DAY THREE  November 5, 2005
AFI Screen Education Center Fuels K-12 Learning, Teaching
by Rochelle L. Levy
The AFI K-12 Screen Education Center was founded to create programs that harness the power of storytelling for the improvement of K-12 teaching
and learning. The AFI K-12 Screen Education process combines the appeal and techniques of filmmaking, digital tools (computers, digital
cameras and the Web) and high-tech mentoring in order to foster 21st century skills and standards-based learning in America s classrooms.
It has become increasingly
difficult for schools to integrate traditional learning with technology, while also meeting federally mandated outcomes. AFI has taken the lead by providing a valuable solution--groundbreaking Web-based training.
AFI.edu--the virtual home of AFI's K-12 Screen Education
Center--offers a fun, easy-to-follow, five-step process
designed to show teachers
how to help students use the tools of filmmaking to master core curriculum subjects--
from literature to math to science.
Since its founding, the AFI K-12 Screen Education Center
has trained more than 400 teachers and 30,000 students at 200 schools, with returning teachers sharing
the program with new students year after year. By 2006, the program anticipates
reaching 5,000 new teachers and as many as 60,000 students.
In November 2004, the AFI K-12 Screen Education Center was granted its most substantial congressional appropriation
to date--$1.35 million. With Best Buy Children's Foundation as its anchor partner and the Department of Education facilitating the program's growth, the challenge now is to expand to all the nation's teachers and students, by creating a mode of delivery that will make the program widely accessible.
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