Carla is the Head of Drama and Performing Arts at Willows and is one of the most inspirational teachers’ I’ve ever seen. Willows is an inner City school with its fair share of challenging pupils. Being the only Drama teacher Carla teaches all pupils at KS3 drama, as you can appreciate this can be quite a task.
Carla appreciates the impact technology has on pupils as she has seen it first hand with my classes. She came up with the idea of using green screen technology after seeing a demo of it. The results were amazing, pupils that were usually the most challenging, now couldn’t wait to write their script and start to film. The examples below are of a special needs class.
This green screen kit cost £100 on eBay. The affect it has had on the pupils has been tremendous.
Here is a picture of a pupils being filmed while acting out the last scene of the group’s film. You can watch this scene below.
Here is a picture of the class in costume ready to start filming.
We recently had a staff inset day and Carla was asked to share the good practice she has been doing in her classroom. Listening to her speak to the whole school staff was so motivating and inspirational. She spoke about how proud she was of the children and how amazing the transformation of their behaviour was. Pupils that usually switched off in school are now knocking her door asking if they can attend break times and after school to prepare their scripts and rehearse.
Carla is now looking to sign up to Partners in Learning and share some of the great resources she has developed and will hopefully be showcasing some more work at a teach meet soon.
This video shows the pupils acting in front of the green screen.
Ever since being part of what I believe to be the greatest network for teachers, Partners in Learning has introduced me to some of the most inspirational educators. Being in touch with these educators via twitter and the Partners in Learning Network website I regularly showcase ideas to the staff at my school; recently I demonstrated the use of Edmodo, a private micro-blogging platform built for use by teachers and students for use in the classroom. Many teachers in school are now using it. One teacher, Dave Thomas who teachers maths really has embraced the idea of using technology to help his students.
Dave has been making videos using his windows phone to record himself demonstrating how to work out maths problems on past papers. He then integrated this with Edmodo. In the screenshots below you can see how the pupils have been helping each other and sharing good practice themselves. Dave noticed that before he had chance to log in and help the pupils they had already been helped by their classmates.
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As I mentioned earlier Dave has also made videos in response to his pipils questions they posted. Please watch the example below. It just goes to show that innovatuve teaching does’nt cost the earth.
I few months back I had a chat with Ray Chambers and asked him if he could design a Kinect game to test the knowledge of the Instruments of the Orchestra. Ray kindly made the game and the pupils have enjoyed using it.
Here is a post from Ray’s blog:
A few months back after speaking to Gareth Ritter (@ritzertech) we got talking about how applications could be modified for other lessons. I have been working a lot with Gareth as we both share a keen passion for working with the Kinect in lessons. After developing a Kinect spelling test for my lessons and a Kinect Quiz,I learnt that students were really getting engaged in these applications. The idea was simple but the students were drew to it like a flock of seagulls! You will notice in some of my previous posts the engagement from the students.
After the initial discussions we talked about modifying the Kinect Quiz so that it could have sounds playing for different instruments. This is still in working progress and something you can come back to see at a later date, however I managed to make a simple application which changes the cursor when you hover over instruments. The idea is much like the digestive system I made earlier. You hover over the correct answer and if it’s correct the black box turns clear. It could be modified further by going into the code and changing the sound to the sound of the instrument if it’s correct! The possibilities are endless!
What an amazing experience the Partner in Learning global Forum has been. I arrived late on Sunday 13th November, On the Monday all delegates were put into groups and we worked collaboratively using the latest technology available. I felt so very lucky to have visited Washington in the company so many of the world’s finest educators. The first keynote speaker was Will Richardson, this really was an eye opening presentation showing that you really need to educate our youngsters for the 21st century and we must get away from the current teaching methods that have been in place for the last 200 years. He shared his vision of classrooms changing becoming innovative classrooms. He commented on the use of mobile phones in the classroom, why shouldn’t pupils be allowed to use their mobile phones in the classroom? If the teacher asks a pupil a question surely it makes sense for the pupils to take out their mobile phone, search the question and then be able to answer it, that’s what happens in the real world. People use the technology around us to make our lives easier. All the key note speeches were well thought out and thought provoking. The event was a great opportunity to share good practice, ideas and resources. I, like many other teachers were so proud to be able to showcase our pupils work on a global stage. On the Tuesday afternoon we were given time to set up our booths. This really was a great experience watching the 130 finalists from across the globe setting up their projects.
After this we quickly had a change of clothes and attended the opening ceremony which comprised of speeches, as much food as we could eat and some really fantastic entertainment.
The amount of food was unbelievable; you know you’re in America when the choice of breakfast drink is tea, coffee or Pepsi. It was like that famous Home Alone scene where Kevin orders a ridiculous amount of food on room service, it was great.
Every day was started off with a keynote speech. Anthony Salcito, the vice president of Microsoft education gave a great keynote. He spoke about the need to deliver 21st-century lessons that will prepare our pupils for the world they are going to. His keynote speech was really interesting, when I hear keynote speeches like this it really makes me think how would this change benefit my pupils. In answer to that question it would change their lives.
Anthony Salcito also demonstrated the use of the kinect in the classroom with the release of the SDK. I found this really interesting and I know that friends back in the UK who have also been working with the kinect will enjoy and look forward to the plans Microsoft have for it. I’m a firm believer that if we can bring into the classroom the passion our pupils have for their games at home we will raise standards and their achievement and attainment. Our pupils play games at home past 12:00 at night, if they fail a level they don’t give up until they pass the level they are playing even if it takes them into the early hours, they always want to succeed. I’ve always believed that we need to bring that passion into the classroom and the kinect does that for us. I have already seen the benefits in my school.
Anthony Salcito also announced a revamped version of the partners in learning website, I really can’t wait to start using the beta version. This will open up global collaboration for teachers and it was really nice to see Stuart Ball have some recognition from the stage for all his hard work.
Another great keynote speaker was Arne Duncan, the secretary of education for the USA. I really couldn’t believe that I was sat in the same hall as the Secretary of Education. I really did feel special being sat amongst some of the finest educators I ever met and being spoken to by such a distinguished person in education.
We made a brief visit to the Smithsonian environmental research Centre. Here we worked in teams to build an ROV. It was great working with these innovative teachers to solve a problem and look how this type of project could be used with pupils.
After our trip we returned to the hotel by 3:15 PM and I had to quickly get ready to meet my first judge and present my project. My first judge seemed impressed with the project and the work that the pupils had produced. My second judge visited at around 4:30 PM and again seemed very interested in what the pupils had achieved. I really enjoyed talking about the pupils at Willows high school and it was great to showcase their work to a global community.
I was interviewed several times and the videos were uploaded to Youtube, here is one example.
The gala dinner was held at the National Museum of American Art in Washington,
It was a real spectacle as you can see above. Everyone was celebrating after such an eventful week. After we had our meal (with NO salad) it was awards time. As far as we were concerned we were all winners by being there. For me the highlight of the week was meeting some amazing people. It was great to be a part of the UK team; they are a great bunch of people with so much enthusiasm for education.
The time had come for the awards presentation. I couldn’t believe my ears when my name was read out. I was so proud of my pupils, their work had world recognition. As I walked towards the stage it was a strange feeling. So many people were clapping and cheering, it took a while to sink in.
The one person I must thank is Stuart Ball (@innovativeteach). His help, support and constant encouragement made it all possible. The work he does goes beyond what is expected of him. He is changing teacher’s lives in the UK and this is a sentiment held by so many.
The whole event was a life changing experience and one that I will never forget.
The disadvantage of being a music teacher and not an ICT teacher is that I only have a basic knowledge of coding. As you have seen in previous posts I am really enjoying using the Kinect in my classroom. It really has a major impact in the classroom and I would encourage anyone to give it a try and guess what it’s not even that difficult with so many resources already out there.
It really is worth checking out Ray Chambers’s blog at www.raychambers.wordpress.com. Being g an ICT teacher he has excellent coding skills in Visual Basic as he demonstrated in his Quiz for Teachers. He has constructed this spelling test app in the same way. All the teacher has to do is add the required information to a simple text document. So no more excuses from those teachers that say “oh it’s all too complicated”. I used this spelling test quiz to test the knowledge of my year 11 Music Technology class.
The instructions are simple:
1. Run the application.
2. Wave your right hand in front of it and you will see a pink ball on your screen.
3. Once you are ready, hover your hand over the submit button.
4. If your spelling is correct, it will say well done and make a ping sound.
5. If your spelling is incorrect, it will say incorrect and make an error sound.
6. To reset your answer hover over the reset button.
7. To change the spellings open up the test file in the folder and change them.
