Insegnare cinema. Lezioni di didattica multimediale

Cinema, or audiovisual in general, is used more and more often in Italian schools of all levels and as a teaching aid. The expansion of this practice can be explained by some complementary factors: a cultural and pedagogical context in which, although with heterogeneous positions, the possibility of including education in audiovisuals as a qualifying aspect of the curricula appears to have been acquired; the growing commercial availability of a large quantity of titles on multiple media; the continuous technological development that allows the use of instruments adaptable to different needs. This simple observation is the starting point from which the book is born, which takes note of a factual reality and records the growing pervasiveness of the audiovisual sector in contemporary society. After a century of debate, often heated, between those who support and those who contest the presence of cinema at school, the opportunities for intervention and use are certainly much wider than in the past, but we do not always act with full awareness of the potential, functions, perspectives and, why not, also the limits and contradictions relating to the use of audiovisuals in the didactic field. The first objective of the book is therefore to offer some basic tools to increase the awareness of those who do, or intend to do, teaching using audiovisual aids. The concept of manual must not be interpreted in a univocal and restrictive way: the reader will not find a series of typed paths to be mechanically transposed to activate didactic interventions on cinema or with audiovisuals, let alone lists of titles associated with specific themes or subjects or advice on specific films that work better with elementary school classes than in high schools. Without ever losing sight of concrete operations, the book aims rather at developing and interacting with three levels of analysis and study which are considered necessarily complementary here: historical, theoretical and methodological.