The American Film Institute (AFI) has developed a series of activities and videos to introduce story telling and film making to students. It has developed a project called, Lights, Camera, Education to help teachers learn how to integrate this powerful technique into classroom instruction. This sequence of videos will walk you through the entire process. Review the AFI guide on the CD that accompanies this material for a comprehensive introduction to how you can engage your own students in the development of content-based videos to promote learning an a mastery of instructional objectives. The AFI encourages this process for use with students beginning in grade 5 or 6, but the techniques could encourage you to select appropriate components to use with younger students when having them create original digital stories using an online story generator such as KerPoof. There is no need to get into elaborate video editing with younger students. Keep the focus on writing and telling the story. However, older students will definitely become more engaged in the content with the opportunity to become their own masters of video production.

Although you are not required to watch all of these videos, be sure to view #1, #4 and #5 to begin your understanding of some critical elements in becoming successful with this process in the classroom.