Raffaella Fiorini is an iTEC teacher in Liceo Classico Chris Cappell in Anzio, Italy. While studying works of English literature with her class, Raffaella decided to create ‘book trailers' for the books; that is, short reviews of the books in video format.
Raffaella Fiorini is an iTEC (http://itec.eun.org) teacher in Liceo Classico Chris Cappell in Anzio, Italy. While studying works of English literature with her class, Raffaella decided to create ‘book trailers’ for the books; that is, short reviews of the books in video format. In carrying out this project, Raffaella wanted her pupils to learn not only about the books in question, and to improve their English, but to learn the principles of audio-visual editing, and to collaborate with one another and learn project-based skills:
“It is not only the narrative content; it's about arousing interest in the book in potential new readers. The aim is to share the emotions. That's all in the choice of the music, of the images, the video editing”.
The pupils searched for multimedia resources, such as videos, music, and still images, to use as part of their book trailers. This involved the pupils working independently, with minimal direction from their teacher. According to Raffaella: “I think it's important for the teacher to act as a tutor, providing guidance and feedback without lecturing the students all the time”.
The pupils were divided into groups, with each group working on one book. Each group had a blog, where pupils could record their progress through video logs, and share results with and provide feedback to other groups. At the end of the project, each group produced a multimedia library, containing the book trailer, and a conceptual map of the book that they had studied.
The book trailers had the effect of motivating the pupils to broaden their reading, deepening their knowledge and understanding of the book that they themselves worked on, and gave them an insight into how information and ideas can be presented and shared.
