Any excuse to have a photo of Audrey Tautou on my blog, but this will hopefully end up being of service to someone out there. The Da Vinci Code is out in the movies this Friday night featuring my favourite actress and Tom Hanks, but provides an amazing array of learning opportunities in the domain of French culture, art history, religious and moral education, history... Here is one of my ideas. What could be added on here?
The INA Video Archive
I recently discovered over 100,000 archive videos from the INA in France, black and white and colour footage charting history from a Francophone point of view. Imagine using these as the backdrop to some digital storytelling in any language (Wes, would this work?). Here's a whole pack that goes with the Louvre museum. Excellent quality audio (in French) and video. I love the bit about La Joconde arriving from the States via Le Havre to the Louvre, along with the story of how they had to swap the real one for a fake during the filming of the blockbuster.
Update 1:
Wes has taken the gauntlet, bought a matching one and a whole darned suit of armour in my quest to make a teachable moment out of the Da Vinci code. The wiki page – a webpage anyone can change - is there now for you to give your own ideas.
Update 2:
Our partners at LTS have launched a numeracy comepetition all about breaking secret codes. There are versions for Primary/Elementary students and secondary students.
Game on, Ewan! :-)
Posted by: Wesley Fryer | May 18, 2006 at 07:06 AM
Ewan
It looks like you have missed the Da Vinci webquest :( I would say how good it was, but that would only make you jealous ;)
Posted by: Steve | May 18, 2006 at 09:18 PM
I was thinking while in the shower that you could challenge students to produce a board game for the film, most new films seem to have a board game produced for them. Even though the final output might not be in a digital format, all the design work could be, or maybe the students could produce a digital board game? The other thought I had was to produce a set of
Posted by: Steve | May 19, 2006 at 07:46 AM
hmm, it appears to have missed the 2nd part of my comment off :(
... Top Trump cards (http://www.toptrumps.com), again most films seem to have a set of these produced when they get released. What do you think the categories for the card could be?
Posted by: Steve | May 19, 2006 at 07:50 AM
On the Top Trumps idea... Flickr Toys has a nice tool for generating Trading Cards from images. Also, theory.org have an online set of trading cards on "theorists and concepts close to the hearts of people interested in social and cultural theory, gender and identity, and media studies.", which may not be much use in a MFL classroom (although I'm willing to be proved wrong), but it includes a How to Play section that shows how cards like this could be used to generate classroom discussion.
Posted by: David Muir | May 22, 2006 at 12:16 PM