Pedagogical use of the “By my window” platform

Exploit the video platform “By my window” in the pedagogical field during and after lockdown: reweave links and learning through shared audiovisual creativity.

By my window

“By my window” is one of the many cultural proposals launched during containment. I opened it on April 1, 2020. The principle is very simple: Film what you see through a window in your home, and tell an important memory.

Choose one important memory in your life that you feel can be enriching for others. Rich in teaching, human depth, joy, laughter! Think not of yourself, but of those who will listen to you. It is for them that you remember and tell, for them offering something precious that you have within you. A movie is like a gift.

The simplicity of the principle allowed many people who had never made a film before to take this time, to make it precious for themselves and for those who watch their films. The experiences that were lived by the participants, according to the numerous feedbacks, were strong and constructive, of connection to oneself and to others.

I have been proposing this idea in workshops since 2009 (more than 1500 films made). It was naturally necessary to incarnate oneself at a distance during the lockdown. This platform will remain online and will continue to welcome new films. Learn more about the project ->art1023].

Educational Use

A certain number of teachers have taken up the initiative with pedagogical objectives, and in particular those of the cinema option at the Lycée Rotrou in Dreux, led by Thierry Méranger by building a specific project “WIND(ow)”.

How to ensure a pedagogical follow-up while the students are at a distance? And how “By my window” can be one of the tools?

Here are the concepts and the concrete tracks for a pedagogical use of this platform, as implemented during the lockdown:

• The principle is to propose first to a restricted group of students, as well as to “referent” people to make films on this principle, and to publish them on the platform, then to share the links to the films when they are public. Seeing other people’s films encourages and makes one feel capable, because the films are both very strong, because they are intimate, and simple to make.
• “Present the project to the students as an alternative or substitution to the year’s collective projects and to their individual projects.” (Thierry Méranger).
• Do not position the proposal in an evaluation framework, but in a framework of sharing, which, thanks to the distance, is done not only between the students, but with the teachers, who themselves make films, as well as the filmmakers, or other referents, who respond to the call, who also take the risk.
• “I didn’t say the word homework, but I asked them to do it, not to mention marks and evaluation. In this sense, the presence of the elders, and of the filmmakers in particular, was also intended to underline the attractiveness of the project and to improve the (badly battered) morale of the troops at the beginning of the lockdown.” (Thierry Méranger)
• Benevolence, non-judgement by criteria, but openness to what one receives, quite simply, from each film, i.e. a change in the teacher’s posture within this framework, is one of the keys to the success of the project. If these films were “school” objects, intended to produce an evaluation against criteria, they would lose their meaning.
• “We comment on the videos as they are released.” (Thierry Méranger)
• The context in which persons not subject to school judgment also make films provides a framework which “sets the bar high”, which positions their meaning well beyond the school context.
• “The elders arrived in a second phase, via our Facebook page which is a beautiful tool that links us between generations. Their films, often freer, really served as triggers for those who hadn’t yet made up their minds or were in need of inspiration.” (Thierry Méranger)
• The fact that the films are addressed, via wetransfer for example, directly to the teacher, creates a link, an address, which embodies and authorises. Then it must be transmitted to the platform’s animator, Benoît Labourdette (benoit benoitlabourdette.com), with whom the cooperation framework must be established beforehand.
• Before they are put online, the films are technically “smoothed” (sound level, framing of the images, technical conformity, choice of thumbnail) key words are assigned to them, a synopsis is written: they are valued, put on an equal footing, whatever their origin.
• The films are placed in a box, which allows them to receive all the value they contain. This produces a virtuous circle, which naturally raises the level of demand, and thus directly meets the objectives of teaching.

Thanks to Thierry Méranger for his feedback on the platform “By my window”.