Imprinting

MEDEA Finalist 2011

The entry Imprinting is made up of two video clips showing the merger of one generation and another – traditional teaching methods and technology-based activities by students, and it was created and directed by teachers and students of the junior secondary school ‘A. Brofferio’ in Asti, Italy which caters for children aged 10 to 13.

Imprinting’s first video clip ‘Equivalenza’ (Equivalence), was created and directed by the teachers Cinzia Chelo and Marco Serra and shows an ordinary class of 12-years-old pupils who are learning geometry through both traditional as well as technology-based exercises.

It is the result of a challenging educational path aiming to promote the introduction of a new learning culture where multimedia languages and communication technologies coexist with traditional teaching: from paper to computers, from scissors to iPod, from slate to the Interactive Whiteboard (IWB), from contents to skills.

The second video clip ‘Study Day, which was created and directed independently by the 13-years-old pupils, reports on the school day of CL@SSI 2.0 in the town Moncalieri, in Piedmont on March 2nd, 2011. Study Day is an outcome of the educational path shown in the previous video. In it the children as well as having learned about geometry in a traditional manner, have also managed to spontaneously and in a personal way made a digital production inspired by ideas and activities developed in the classroom.

Imprinting is part of the project ‘Podcast in libertà’ (Podcast in freedom), a series of audio/video podcasts related to the 3-year trial called CL@SSI 2.0. This project as a whole has also been recognised as a Highly Commended entry of the MEDEA Awards 2011.

About the creation of Imprinting

Ms Cinzia Chelo on the background of Imprinting: “From the beginning everyone has been involved: teachers and children who were more confident with technologies have shared their skills with those less experienced, the traditional lecture has been extended by the integration of technological support, and little by little these two teaching methods are combined and coexist in a natural and invisible way. Also, the video clip Equivalenza is about the topic of geometry but can be exported in any other discipline by other schools.

For the production we used specific editing software, mainly iMovie and MovieMaker and in some cases also Final Cut, and the podcasts are produced on an OS X server with Apple's Podcast Producer system.

The podcast was chosen for several reasons: first of all, it uses the most common ways to express yourself (and most loved by the children): sound and video. Also, podcasting allows for the integration between formal and informal teaching, as well as mobile learning. The video production leads to an enhancement of metacognition: the microphone includes a better awareness of what is said, taking a picture or shooting a video involves a closer look, the discovery of details, a more lasting memory, and a stronger emotion.”

About Cinzia Chelo

Cinzia Chelo is a Maths and Science teacher at the junior secondary school (kids aged 10 to 13) “A. Brofferio” in Asti, Italy. She is a counsellor and is responsible for ICT support, as well as being an ICT-projects’ coordinator. Since 2009 she has been participating in the 3-year project CLA@SSI 2.0, organised by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (MIUR). She created the website “PODCAST IN LIBERTÀ” where she reports on her learning activities related to this project, of which the MEDEA Awards’ entry “Imprinting” is a part. Cinzia is also a tutor and coach for several training courses for primary and secondary school teachers. She is particularly experienced in teaching using interactive whiteboards (IWB): she founded the educational repository www.matematicaweb.it to share her educational IWB resources. She has become a SMART Exemplary Educator (SEE).

Cinzia is an expert teacher in mathematical logic and is the author of a Maths CD-ROM published by De Agostini-Scuola, as well as books about using the computer for learning, and dynamic geometry software in particular.

As a teacher she has always been interested in teaching innovation, trying to use new cognitive approaches and different ways of communication while still respecting traditional values.

Cinzia talked about Imprinting in further detail during a presentation at the Media & Learning Conference 2011 Brussels in November 2011. She represented this finalist entry at the MEDEA Awards 2011 Ceremony where she received a MEDEA medal.

Imprinting link:

Equivalenza video: http://podcast.brofferio.net/groups/podcasts/blog/?tag=imprinting