By Leen De Bruyn, meemoo – Flemish Institute for Archives, Belgium.
How can teachers equip children to find reliable sources amidst the flood of images they grow up with? By engaging them critically with audiovisual material in the classroom. And primary school pupils can now call on The Archive for Education for this. This online educational media library from meemoo, Flemish Institute for Archives, offers access to thousands of videos and audio clips from the archives of Flemish cultural, media and government organisations.
The Archive for Education brings the audiovisual archive material of meemoo’s partners in culture, media and government into the classroom. This educational media library currently contains over 27,000 high-quality video and audio clips from the archives of more than 60 organisations, each carefully selected and contextualised for educational purposes by the editorial team.
A safe environment to develop viewing, listening and research skills
Primary school teachers were already able to play these videos and audio clips in class, but now they can also set their pupils to work with them independently – either at home or in the classroom. In a tailored space for primary school pupils, young children can now watch, listen to and complete exercises with age-appropriate material prepared by their teachers. This allows them to sharpen their digital skills early on and take their first steps in media literacy – all in a safe, ad-free environment.
Video and audio clips that connect with their world
The audiovisual content on The Archive for Education is very diverse – from explanatory programmes by the Flemish public broadcaster and news items from regional broadcasters to performances from the performing arts and recordings preserved in city archives. In recent years, our editorial team has worked hard to expand the selected content for primary education. We provide regional teaching materials that connect with the local environment of primary school children. And we have also made theatre plays and interviews with artists available to stimulate art appreciation in the classroom. Sample assignments, help videos, free webinars and FAQs all help teachers to get started with the new tailored space in no time.
Building on the successful launch for secondary pupils
Secondary school pupils have been able to use The Archive for Education since 2020 – gaining access to the platform when remote learning became a necessity during the COVID-19 pandemic. At first teachers were only able to set up viewing and listening exercises for pupils, but then we also enabled more interactive research and construction tasks – encouraging pupils to select relevant clips on a particular topic themselves, and build a coherent story with them. This even earned us a nomination for the MEDEA Awards 2023!
The pupils access for secondary education was an immediate success: The Archive for Education welcomed 92,000 pupils within just a few months. Since then, there has been a call from primary education to give their pupils access to the media library as well. And this has now been made possible thanks to support from the Flemish Department of Education and Training.
Author
Leen De Bruyn, Project Leader & Account Manager, meemoo, Belgium.
