learning - Academic Conferences Limited

Paraskevi Kanari and Georgios Potamias
empowered artificial environments (Joly 2005:447; Smyrneos 2008:214). Therefore, the development
of critical visual literacy is imperative for modern students and generally citizens.
The teaching via cinema, the cinematographic education, is strongly attached to multi-modal
education (Jacquinot 1977:27; Tardy 1973:27). Cinema and moving pictures, more traditional semiotic
means of education than modern computer empowered visualizations, can be the source of multiple
teaching activities with parallel analysis of images, text and sound. The ultimate goal in this approach
is the promotion of multiple communicative and sensory interactions between students (Régis 2009:
9).
The cinematographic education is necessary for the understanding of modern multimodal media
world. The multimodal cinematographic teaching, based on image, promotes the ability of:
Using an inexhaustible source of visual material.
Reading, criticizing and decoding the multiple diversity, function and temporality of visual material.
Using rationally electronic equipment (computer, video, cinema) and visual means for gathering
and managing critical information.
Using multimedia applications in order to create multimodal contexts and interactive compositions
(combination of image- text- sound).
Promoting and presenting cinematographic creations in an informative sustainable way
(Yakoumatou 2006:74-75; Semoglou 2005:18; The New London Group 1996).
Despite the objections towards developing powerful and sophisticated criteria that can be theoretically
able to promote students’ understanding of visual communication (Barthes 1977:88; Baudinet –
Mondzain 1990:15), the need for promoting multimodal interactive teaching is urgent in modern day
school.
An effort for the creation of a school curriculum that can empower the management of critical
information has been carried out in many countries. Such curriculums theoretically consider very
important the cultivation of metacognitive skills, the ability of managing critically important knowledge
(Greek Institute of Pedagogy, 1998). Since the development of the internet has given students access
to an inexhaustible source of visual information, with the risk of confusion between valid knowledge
and useless information, it is imperative to encourage the integration of a more visually aesthetic
critical education in a modern curriculum (Barnett 2000:22; Gonnet 1997:17).
Although it would be an exaggeration to assert the primacy of visual literacy, it is generally accepted
that many students accept willingly the integration of visual material, in order to support and enrich
textual and non-textual material in a holistically empowered semiotic context (Semoglou 2005:564-
565).
Very recently, the introduction of interactive blackboards, and generally rich visual educational means
(dvd, internet videos, use of youtube or teachtube videos in the classroom) has an innovative and
revolutionary impact in the heart of modern school ethos. The students are excited from the
immediacy, audacity and relevance of illustrations and visual reproductions of all forms. However, the
teachers should be very cautious and concerned towards not only the semiotic informative quality and
pedagogical content of the imagery used but also towards their ability to use, manipulate and
successfully manage the inexhaustible source of visual information (Sankey 2005:10; Van Leeuwen &
Jewitt 2001:107).
2. Application of the theory in an educational context
In the context of multimodal cinematographic education, a cultural program was carried out in the
island of Spetses in Greece during the school year 2007-2008. The ultimate goal of this program was
to create a film transfer of a local legend by the students of Spetses’ junior high (students from 12 to
15 years old), an area culturally and educationally challenged. Spetses is a small island of 5000
inhabitants with long and rich history but with poor cultural activity, due to its isolation, especially in
winter time. The authors took part in the design, the implementation and the evaluation of this
program, mentoring students and recording every step of its development through the e-platforms of
the e-twining program. The results of the program were presented virtually in the e-twinning e-platform
and in a cultural event hosted by the municipal authorities of the town.
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