Using iPad Creatively

Many people assume the iPad is a ‘toy’ only useful as a super large phone for Internet browsing and games. The video shows camera connection and creative use of a comic strip app to produce a multimedia product. There are loads out there – this is just an illustrative video to show possibilities.

Blending learning

Blended learning uses technology to enhance teaching and learning beyond campus based learning. This is achieved through e-Learning methods blended with face-to-face teaching.

The work of the City Learning Centre focuses on raising attainment at key stage 4 but with an emphasis on educating through new technologies for ages 6 to 16. The majority of our visiting students attend from 8 of the 16 local secondary schools, mainly Year 10 & 11 students, studying Btec First or OCR Nationals in ICT or Media. In attending a one or two day camp at the CLC, students complete most assessment objectives toward a unit of study.

Due to time constraints and access to technology for some of the schools, our approach at the CLC necessitates a ‘blended’ style of delivery where practical activities and demonstrations take place at the centre and further learning and workbook completion are accessed later.

We use a variety of ways of achieving this system; I will attempt to describe a typical technique through example. For OCR National Media Unit 5 (Exploring New Media), students are initially brought to the centre for a day camp and start the day with a conversation about mobile ‘phone technology, both in groups and with staff. We explain how to access our online resources and orient the use our preferred e-Learning tool, although this also has an intuitive flash based interface. Notes are taken using bubblr (a free mindmap tool) in groups and saved. Key aspects of mobile technology are identified and form the basis for the practical project scenario based on creating multimedia animations, ringtones, web movies and an interactive web site. Students begin each of the four assignments with a video demonstration of the software via the web (using CDSM’s Pedagogue, an e-Learning content creator) and technical support from a staff facilitator. Please note that of the three delivery staff, I am the only trained teacher and it is through the use of Pedagogue flash resources that consistency and pace are maintained. Tutoring skills are valuable in getting the best outcomes from students and this is noticeable depending on staff input and enthusiasm. A workbook for the unit is included in the online resources that can be completed during the day or afterwards at school or via the web at home. Local copies of the workbook must be saved, as we do not have the facility to store student workbooks. Also included is a series of 3 four-minute podcasts to reinforce discussions based on technology developments. The software we use to create our e-Learning packages allows for differentiated preferred learning modes (we employ video, audio and written pages but there is also capacity for flash animations, drag and drops etc.). Students tend to complete the unit within a week of the first day visit (rather than take 30+ guided learning hours as prescribed).

The key factors that enable this technique to succeed include: contact with ‘experts’ within the vocational setting (also a matter of technological confidence that will eventually pass on to school teaching staff), active learning at the students’ own pace within the day task time frame but with opportunities to follow, feedback is ‘live’ in the synchronous aspect of facilitating learning as is the advantages of success in small steps or chunks of learning. The software partially provides for diverse learning styles although requires some technological understanding and prowess. This goes in some way toward the seven principles recognised by Chickering and Gamson (1987, quoted 1999) in successful blended learning. Chickering et al researched good practice for Undergraduate education and suggest seven principles that include these behaviours:

“1. Encourages student-faculty contact. 

2. Encourages cooperation among students. 

3. Encourages active learning. 

4. Gives prompt feedback. 

5. Emphasizes time on task. 

6. Communicates high expectations. 

7. Respects diverse talents and ways of learning.” (1987)

 

The missing elements of the CDSM software from Chickering’s list are those relating to issues of time and communicating feedback. Students work is still dictated to by the constraints of assignment portfolio completion; they may spend far too long on a task and perhaps more than is necessary. Feedback at present is summative; some formative method would be beneficial from my perspective, perhaps using online collaborative technology.

The opportunities now available for asynchronous online communication due to the digitising of resources and word-processed coursework, are as MacDonald & McAteer (2003) suggest “widely available, effective and simple to use”. Collaborative tools such as Google Docs, iWork.com and Zoho.com allow an anytime, anyplace online interaction. Research reported by MacDonald et al. confirms the interactive benefits of online collaboration from tutors and students but concedes the benefits of the face-to-face that include:

“You can respond to students directly, making full use of different ways of learning and encourage student interaction” (MacDonald, p140).

This anecdote implies that non-verbal communication and interpersonal skills have a significant role to play and cannot yet be fulfilled online.

There are issues to explore, however. Primarily, there is little room in this method for assessment – much of which is either observed or as a product of the practical pieces and the completed workbooks. I am sure that some of the students feel that they have been rushed through the unit and that the quality of the products created has not been measured. I would like to develop assessment of learning within the e-Learning as well as part of the conventional delivery within the unit perhaps through video diaries.

REALLY using Google Apps at school

There’s been a lot of twitter-chatter amongst the edu-twitterers about specific application of the Google Apps or Google Doc suite. There is even a Google Wave regarding the finer points of a Google Apps only TeachMeet like event or even an unofficial Google Teacher Academy. For my part, I want to see the best use of the free stuff and specifically the Google Docs as that is what I have been using since I don’t have direct access to a VLE and many of my learners come from across different schools.

Google Apps can be used as a perfectly good learning platform (can’t recall where I got this diagram from – sorry). Pedagogically, there is lots of educational theory to structure distance style learning in the contexts of HE. What about schools? What’s the best way for schools to add structures that work and REALLY use Google Apps as a teaching tool?

After giving this a bit of thought, I have looked at Gilly Salmon’s Five Stage Model for e-activities. This is supposed to be for HE of course but recognises the stages needed to get into the process and input required from staff. It’s not an instant thing being able to transpose how you relate teacher-student and student-teacher! Salmon says there are five stages that end with collaboration (stage 4) and peer supported networking (stage 5).

Although widely used and tested in HE, theres not enough teacher input for this model alone to be the structure for schools’ use of Google Apps. I would propose integrating this model with the framework for communicative media developed by Diana Laurillard. The Conversational Framework model emphasises the necessity to have dialogue at the centre of learning. This diagram shows the process as a cycle or flow:

The benefit of the Google Apps suite is that gmail or the IM feature can be used to support the dialogue process, whilst the collaborative toolset (Docs, Presentation etc) help the learner to progress through the stages of interactive collaboration and peer support. Ideally, a social and ‘fun’ learning aspect could also be part of this – although not yet part of the suite. Any recommendations? Bejewelled/tetris?!

Online Guide for Chroma keying in the Studio

http://web.archive.org/web/20100929074616/http://www.youtube.com/v/lrbSU_5Gabw&rel=1&fs=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1

At the CLC we do quite a bit of Chroma key or green screen filming. The movie above explains the basics of what it is (with a few examples) and is part of an intensive step by step guide we put together for users of the Tv studio.

Have a look through the instruction guide here.

The intention is that they can follow the photos and text and set up and use the studio themselves for simple chroma projects. Being online rather than printed, there is the facility for feedback in terms of the clarity of instructions and generally from the user community. The guide is specific to our set up and equipment though…

Glogster – graphic blog posters

Presenting Glogster, a great web 2.0 style tool that is free to use, intuitive and highly creative.  What is it? Basically a multimedia poster maker that allows the addition of images, text, shapes and colour with audio and video. How to use? Have an idea for your poster (sketch it out if you need to) but then collect multimedia, links to web sites and even sounds and You Tube video addresses. The interface is simple and lets you add what you need and then resize and drag around the workspace as you see fit. Once happy with your design, you publish and get a link or embed code for broadcasting via a blog or web site. Having recently taught a unit of GCSE Graphics based around Photoshop, I look at this and see the potential for a full on WEb 2.0 approach. Yes it allows online comment and feedback and some aspects of the social networking web. I would suggest some improvements though – what about comment moderation (Blogger has had this for years) and even the option to disassociate from social networks? These minor changes would make Glogster highly usable in UK schools.

Xtranormal – text to animated movies

Xtranormal.com offers a free service to convert text to an animated movie – a good alternative to D-Film!

 

Stage from xtra

The advantage of D-Film is that it has a really easy to use interface and a style that learners can relate to; it’s games like and has a great sense of humour. Likewise, Xtranormal is perfect for your next level up of learner.

The whole thing looks like Macromedia Director and the level of control is outstanding. Having shown it to some Y11 Media students, they think it is usable as a planning tool for pre-production. The lighting features make this great for learning studio basics too.

Check out the website as there are loads of examples in the gallery. Oh, did I mention it is a free resource?!

3 Minute film competition

Successfully launched a 3 minute film competition to our town and borough. With a deadline of just three weeks, students of all ages had to make and edit a 3 minute film on the theme of Developing Cultures. What a response! After an initial 4 school entries just three made the final grade and they were superb! Now I need to know how to send them as entries into the National Schools Film Week competition…

Any advice on ‘safe’ film publishing for learners? You Tube and Vimeo are great but usually banned in our partner schools…

What is Digital Creative Media?

This could best well be explained within the 375 pages of a book, but nonetheless I’ll try to summarise DCM as the technically / electronically mediated forms of new media. That is, new as in most-recent or current and media as the “mediums” of communication (print, cinema, broadcast & published) as expressed or developed by new technologies. This is not to exclude the ‘analogue’ technologies but to illustrate the empowerment of all users of new media via the postmodern over the modern, the post-industrial over the industrial and the global over the local.

Key Characteristics

It is:

• Digital
• Interactive
• Virtual
• Hypertextual
• International / Intercultural

Google to inherit world, possibly

Here’s a little brain teaser…

Knowledge is power. Information is power. The secreting or hoarding of knowledge or information may be an act of tyranny camouflaged as humility.
Robin Morgan

And one more thing…

The medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium – that is, of any extension of ourselves – result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology.

The more the data banks record about each one of us, the less we exist.
Marshall Mcluhan

Alright, you’re thinking whats this gotta do with G**gle? Well read on dear reader…

The New York Times asks the question, is G**gle moving towards world domination? “In a few years you’ll be driving your G**gle to the G**gle to buy some G**gle for your G**gle,” read one posting on Slashdot.

Read more on G**gle’s world take-over plans athttp://www.politicalgateway.com/main/columns/read.html?col=247

This isn’t just conspiracy theory stuff look at this BBC news report at

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4662280.stm

G**gle to take the Micr*S*ft crown within 8 years??? Search system, Email catalogue, Photo storage, Outlook spamming, TV, whats next an OS? A dummy-machine?

We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.
Marshall McLuhan