A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary
I can see slideshare being a great way of getting students to prepare presentations in advance and cutting out the technical nightmare of them arriving to lessons with a corrupt or incompatible file. Here is an example of a presentation I created for my A-Level Photography students:
If you haven’t yet used the PicLens Plug-In for Firefox, then you are missing out on an excellent way to present and interact with images. I used it yesterday at our GCSE Art & Photography exhibition by projecting images through a SMART interactive whiteboard and viewed a Flickr set. Visitors were able to scroll and interact with the images using an impressive 3D interface. Well worth downloading and it’s free.
In terms of Photography, I would use this in conjunction with Flickr and get students to tag their work, which could then be searched in Flickr and presented using PicLens. Last year I did a project with a group of GCSE Photography students and invited Barry Lewis, a professional photographer, to come and run a 2-day workshop getting students to respond to his set of photos called ‘Visual Noise’.
We visited a local allotment and the students took hundreds of photos focusing on colour, texture, structure etc… They were then asked to make a selection of 10 favourite images and, as a group, we went through and collectively decided on the best 3 from each student ending up with a refined collection. This process took place by copying images from a central server and then viewing them using iView Media Pro. Below is a Flick badge of that work:
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In retrospect, I would now get students to tag all their photos with a special code i.e ‘GCSEVISUALNOISE’ and view it in PicLens and make a selection from there or just use it to discuss images. It is a great way to quickly identify and contrast images. I am waiting for them to create a pasteboard where you can drag images and create quick collections.
I think this Voki concept could be used to great effect:
Last night, I went to my first Teachmeet conference in Redbridge, which involved teachers and educationalists being invited to the stage to give nano presentations of between 2 and 7-minutes long about projects and product/software that involve ICT and have made a difference in the classroom. It is principally about showcasing successful case studies and provides a great opportunity to network and speak with people enthusiastic about their work.
I like the concept of brevity and its focus on current practice, rather than discussions about the potential merits of a product or idea. I would like to see more examples of student work and their interaction with the products, as they are clearly the audience that we need to be inspiring.
The evening was enthusiastically presented by Ewan McIntosh (omnipresent in the world of ICT education), who originally set up the Teachmeet events and spent much of the time troubleshooting laptop problems and keeping the crowd entertained. Congratulations to all those involved in setting it up – it was a worthwhile event.
To see more pictures of the event, click here.
This is a fun program for the Mac, allowing you to integrate movies, images and sound files to create a multimedia presentation. There are lots of templates – I would suggest choosing a template that doesn’t overemphasize the background graphics. I like the fact that you can export as a large movie file.
Apart from being a special way of presenting students’ work, this programme is essentially a means of making small documentaries, lending itself to post-production work for students. As an exercise, you could upload a series of raw files and movies onto a server or VLE, which students could access to edit and make a presentation as part of their coursework using Pulp Motion.
Below, I have posted a example of a presentation of work produced by Year 7 students in response to Yinka Sonibare’s ‘Alien Nation’ art works:
This animation is a great example of what happens when you start with a simple process and no strict guidelines, resulting in a visual stream of consciousness:
This artist probably identified a number of characters, possibly from previous animations and allowed the freedom of the architecture and his/her playful imagination.
In teaching, we are encouraged to plan all aspects of learning from identifying key aims and objectives to monitoring and evaluating. However, this cycle can become very draining for the creative mind as it requires a time-based, analytical thought process; it leaves little time for spontaneity, an essential ingredient in taking risks and being imaginative.
In school, we don’t have enough periods when students can be autonomous and organise their own learning. Instead, we leave such independent learning to extra-curricular clubs and non-assessed activities outside of school. In my view, this is a wasted opportunity and we should be more strategic by giving students space to be idle, make mistakes,etc.. in a supportive educational context.
In the past few years, a few of our students have expressed a strong interest in making animations. Recently, Louis Marsh, a Year 13 student, produced this excellent animation called ‘Evolution’ from his A2 Art Unit 4 Exam project ‘Transition’:
It would be good to have a platform for sharing such work beyond the school network. Blip TV seems to be the best platform outside YouTube, which allows you to create a TV station. Students can write comments and view it easily. there is an upcoming event called ‘Shine‘ in association with Creative Partnerships and Channel 4, amongst others.
Our school currently has an international link with various schools in India via the British Council’s UKIERI programme. As a pilot project, we are working on a collaborative podcast activity where students in both countries send each other audio MP3 questions. Then, using Animoto, create an audio visual podcast using Audacity to edit sound files and upload as MP3s along with found or taken images.
Here is an example of a collaborative podcast using Animoto:
The main advantage of blogging is the ability to archive and share opinions/comments – many students dislike having to provide evidence and record all activities for the sake of documentation. As it tracks and archives posts, it provides a great solution to chasing up students for documentation and rushing around the school looking for a working printer. I can see students eventually having an e-portfolio – this is something I have been experimenting with – here is an example of a student with a Flickr portfolio.
A major disadvantage is that it becomes so accessible that the amount of coursework and expectation of students’ outcomes increases, then we are left with another system where students feel stressed by learning. I think it works well as a system as long as it doesn’t duplicate tasks.
Learning how to blog
