Use of ICT in Teaching Cinema: Elements of Reflection and Practice in Higher Education

doi:10.4236/ce.2012.326115

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Creative Education

2012. Vol.3, Special Issue, 769-772

Published Online October 2012 in SciRes (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/ce) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ce.2012.326115

Use of ICT in Teaching Cinema: Elements of Reflection

and Practice in Higher Education

Ornella Castiglione1, Massimo Zucchetti2

1University of Turin, Turin, Italy

2Politecnico of Turin, Turin, Italy

Email: [email protected], [email protected]

Received September 11th, 2012; revised October 10th, 2012; accepted October 22nd, 2012

This paper aims to introduce utilities and dangers using ICT in teaching cinema. As digital convergence

offered new opportunities in many fields, it stressed the needs to make some reflections and consequently

to acquire the appropriate skills. We will discuss how cinema and ICT are related in educational contexts

especially when cinema is not the specific topic. Cinema and audiovisual media are always more neces-

sarily invited guests into lessons of various subjects and courses in order to convey messages to the stu-

dents through images. As required by the dynamics of the contemporary. Then the essay introduces a

practical case in which movie has contributed to develop a theme and has helped students to better under-

stand far phenomena from them.

Keywords: Cinema; ICT; Audiovisual Media; Didactics; Images Communication

Introduction

In Italy, cinema as a specific topic is not inserted in the cur-

riculum of any level of school and teachers of the other subjects

not have the appropriate skills to deal with it, although they do

watch movies in the classroom. So, in my opinion, is very im-

portant to face this topic into teachers training courses.

Only starting from this last Reform of secondary school1 will

be included a specific field of study which can be chosen by

students attending the final years of Liceo specializing in artis-

tic studies. Otherwise, a few of technical institutes for graphics

and advertising, which are present only in major cities (as

Roberto Rossellini in Rome or Albe Steiner in Milan and in

Turin, e.g.), have offered so far the opportunity to study audio-

visual language in secondary school. Despite this innovation,

adequate and focused training for teachers still missing. In or-

der to supervise the preparation of teachers, last year regional

offices of the Ministry of Education (2009) have established

standing committees to evaluate the experience of applicant

teachers which could be charged to teach cinema in these par-

ticular types of institutions.

Normally, since the first level of education, cinema at school

is a support to introduce a theme (historical events, adolescence

etc.), othe r subjects (literature, arts, history etc.) or a biography

of a important character. Or in a break … In this case, cinema is

not the object of the analysis but it is a teaching tool. Then,

obviously, we cannot consider this activity such as didactics of

cinema but such as didactics with cinema (Marangi, 2004): this

is crux of the discussion on film in education.

This brief preamble has been inserted here to explain the

background scenario of higher education students when they

matriculate at a humanistic or artistic faculty, where they will

attend curses of cinema.

The function of cinematography in education has been

treated by the philosopher Francesco Orestano since the begin-

ning of last century. During a conference held in Rome, he

showed some examples in order to introduce to the teachers

some proposals for didactical use of the new art, aware of the

impossibility to “esaurire l’inesauribile materia”2 (Orestano,

1914). Orestano has been involved in fascism and his studies

was largely abandoned. But the first organic intervention has

been Il Piano nazionale per la promozione didattica del lin-

guaggio cinematografico e audiovisivo nella scuola3 because it

has involved teachers and students of all levels of school in the

whole nation. This wide project was devised by professor Lino

Micciché and the Third University of Rome—Department of

Communication and Spectacle in 1999. The main idea of the

plan resides in the fact that audiovisual literacy is not only a

pedagogical or social obligation but ethic (Costantino, 2005). In

light of current statements of Media education, the general ap-

proach is to deal with cinema as a medium to insert as an inte-

gral resource for the training interventions in order to promote

critical autonomy of the pupils (Rivoltella, 2001). Later, in the

Twenty-first century, the digital convergence and the diffusion

of web-based tools in learning have highlighted some problems

to consider into didactics of cinema which will be faced into

this essay (De Bernardinis, 2012). Finally, in order to consider

use of cinema in e-learning, we could infer that there are not

many achievements at the moment. Indeed, e-learning is often a

didactical modality used by adults and especially teachers in

in-service training and cinema is not a topic inserted at school.

We can only assert the existence of some isolated experiments.

Use of ICT: Utilities and Dangers

First of all, we wish to explicit to colleagues how we define

2Exhaust the inexhaustible subject.

3The National Plan for the promotion of didactics of cinematographic

and audiovisual language at school.

1See the guidelines at: http://www.istruzione.it/web/hub/riforma_istru-

zione

O. CASTIGLIONE, M. ZUCCHETTI

ICT: the set of methods and technologies to receive and trans-

mit information and contents; in this case with teaching pur-

poses.

Due to the digital convergence, we believe that even in edu-

cation a kind of revolution is being achieved. Thus, innovative

and versatile digital support into didactics of cinema led to two

general results:

 different didactical materials (texts, videos, pictures, etc.)

can be directly uploaded in platforms and can be shared by

teachers and students. In this case there are no more distinc-

tions between video support and reader and other docu-

ments;

 devices to shoot and to make post-production are friendly-

user and low cost, so is possible to produce audiovisual

documents in every school and for every single pupil.

We suggest that this two processes above mentioned could

be considered in order to erase the step between enjoying and

producing audiovisual arts and media. As a new didactics of

cinema aims which its objectives and according to the 2.0 gen-

eration.

Indeed, introduction of web-based tools or digital supports in

learning has brought many benefits, such as:

 multiply opportunities in education modalities;

 enhance creativi ty;

 allow a wider link with daily life;

 enrich educational offer allowing or facilitating learning

especially in lifelong learning. In this case, use of e-learning

matches adults updating and education needs (Garavaglia,

2010).

However, we believe that is important to consider some fixed

points, such as:

 protect contents;

 have strictness in the choice and in the acceptance of the

texts and in the use of the sources;

 do not replace teacher’s role.

As everybody knows, web has exponentially increased the

access to information and contents, thus in cinematographic

fields is easier now to find movies, documentaries and audio-

visual texts through various types of channels: pay tv, e-com-

merce sites, peer-to-peer nets, movies download portals etc.

Indeed those are the channels whereby our university students

build by themselves their cinematographic literacy.

As in the web everyone can be expert without a license, even

cinema pupils can exercise themselves writing a review or

posting a comment. We hope that during History and criticism

of cinema examinations they will have acquired the adequate

competencies not only through the traditional studying on the

books (like all generations of students did until now) but also

through practical experience. Unfortunately, excess of informa-

tion and contents and the ability to publish anything without a

control or without be certain of the sources made possible by

Internet represents a danger for students, especially for who is

not provided by the ability to discern independently. The op-

portunity to “write on the wall” offered by social networks,

blogs, forum and other new media (Menarini, 2012) in audio-

visual field has been translated in posting each type of footage,

scenes and sequences on virtual places like YouTube. Some-

times they are reassembled or cut with personal graphic effects.

We infer that consequences are from one side that students use

like training material inappropriate sources and from the other

side that they think they may say and write in a informal Regis-

ter, expressing themselves without a scientific foundation as in

an academic context would be required.

According to the second point above mentioned, it is easy

confuse cinema, namely “the production of films as an art or

industry” as defined on Oxford Dictionaries, with other types of

audiovisual product (videogames, television, mobile applica-

tions, advertising etc.) enjoyed in individual contexts (home-

video, pc, mobile phones and other devices etc.). Feature of

cinema is to be a mass-media production with collective

projection, artistic value and social relevance. Therefore mov-

ing images or texts suitable for screen are not necessary cinema,

even if the same support or the same device can be used (Fig-

ure 1).

We would like to stress this point because, since the begin-

ning, cinema had to fight to be considered an art. Afterwards, it

owned a heritage, some theories and a specific codified lan-

guage (a grammar, as someone said) but in Italy, for example,

only in the Seventies, with the transformation of the universi-

ties in mass-university, there were the first chairs of Film his-

tory unrelated to those of Aesthetics or other disciplines (Aris-

tarco, 1991). Only in 1987 the course of History and criticism

of cinema given in higher education has been introduced at

Lincei Academy of Rome, one of the most ancient European

cultural institutio ns (http://it.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Guido_Aristarco).

Despite the scientific recognition of the discipline has been

established, cinema in educational context is often treated in

hybridizing options (e.g. cinema and literature, cinema and

visual arts). The paradox resides in diffusion of all the audio-

visual media made possible by digital convergence and ICT

tools and, at the same time, the involution of the cinema to-

wards other kinds of visual representation.

Why Use Cinema in Education?

Cinema is a category of our present. Understanding movie

framework is a way to exercise ourselves to understand life

occurrences. Cinema is a constitutive and not optional element

of our contemporary culture (De Bernardinis, 2012). But nev-

ertheless new generations use to learn about life through the

screen, they paradoxically are not able to correctly decode an

image because they do not know the audiovisual language and

so they do not possess the keys of interpretation of moving

images. This lack of knowledge is due to the fact that school

fails to provide an adequate preparation, such as film literacy.

CinemaAudiovisual

Didactics OF the cinema

(Movie is the object of the analysis)

We can chose to enjoymovies or to product

movies (or audiovisual)

Obviously, recording something is not

automatically producing an audiovisual

but it is using different kind of document

to communicate

Figure 1.

Recap of main concepts regarding cinema and audiovisual media or

audiovisual texts.

770

O. CASTIGLIONE, M. ZUCCHETTI

Moreover, they cannot distinguish between the various forms of

communication, the tools used to convey them and specific

languages.

In order to set some basic principles and to recapitulate what

has been said, below there will be some statements that corre-

spond to distinct sub-paragraphs:

Cinema Is a Medium

Through a movie an author wants to communicate a message

to the audience. To can efficiently communicate it, the specific

audiovisual language should be known. From one side there is

the shot and from the other side there is the reality. I.e. the part

of exposed film (or of occupied digital support) and all what

happens in front of the camera. Despite the “impression of real-

ity” vaunted by the cinema since its inception and the alleged

“transparency of image”, the two dimensions cannot coincide.

Camera cut out from reality a portion of space for a certain

duration in time: this is the shot, the basic element of film lan-

guage (Costantini, 2005).

The Cinema and the World

The cinema and the world are closely linked but to under-

stand the language of the cinema we need to know that it is

symbolic and world is real (Figure 2).

Besides they are two different complementary faces of an en-

tire sphere. We infer that this model originates from the Ba-

roque period in which the theater and the world were com-

pletely penetrated. They were simulacrum by each other. The

cinema in its primordial form has played the reality, then in-

dulged its natural need to tell and finally has invented own

manipulative strategies to represent reality. The relation be-

tween cinema and society is dual: with the efficient synthesis of

the Italian film theorist Francesco Casetti, we highlight from

one side the ability of cinema to reflect the behavior of the so-

ciety and from the other side its ability to intervene in social

processes, becoming a “social agent”.

Images Communication

The cinema is made by images (24 per second). Since that

images are characterized by many codes (they are polysemic), a

message made by images (or made by moving images) needs

the keys of interpretation to be understood by people (and it

also depends from time and culture). As we know, feature of

images is the immediacy in the communication of the message.

Indeed, since the Twenties many governments used document-

taries to educate the people, especially when they were largely

illiterate and distributed in a vast territory. As asserted by

Wunenburgher, cited by Marangi, no linguistic transcription of

a message can never be as effective as the image. Because vi-

sion is a primary function of human beings (Marangi, 2004).

Finally, please note that interpretation of a movie can never

be final.

Cinema Is Sy mbolic World Is Real

Figure 2.

Complementary colors for the cinema and the world.

The Channel

Since that we live in the digital era, we can use digital sup-

ports to communicate a content. Digital supports allow using

different types of documents (text, pictures, audio, video). We

can also choose different channels (cinema, TV, internet, radio,

etc.) without changing our message. So we can record lessons

or every kind of activities and enjoy it as video format. But to

make a movie is a different project although we can have fun

experimenting in the way that we think best suits our needs.

Finally, in the activity of making a movie at school we can

state that classroom is a group as workers on the set of a movie,

so there are many relations between the cooperative learning

and making a movie.

The Necessarily Invited Guests in Higher

Education

Atoms and Screen: A Pattern

A good example of the use of cinema in higher education is

the following one. In the lass given at Politecnico di Torino

(Italy)4, in the frame of the degree in Nuclear and Energy En-

gineering, called History of Nuclear Energy, an intensive use of

audiovisual means has turned out to be an excellent way to

involve students into the real atmosphere and meaning of the

lass. Besides some classics, like The Atomic Café (Rafferty &

Loader, 1982) (Figure 3) and The day after (Meyer, 1983), a

series of audiovisual documents related to the history of nuclear

energy, and in particular to the making of atomic bomb and

Manhattan Project, have constituted a relevant part of the lass,

and turned out to be the distinctive point that made the students

appreciate that lass as one of the best in the whole offer of

Politecnico.

Some Suggestions

We are well aware of the difficulties in presenting sugges-

tions to teachers working in higher education because they

Figure 3.

Poster of the movie The Atomic Café.

4See: www.polito.it

O. CASTIGLIONE, M. ZUCCHETTI

772

transmit knowledge that have left grow in them for a long time.

What we are glad to do is leaving a little contribute to teachers

who want to use movie in the classroom, sharing some reflec-

tions derived from our experience:

 Know the entire audiovisual document though has been

chosen to project only one sequence;

 Know principal information about the author, the social con-

text and the genesis of the movie;

 Present the movie before the projection, stay into the class-

room during the projection and not lea ve pupils immediately

after the projection;

 Explain clearly the purpose of the vision;

 Since that cinema is content but is also a specific language,

should be clearly explained the object of the vision and the

relation with the topic of the course;

 Be aware of power and feature of images communication.

Conclusion

This young generation is growing up through “like” expres-

sion and copy-and-paste system, so how can we expect to

achieve our didactical aims? Through a traditional way, as we

learned when we was pupils? Personally, we are passionate

about our specific disciplines just through traditional classes

but we believe it would be like to be silent about that twenty

years have passed outside the classroom. Therefore it would be

incoherent. Otherwise we could erase all our experience and

indulge our students to achieve their appreciation, or their

“Like”, according to the “monosyllabic thought” (Menarini,

2012). We maintain that a good practice could be to continue

teaching cinema starting by its history. Indeed, in our western

society approach to all disciplines is diachronic. Thus, cinema

may be inserted in a paradigm. The early or classic cinema

represents a different vision nowadays. In my opinion, in order

to passionate students, it could be more attractive than the pas-

sive acceptance of communication patterns strongly depleted.

Not by chance, film critic Mereghetti highlights on the news-

paper Corriere della sera a return of love for cinema that could

be dissipated due to risks that reside on the web (Mereghetti,

2012).

In conclusion, we should remind that on line or blended di-

dactics are teaching methods, digital devices are tools through

which to receive or insert contents and new media are channels

useful to convey a message. Though digital tools can be related

with an innovative pedagogy because they present a new way to

participate at school (interactivity, ability to present works,

discussion of contents through forums etc.), ICT tools are di-

dactical supports which permit to teachers to manage programs

as all the other aspects of daily life.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the National Agency of European

Lifelong Learning Program and the University of Santiago de

Compostela—Faculty of Education sciences that organized and

hosted the Study visit Towards flexible, innovative and creative

teaching and learning using web-based tools held in June 2012

where we all put the seeds for this discussion.

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