Film's Role in Virtual Learning and Pandemic Shifts

Introduction

In spring 2020, the world changed and, at the time of this writing, has yet to be recalibrated fully. It is from an acknowledged position of privilege that the author notes the number of revelations that occurred to them in the context of this year, including the persisting racism that is experienced by folx from minoritized communities and the political tensions that exist, even in the face of public health concerns. A responsible use of media, including televised and filmic platforms, form a central thread of concern at the heart of this chapter. The COVID-19 pandemic displaced students from the boundaries of classroom walls, and relocated learning into living rooms, backyards, and parked cars, among other places. The strained connections in some spaces, as well as lack of access to digital networks, was evident, as was the prevalence of misinformation and the use of a variety of media channels for both positive and negative messaging.

In response to all of this, some of the teachers who participated in the original studies, along with new voices, discussed the ways in which film and digital media provided connections during the pandemic. Because of the nature of the time in which teachers were working, some responses took place in Google forms and others in interviews and brief conversations that were sometimes delayed. The possibility of an hour-long research interview without interruptions was not a reality in this working and living world. One participant, Walker (pseudonym), called digital media a lifeline in this context and spoke to the challenges of maintaining tenuous connections with students in a rural context. This teacher’s story is featured more prominently throughout the chapter as they provide an example of how a typically face-to-face and closely mentored filmic project was transposed to the online and at-home learning environment. Shifting to online learning in this time has begun to be documented in research literature (Dhawan, 2020; Engerman & Otto, 2020), as well as the implications of online learning for reading and writing practices (Coiro, 2021; Correnti et al., 2021).

Also of note when considering the role of film in pandemic learning is the affordance for composition and sharing of storytelling that occurs within this medium, a topic which will be explored later in the chapter in this teacher case study, as well as in an autoethnographic account. Autoethnography positions the author as participant and is often focused on analysis and reflection that takes place across multiple strands of data. In this case, three film clips and the author’s journaled notes form the basis of the analysis. Wilson (2018) has previously used the autoethnographic method to examine filmic composition practices.

This exploration begins with the case study example of a middle grades teacher, then considers the experience of a media coordinator who spoke to the importance of broadly conceived digital connections in the pandemic, before concluding the chapter by focusing on an autoethnographic account of the ways that filmic pedagogy has informed the author’s practice in the 2020-2021 context.

As noted earlier, Bull and Kajder (2005) have examined digital storytelling as a mode of literacy and composition instruction. The potential for digital storytelling as not only a means of demonstrating content, but for making emotional connections and facilitating the processes of a set of literacy practices is of central interest in this chapter and is reflected in Walker’s presentation of students’ lived experiences in film. It is likely the case that many stories of the pandemic have yet to be told or to be explored fully at the time of this writing. While Walker pointed to the rural space as one that was connected, there were still disconnections that occurred throughout the pandemic, with the teacher reporting that about 14-15 of their seventh-grade students remained connected throughout their entire film-based project in the pandemic, while approximately ten students were less engaged at different points. Some of these students connected and then disappeared, while others barely remained connected with the teacher at all, adding to the emotion and difficulty of the pandemic.