Hoeben’s Blog

For the past 15 years I have been involved in setting up international exchange programmes with Grassroots Theatre Company (GTC), a Zimbabwean performing arts company that specialises in Theatre for Development. In the past two years, the company has been running a festival called Sangansai Children’s Festival (SCF) in Masvingo, a rural district of Matableland in Southern Zimbabwe. The aims are to work with disadvantaged rural communities helping to raise awareness of social, health and general developmental issues affecting poverty, whilst also providing children with a sense of cultural pride and, of course, enjoyment. Children from local primary and secondary schools work with Grassroots’ facilitators for six weeks prior to the festival in preparation for a series of performances to a local audience of around 3000 people.

The festival is an ideal platform for developing  international links between children in the UK and Zimbabwe since GTC visit the UK every year, currently visiting Wales, Yorkshire, Norfolk and Scotland, and could help to facilitate communication. I was imagining the opportunity for a video-sharing project, where children could create a short 1-minute clip sharing a talent, which could be collated and projected during intervals during the festival. Likewise, our partnerships in the UK could help to build up a database of videos that could be continually added to.

Below is a short video of a parade with some of the participants from the festival singing through the village:

To find out more about GTC, visit their website or blog. If you are a teacher and interested in such a project or have other ideas, please get in touch.

What better way to get students out of the classroom that through GPS drawing? The concept is actually quite simple: students are asked to design a shape on a map or open area and then given a GPS tracking device – imagine a hand-held TOM TOM. Using their shape as the guide, students then turn on their GPS tracking device, which traces their geographical position. In effect, they are able to draw by physically moving around with the device – otherwise referred to as a “geodetic pencil”. The results can be uploaded to a computer and transposed onto a map.

Click here to see case studies of GPS drawing projects in education.

What’s the educational value? Apart from burning off a few calories, it helps students develop a spatial awareness, explore the local area, translate concepts between different dimensions, think laterally, problem-solve and, hopefully, enjoy being away from the desk. It is also a great for cross-curricular collaboration between subjects such as art, geography and ICT.

Other possibilities include “geocaching”, more of which can be read about by clicking here.

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I’ve been trying to work out the best way to use Google Maps to develop international linking projects without using Google Earth, which has a complex interface and might put off students. Instead, I have found it much better to create maps directly in Google Maps and embed HTML in the placemark box using images and videos from other sites such as Flickr and BLIP.TV. It is possible to collaborate within a closed network of people and publish the results. As an experiment, I have set up a map for my department and will be trying out some tests next term with my Year 10 GCSE Photography students adding imagery from the local area.

Has anyone tried to use Google Maps for international linking and, if so, what kind of tasks did you set students?

After becoming increasingly frustrated with the British Council’s E-Languages site for our UKIERI link, I’ve decided to set up a blog, which can be used by all partners in Delhi and London to document outcomes. It will also allow students to have discussions without the need for a password, making it easy to hold forums. The site can be viewed at:

UKIERI London-Delhi Hub School Link

Our school currently has links with six schools in Delhi through the British Council’s UKIERI programme. Today, I am running a workshop/conference with a delegation of senior staff from our cluster schools in India and using this sideshow to evaluate our progress so far:

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As part of this project, we asked students to create Q&A podcasts. Initially, we asked students from all schools in India and London to exchange questions as audio files and then edit them in audacity or GarageBand to create a podcast. Here is an example of five Q&As:

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: