Film Pedagogy in the History Classroom: Desktop Documentary-Making Skills for History Teachers and Students

Abstract

The emergence of digital technology provides new opportunities for teaching and learning in the history classroom. However, these new opportunities often require new skills to be learned by teachers and students alike. This article focuses on one such digitally oriented strategy, desktop documentary making, which empowers students to easily make historical documentaries as a classroom project. Included in this article is an explanation of the benefits of desktop documentary making in the history classroom, the necessary cinematic skills required for students to make quality films, and examples of classroom strategies that teachers may effectively incorporate desktop documentary making into the classroom.

Keywords:

• desktop documentary making
• digital technology
• history education
• teaching and learning

Notes

1 For further clarification about expository documentaries, see Fehn and Schul (2011).