Interactivity #2

After watching the video, “History of Educational Technology,” I determined that instructional films were the most influential technology form in my content area, English, during the period 1900-1990. During this time, several advances were made in the area of film making it more accessible for educators and students. For instance, George Klein (1910) produced roughly 1,000 educational films. Likewise, in 1923 the NEA established a Division of Visual Instruction. These were two key occurrences which led to the integration of film within many classrooms in the 1930s and the continued presence of film in schools thereafter through silent film strips and short educational films from the 1940s to 70s. I feel that these advances in film heavily impacted my content area during this time because this allowed educators to present a visual representation of literary pieces, through the mode of film. Thus, students started engaging with texts in new and innovative ways and their perceptions of their classroom texts were now grounded in a more tangible manner. Furthermore, film allowed teachers during this time to introduce students to different cultures, values, and the like through a mode that was more interactive and effective than straight lecture.

My reading of Chapter Two of Rethinking Technology and Schools and the supplementary article A Social History of Media and Technology in Schools reaffirmed my belief that film is the technology which had the greatest impact on English Education between the years of 1820 and 1990. During the progressive era, “On an administrative level, it was thought that instructional films would lead to more efficient production of high school graduates, since more students could be taught with less individualized instruction from the live teacher” (33-34). Film acted as a means of engaging students through appealing to their visual senses. Through television programs and the like, students were educated on social issues and exposed to a variety of material which was extremely beneficial in aiding student understanding of the texts they were presented with in their literature classes.

Although I feel film was beneficial during this time period for engaging students, I feel that film also had negative impacts because many administrators attempted to use film as a supplement of sorts to replace literature and teachers. Students caught on to this developing trend and as time progressed many students started relying on film interpretations of literary works rather than the actual written pieces to gain information pertaining to their curriculum. In this manner, my content area was negatively affected because students no longer were as compelled to read literary pieces because they could resort to film forms or the same pieces and obtain much of the same information, with greater ease than they would from reading. Students would consequently form opinions of pieces without even reading them. This approach further changed my content area for the worse because as Grace states, her grandmother observed that “the more her students liked a film, the less they actually learned from it” (Domine 3). Although film was innovative and new at this time and highly engaging to students, I feel that it had many drawbacks seeing as student learning decreased at times when it was incorporated within the classroom. Film greatly influenced schooling in my subject area between the years of 1820 and 1990.

"Never judge a book by its movie." —J. W. Eagan