Film Education for Primary-School Pupils: Gamification and Interactive Storytelling as an Educational Approach to Raise Awareness of Design Structures in Feature Films.

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Title:	Film Education for Primary-School Pupils: Gamification and Interactive Storytelling as an Educational Approach to Raise Awareness of Design Structures in Feature Films.
Authors:	Friess, Regina¹ Regina.friess@hs-furtwangen.de, Blessing, Anke¹ a.blessing@hs-furtwangen.de, Winter, Johannes¹ expdub@googlemail.com, Zöckler, Meike¹ meike.zoeckler@hs-furtwangen.de
Source:	Proceedings of the European Conference on Games Based Learning. 2015, Vol. 1, p780-784. 5p.
Subject Terms:	Primary school curriculum, Educational objectives, Educational games, Activity programs in education, Motion pictures
Abstract:	Theoretical Considerations: As the pervasiveness of media usage in the everyday lives of primary school pupils is constantly increasing, supporting the development of media literacy within pupils should be considered as an important educational goal. However, in the real world, the strategy in primary schools seems to be to lock out media usage altogether in order to avoid trouble. The educational techniques behind media literacy, especially in respect to feature films, are very often reduced to providing an interpretational understanding of the story or knowledge about the production process. We argue that even for younger pupils, the reflection of design components and aesthetical structures is also relevant. In a more and more media driven society, processes of identity formation are increasingly attached to individual's media consumption and his or her social embedding. As Mikos (2000) points out, this process creates the phenomenon that the social relationships of younger generations depend to a high degree on aesthetic criteria. Therefore, aesthetic competence is an important requirement for one's ability to reflect on individual lifestyles. Gamification and Interactive Storytelling as a Pedagogical Concept: s aesthetic reflection is a highly subjective matter, the pedagogical methodology has to focus on creating individual experiences. In order to foster the perception of formal structures and raise awareness of different design qualities, we consider a pragmatic approach for the general structure, which encourages experimental exploration and creative activities (Joas 1988, Kerres/Witt 2002). Additionally, we pursue a gamification concept in the sense of meaningful gamification, as described by Nicholson. He focuses on an understanding of gamification which enables playful participation and is based on the freedom of exploration. This creates the possibility of making meaningful decisions enabled by an informational context, which engages people through social interactions. It is assumed that a playful activity involving film design components as variable structures can enhance an aesthetic and therefore more abstract perception of the presented film plots (see Sutton-Smith 1972, Ohler 1994, Friess 2011). Conceptual Approach for an Interactive Media Environment: The core concept behind the educational application is built upon an interactive storytelling tool, which allows the creation of different variations of the same story. In order to set up a situational context that confronts the pupils with a design problem, we introduce a narrative framework with two children arguing about the way they can design a short film. The narrative context is used to give the pupils the necessary information on design possibilities, allowing them to make decisions in the later experimental part. The application should be embedded in a blended learning situation. This means that a teacher introduces the informational portion, and more importantly, that the pupils can show and discuss their final versions of the short film within the class community. The project is realised at Furtwangen University and supported by the Institute for Media and Communication of Baden-Württemberg. The prototype will be evaluated with primary-school pupils in summer 2015. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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Database:	Education Research Complete

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Abstract:	Theoretical Considerations: As the pervasiveness of media usage in the everyday lives of primary school pupils is constantly increasing, supporting the development of media literacy within pupils should be considered as an important educational goal. However, in the real world, the strategy in primary schools seems to be to lock out media usage altogether in order to avoid trouble. The educational techniques behind media literacy, especially in respect to feature films, are very often reduced to providing an interpretational understanding of the story or knowledge about the production process. We argue that even for younger pupils, the reflection of design components and aesthetical structures is also relevant. In a more and more media driven society, processes of identity formation are increasingly attached to individual's media consumption and his or her social embedding. As Mikos (2000) points out, this process creates the phenomenon that the social relationships of younger generations depend to a high degree on aesthetic criteria. Therefore, aesthetic competence is an important requirement for one's ability to reflect on individual lifestyles. Gamification and Interactive Storytelling as a Pedagogical Concept: s aesthetic reflection is a highly subjective matter, the pedagogical methodology has to focus on creating individual experiences. In order to foster the perception of formal structures and raise awareness of different design qualities, we consider a pragmatic approach for the general structure, which encourages experimental exploration and creative activities (Joas 1988, Kerres/Witt 2002). Additionally, we pursue a gamification concept in the sense of meaningful gamification, as described by Nicholson. He focuses on an understanding of gamification which enables playful participation and is based on the freedom of exploration. This creates the possibility of making meaningful decisions enabled by an informational context, which engages people through social interactions. It is assumed that a playful activity involving film design components as variable structures can enhance an aesthetic and therefore more abstract perception of the presented film plots (see Sutton-Smith 1972, Ohler 1994, Friess 2011). Conceptual Approach for an Interactive Media Environment: The core concept behind the educational application is built upon an interactive storytelling tool, which allows the creation of different variations of the same story. In order to set up a situational context that confronts the pupils with a design problem, we introduce a narrative framework with two children arguing about the way they can design a short film. The narrative context is used to give the pupils the necessary information on design possibilities, allowing them to make decisions in the later experimental part. The application should be embedded in a blended learning situation. This means that a teacher introduces the informational portion, and more importantly, that the pupils can show and discuss their final versions of the short film within the class community. The project is realised at Furtwangen University and supported by the Institute for Media and Communication of Baden-Württemberg. The prototype will be evaluated with primary-school pupils in summer 2015. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
ISSN:	20490992