Working with visual material

NL

NL003

Résumé, summary

Pupils were stimulated to take pictures as a start for a project within Religious Education, Social Studies, Geography and History. Then they process these pictures in a presentation as a group. Examples of projects are Yugoslavia at war, living and working in South Limburg, women pictured by van Gogh. Pupils are very stimulated and motivated by this type of working. Studies, Geography and History. Then they process these pictures in a presentation as a group. Examples of projects are Yugoslavia at war, living and working in South Limburg, women pictured by van Gogh. Pupils are very stimulated and motivated by this type of working.

Discipline, subject :

histoire Geschichte history storia géographie Geografie geography geografia social studies études sociales

Public :

formation d'enseignants Lehrerbildung teacher training formazione dedei docenti

Contacts :

Goussens, Thaddé

Ireneweg 25
NL-6286
BN WITTEM THE NETHE

Tel : 31.44511614
Mail : fido 2:500/120.1986 thadde@esp.educ.uva.nl
Fax :

Pédagogie, pedagogy :

A development is going on from word - text - to 'image'. 'An image says more than a thousand words', applies to the teaching situation too. Think of the enormous expansion of multimedia. An English photographer's picture was the incentive to organize African aid. Photographs of Vietnam!! Beneton's advertisement. The computer is an outstanding tool to look for these images, to adapt them, and present them. Not only for the teachers but also for the pupils. In the age of the comprehensive school (before the implementation of the new Dutch curriculum, the Basic Education) I already gained many positive experiences using visual material within the subjects of Human and Social Studies. In local studies too working with images turned out to offer many possibilities. Working with visual material gives pupils many more possibilities to express their feelings. In this way abstract concepts become much more clear. In 1994 pupils can hardly conceive concepts such as 'right' to strike, child labour, the role of the church in former times and consequences of the industrial revolution. With the digitalized pictures of the movie DAANS (Belgian Radio Television) according to Louis Paul Boon's book, it is much more simple for pupils to study and present the concepts learned. If I present the visual material after showing a video film, it will be easier for the pupils to reconstruct the contents. Their judgement would be much more differentiated. Xenophobia won't be solved by digitalizing video images. However, if I show pupils attending (individualized) pre-vocational education classes an image or film of the home situation of the refugees, it would turn out that suddenly they can be more tolerant. Later on they can use the argument expressed by an image with a presentation too. On diskette you'll find some self-starting images in the subdirectory 'Beeld'. Example 1 Yugoslavia at war 'From one day to the next your neighbour turns your enemy.' An identical situation arose at Vaals, when the Germans invaded the Netherlands. The Germans living in Vaals for years or maybe even for generations turned enemies. Coffee parties planned on Sunday with their family in law, a hundred meters across the border, were cancelled. The pupils explore the situation by means of a (German) documentary and present the results of their investigation including images and texts made with a DTP program. Example 2 Living and working in South Limburg A project in the study week, among other things, timbered houses. The teacher takes his video camera to the open-air museum. The visual material serves for the processing of information by the pupils during classes. The available slides are also used, but they are less accessible to pupils. The method of working is very suitable for all subjects participating in this project. Example 3 Images of a novel adapted for the screen. The images also serve to test the pupils' fluency, to interpret a story. Example 4 Investigation into cultural backgrounds by means of a hand scanner and a book on Van Gogh. Questions: How are women pictured in Van Gogh's paintings? Pupils scan the relevant images with a simple hand scanner. Conclusion: as a mother, whore, stooped and bent, and nameless (a baker's or butcher's wife).

Apprentissage, learning :

Pupils look for, process and present the results of their research individually or as members of a group. The motivation to work in this way is very high. Pupils type their reports of several pages without objections by means of a word processor. On a piece of paper, a half, almost unreadeble page is likely to be the maximum if a pen is used. This argument is likely to disappear if each colleague puts his pupils at work behind the computer during each class!!!!. Now it is a welcome bonus for my classes in Religious Education on Friday, the fifth period of the cluster for ivbo (individualized pre-vocational education). Pupils can look for visual material on video cassettes and subsequently digitalize it. Pupils process the visual material received from their teacher with a DTP program and insert texts or convert it into a 'show' and orally complete it. In the future I wish to try-out whether it is possible to work with a simple authoring tool. Pcx images can be processed in most drawing programs.

Enseignement, teaching :

See 'Pedagogical aspects'. As a teacher I am always looking for suitable visual material for the subjects within my curriculum. Education should not become just some sort of news column. However, supply turns out to be enormous. If it is not available, we will film or scan it ourselves! With a shortwave radio, a £10 interface, and a computer program, teachers can receive news and pictures from most press agencies.

Technique :

Hardware: XT 8088 & AT 486, video blaster, scanner, monitor of TV, VGA to TV.converter, VGA monitor, Hi-colour card, video recorder. Software: Envision Publisher, Graphics workshop, Realscan, Screenthief, Cshow, Rmorf, Neopaint, Neoshow, TEMPRA, authoring tools? In our computer lab we are (were) working with a network and 20 XTs. I was able to attain my goal with the above-mentioned software. All pupils can work independantly or in teams. The examples are made with a DTP program. Programs are cheap and to be used by teachers and pupils.

Société, society :

If assignments are made collectively, a clear allocation of tasks is always necessary, which does not happen smoothly all the time and depends on the team's atmosphere. As pupils have 'something more to offer', they are sooner inclined to 'render' their assistance. Individually, motivation is striking good.

Culture :

The examples show that here the described way of working is ideal for this kind of education.

Institution :

In my situation it is less problematic as, next to Informatics, I teach other subjects such as Geography, History, and Human and Social Studies. In example 2 there is a strong support through Informatics.

Logistique :

Next to much appreciation and interest it is sometimes hard to make colleagues understand that they too can work this way, when demonstrating this way of working. They often think that they're overwhelmed by the abundance of software being reviewed. In practice it turns out to be better than expected. To others it is no state of the art, not professionally enough, something just for freaks or too much work. Class practice proved that stopping with this kind of working provoked withdrawal symptoms. After a few lessons on other subjects and with another way of working they said: 'Come on Sir, let's work with the computer again!!!'