Last Thursday, we attended Arts Engine’s Media That Matters IMPACT sessions in conjunction with the Media That Matters 2010 online film festival premiere.

You can watch all the films from this year’s festival, which cover topics like the crisis of the uninsured, the harmful impacts of bottled water,  anti-Haitian sentiment in the Dominican Republic, community reactions to the Sean Bell murder in New York City, homelessness in the UK and more:

http://www.mediathatmattersfest.org/

At the third IMPACT session offered on Thursday: EDUCATE, educators talked about how they have used films from the previous seasons of Media That Matters in their classrooms.

Kim Allen, a teacher at a predominantly white high school, uses the film Vision Test by Wes Kim, to facilitate a discussion among her students about white privilege:

http://www.mediathatmattersfest.org/films/vision_test/

Melanie Folstrom teaches a social justice class to high school students aged 16-21 at a transfer school in Brooklyn. Using a graphic organizer, Melanie has her students brainstorm about what groups have privilege and which are oppressed when it comes to race, class, gender, religion and sexual orientation. She uses the film Perversion of Justice from Media That Matters 8 to spark a discussion of the prison industrial complex - and what groups are privileged or oppressed within it:

http://www.mediathatmattersfest.org/films/perversion_of_justice/

Maria Hantzopoulos, who teaches aspiring teachers at Vassar College uses the short narrative film Immersion from last year’s fest to engage her students in a discussion of bilingual education and high-stakes testing:

http://www.mediathatmattersfest.org/films/immersion/

Some tips for educators and filmmakers:

*  12 minutes is the perfect length for media to be used in a classroom setting

* Independent schools get media from iMediaSource

* Organizations dedicated to helping youth make media: Educational Video Center, Reel Works

* There is a lack of short historical films that can be used in classroom settings

Thanks to Arts Engine and all the sponsors of Media That Matters for these informative, eye-opening events!

This entry was posted on Monday, June 7th, 2010 at 4:36 pm and is filed under new from rada film. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.