Cultural heritage institutions throughout Europe (and beyond) are custodians of vast reservoirs of audiovisual materials, which could be used to enhance education in classrooms throughout Europe. Bringing this material to classrooms - and supporting teachers to use it effectively - is a key activity of the Erasmus+ Watching Videos Like a Historian project, which aims to support European educators to teach media literacy and critical thinking skills through audiovisual resources.
To achieve this aim, project partners are delighted to launch a Practitioner’s Guide for AV collection holders, which aims to encourage AV collection holders to expand their offerings within the educational sector, and equip them with the tools to do it.
This Practitioner’s guide is dedicated to audiovisual collections holders. If you are a large or a small institution and you have some sort of audiovisual material, this guide is for you.
The topics in focus
The Practitioner's Guide for AV Collection Holders delves into the diverse needs, criteria and tools available to those who aspire to open their collections. The Guide offers practical information, examples of initiatives already implemented, and links to a more in-depth discussion about specific topics. There is a particular focus on:
Why to open up your materials for educational reuse. The guide opens with five reasons that opening up materials for educational purposes will bring benefits to both students and the institutions that share them.
Ways to share your materials. Focusing on concrete examples, the guide shares knowledge and ideas on how institutions can work with Europeana.eu and Netwerk Filmeducatie to broaden access to their audiovisual heritage collections and promote their use for educational purposes.
Copyright: This guide simplifies navigating copyright laws, empowering educators to access AV materials, enhance learning, and share resources.
Access the guide and share your examples
The guide can be downloaded from the EUScreen website, where you can also learn more about the Watching Videos Like a Historian project. There you will also find a translation to Dutch and a Dutch factsheet document outlining the most important steps to use your AV collection for educational (re)use.
While we hope that the guide can be of use to all institutions, we recognise that the examples and initiatives it cites are predominantly from institutions in Western Europe. We want to address this, and warmly invite you to submit your own examples of projects and initiatives that bridge the realm of AV collections with education. Have you successfully integrated AV materials into your teaching strategies? Have you managed a project that made cultural heritage resources accessible for students? Your experiences hold immense value and can inspire others on a similar path.
To contribute, please send your examples, projects, or insights through the form on the EUScreen website. We welcome articles, case studies, and any relevant materials. Your contribution will not only enrich educational practices but also make location-sensitive information accessible to others in your country who are eager to embark on a similar journey.