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Teaching Media Arts in Primary Schools as a generalist teacher

 

Students' lives are immersed in and shaped by the Media. They draw on the concepts of the media, the symbolic and technical elements of media and apply the principles of media forms, story and viewpoints to communicate meaning for an audience.
Focus on students making and responding to the Media. As Media Artists and as audience for Media Arts, students learn to understand and use the various forms of media to communicate ideas to other people.
It is our job as teachers of the arts to introduce our students to Media Arts - to help them engage and become literate in media as part of the arts.  There are a number of key factors to focus on in our work.

  • We must have clear purpose: be able to tell our students (and their parents) why we are doing this and how this is part of the curriculum.  We must develop programs that

    • engage students - invite them into Media Arts experiences

    • build trust and confidence - both for individuals and as members of groups

    • build cohesion and focus - be purposeful, hang together [go beyond one-offs]

Effective Media Arts programs in schools don’t happen by chance. They happen because you - the teacher - plans, teachers and assesses them.

Principles of Story
The elements of media arts are combined and shaped using story principles of structure, intent, characters, setting, points of view and genre conventions.
Symbolic and Technical Elements
Media Concepts
Students develop knowledge and understanding of five key concepts:
Viewpoints
In both Making and Responding, students learn that meanings can be generated from different viewpoints and that these shift according to different world encounters.
As students make, investigate or critique media artworks, as producers and consumers of media arts they may ask and answer questions to interrogate the producers’ meanings and the consumers’ interpretations. Meanings and interpretations are informed by contexts of societies, cultures and histories, and an understanding of how elements, materials, skills and processes are used. These questions provide the basis for making informed critical judgments about their own media artworks and the media artworks they see, hear, interact with and consume as audiences.
Skills, Techniques and Processes
 
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