Here you'll see how our database allows educators, content area experts, and publishers to share their knowledge through the universally engaging medium of the movies. In this demo, we'll simulate several ways that visitors will use the site to enrich the experience of teaching with visual media. Let's start by outlining some of the many avenues for searching for information at
Find it in Film...

Accessing such search features at Find it in Film is always free in order to best serve all educators and media specialists. However, an optional institutional subscription allows users to filter results so that only locally-available media appear. Such clients may choose to provide title data from their libraries, servers, WANs, or streaming services so that Find it in Film can exclude nonconforming results. After using the premium login, visitors can simply toggle this filter with the checkbox "Only My Library."

Locating engaging curricular content is a main reason educators come to Find it in Film. Suppose a teacher is looking for clips in mainstream, high-quality media that illustrate a particular topic. Please use the drop-down menu and choose "keyword" from the options. Then enter the phrase civil rights in the search window. Now click on "Find it."

Here teachers can scan movies to see what's of interest to them. Media titles are listed in order of utility since the number of clips identified after each title refers to the number of media annotations that feature the keyword. As more annotations are generated by educators over time, the order of the titles may therefore shift. In this way, relevant content is always being targeted more and more precisely. Teachers will return to the site to learn both about newly released titles and about new ideas for being effective with the media they already use. Click on "To Kill a Mockingbird" to select a title that's commonly screened in 6-12 classrooms.

This typical page at Find it in Film provides an informational snapshot of a movie that's geared to educational purposes. Here the page has been pared down to highlight key features. Such movie pages reflect records in our database for digital versions of any visual media title. Note the themes/keywords section in the center of the page and the item civil rights that appears there—that's the information that has led us here. When FiiF searches on content in media, it is actually searching for text within a media annotation. So what exactly is an annotation? Scroll down and click on the "printer-friendly" list to find out...

Annotations are a lot like DVD commentaries or like annotations in the print medium—they clarify, expand upon, or provide context. Note the keyword phrase civil rights in the third annotation: if, as a social studies teacher, that's all we're interested in, then we got what we came for and can move on. However, since all keywords appear under a larger theme, we are free to browse through other annotations to learn about additional teachable moments in To Kill a Mockingbird. For example, in the second annotation, teachers receive biographical and geographical information that they can use to connect the clip to a literary figure, Truman Capote.

Annotation themes signal a specific lens of expertise through which a contributor views the title. Here the theme is "Historical Context," so all the annotations build relevant social, biographical, or political background to help students appreciate the time period the film depicts. Other themes that could apply to To Kill a Mockingbird include "Justice," "Southern Culture" and "Character Development." All annotations are available in a printer-friendly, reproducible format. Teachers can incorporate them into their own lecture notes, presentations, or lesson plans.

Who supplies the annotations? By and large, educators themselves. And since they may be using the same film for different curricular goals or grade levels, new themes are always being created and populated. Sometimes annotations are supplied by content area experts who wish to promote a publication, an area of scholarly interest, or the work of a nonprofit organization. Annotations can even be repurposed from text supplied by FiiF's publishing partners, who in this way are able to reach new markets that are extremely targeted. That's because those "finders" can always have us link to a product, institution, Web site or other resource that will be of interest to those viewing a particular clip for a particular reason. Let's try another search, but first let's return to the movie page by clicking on the movie title at the top
of the page.

Now we'll try a search on a particular title that we know we'd like to teach, perhaps because the class has read it as a novel. In our first search, we were looking for targeted clips on a given curricular topic; now we're looking for new ways to teach with visual media that we already know align with our curriculum. All individual movie pages allow users to start a new search. Just go to the top of the page and choose "film title" from the drop-down menu. Then type the words all quiet on and click on "Find it."

Click on the topmost of the two titles since it is currently supported by many more clips and annotations.

Find it in Film provides other interfaces for educators to access the annotations. That's because users have different teaching and preparation styles or even different reasons for visiting FiiF—for example, media specialists may visit the site to get a sense of the teaching potential of a specific title before purchasing it. Scroll down the page to the Timeline section. You'll notice that for this title there are both more themes and more annotations. Roll over the color-coded flags in the legend to view two of these themes. Also, please notice the smaller "long-view" of the Timeline at the bottom of the frame. Through graphics such as this, teachers can see at a glance which sections of a film contain more teachable moments. This empowers them to make better decisions regarding how to screen the movie in the time available.

The interactive Movie Timeline provides a way of "previewing" the teachable content of a movie even when that title is not physically available. It also saves time by allowing users to browse through several themes at once in summary form rather than reading the full text of the annotations as we did earlier. Finally, the Timeline may be played in real time to accompany the viewing of the media so that the annotations "pop up" at point of use. The user actually sees the visuals and other content described or analyzed in the annotation without searching for the clips individually.

Press the play button. Notice how summaries of annotations appear in chronological order within the film. Hit the pause button at any time to call up the full text of the annotation. All you need to do is click on the appropriate flag. Once you've read the annotation, you can resume play. In some clips you may notice icons that alert teachers to clips with violence or that cross-reference closely related clips. When you're finished exploring the Movie Timeline, return to the main page to begin the next slide show.