multimedia software and a digital movie camera. Teaching future educators how to create films will prepare them for a world where movies are becoming a common means of communication and self-expression. (YouTube reports uploading more than 65,000 films daily). This session will focus on how students were taught and supported while making their films. Sample clips will be shared, along with survey results showing student perceptions of the value of the assignment.
