Document project in Teacher Training School of Oulu University and Valve Film School

Antti Haaranen, media teacher, Valve Film School, Cultural Centre Valve, Oulu
Erkki Pekkala, lecturer, Teacher Training School of Oulu
Johanna Stevenson, art teacher, Teacher Training School of Oulu
Student Teachers from  Department of Education and Teacher Training of Oulu University

Background information

The main basis for the project lies in the in the curriculum of the school and in there, especially in the media skills and environment and sustainable education. It is one of iTEC Learning Stories –projects. The learning stories act as a starting point for this media project. Valve Film School wanted to develop media education with moving image and also cinema as a target and as a tool. They tried out how useful video camera is in a scenario and futurelab-based working with school children. This project will also be one case in a thesis in the Polytechnics of Oulu; Media Education with Moving Image; Education as a tool in Sustainable Education.

The goals

The goals of the project were to learn the concepts like sustainable development, global warming and connecting these concepts into the everyday life. Rehearsing the group work skills, problem solving, evaluation and setting goals were also important issues. In addition to these different kind of documentaries, views and the ways of expression were discussed during the process as well making audiovisual materials and critical interpretation.

The contents

Every child participated in 20 lessons held by the media teacher (10 hours) from Valve Film School and class teacher (6 hours) and editing took 4 hours. The class was divided into five groups with different kind of topic concerning sustainable development. Every group made about 20 minutes video film consisting knowledge from sustainable development, own thoughts and discussion, pictures and interviews of the experts in this field. In the end the pupils cut their video material into a 3-minutes video insert. In addition, after every lesson children made a one-minute video diary film about what they’ve done, what things they wanted to discuss and how they’ll continue next time. Video diary was partly organized so that one of the pupils interviewed the other members of the group.

The results

In the end they made a 10-minute documentary film using the video diary films and interviews. The documentary video ‘Our future’ was given 3rd prize in the Video Competition called Blue Energy which was organized by Embassy of the United States  in Finland.

You can watch the video film here: