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9 December 2003
December 03 Newsletter
MirandaNet Seminars – 4th December 2003‘Living’ and ‘Everyday People’ Projects
We would like to thank Steve Marchant and Mara Chrystie for their absorbing lunchtime seminar about the Homelessness and Everyday People projects at Hermitage School. We were all impressed by the quality and sensitivity of the work by the 10-11 year old London children and we are hoping to get more funding to create graphic novels and videos with young men. The subjects could be vandalism and bullying. Watch this space if you would like to be involved.
The students at Hermitage School in Wapping identified homelessness as their main concern as ACTIVE citizens. Working with artists in residence from Rebellion and KusHti Moving Image they have produced resources in video clips and comic strip format. Here are some extracts from their work.
You will find ideas about running these projects from the artists, writers and film makers in the WE journal (click on Case Studies).
For more information about this Homelessness project email enquiries.
Innovative learning projects
Warm thanks to Karen Hanrahan (Millais School), Nigel Riley (Knowle Primary School), Elizabeth Carruthers and Maulfry Worthington (both early years maths advisors from Devon) for the afternoon presentations they gave on their innovative work for World Ecitizens on the 4th December in the MirandaNet Seminar at the Institute of Education.
Thanks also to John Cuthell who talked about the interesting projects he has been running in MirandaNorth: Interactive Whiteboards (IWB), Laptop Computers and Transforming Teaching and Learning. Look at the MirandaNet website for more details.
And lastly, thanks to Jo Nutt who presented the work of Teach First teachers who are using ICT to raise London pupils’ aspirations and achievements through innovation and resourcefulness.
Our next seminar will be at BETT04, 7th – 10th January at Olympia, London. Thanks to Promethean the MirandaNet stand is three times larger than usual enabling us to show the IWB work that John Cuthell has been doing – Stand AV9.
Tina will be speaking on Thursday 8th January at 15.30 on the World Ecitizens charity. Her session presents some of the MirandaNet Fellows’ creative and imaginative uses of ICT to reach out to teachers and pupils together all over the world. There will be an opportunity for the participants in this session to make connections with other teachers who want to develop curriculum exchanges together across digital, national and cultural divides.
BETT04 is a platform for MirandaNet colleagues to join Tina. She is particularly keen to feature work which reaches out to other groups of learners. Please get in touch with her if you would like to participate in this seminar. We also hope we will have a MirandaNet audience.
In particular this is an opportunity for our International Chairs to apply for funding to speak at BETT. Let Tina know quickly if you would like a letter of invitation to use to apply to the British Council for travel and accommodation.
Debra Cook and Anne Dobson will be on the stand ready with the diary so that MirandaNet members can arrange to meet each other. Visit the stand, AV9, as soon as you arrive so that we know you are there for the day and leave your mobile number so that other MirandaNetters can arrange to meet you. We will all meet at 1 o’clock every day. Bring your lunch with you, and we can catch up.
Follow this link for more information on the site.
An amazing eleven new Fellows and one new Scholar
In the first place we’d like to congratulate the Scholars who have recently won their Fellowships through their recent work, which is on the website. These Fellows’ practice based research projects have been funded by Promethean or The General Teaching Council and the DFES.
Karen Hanrahan, Millais School
Can I have some more homework please?
Modern Foreign Languages forums for young people
A practice-based investigation on her pupils’ response to an online language forum which was created to set meaningful and motivating homework in Modern Foreign Languages.
Nigel Riley, Knowle Primary School
We want a voice too:
Using online environments and collaborative elearning on Citizenship with primary pupils
Practice-based research which focused on the effect that elearning together with an online discussion environment has had on 10-11 year old primary pupils’ understanding and knowledge of global citizenship.
Elizabeth Carruthers
Maulfry Worthington
Marks making meaning: early learning in Maths
Gained their MirandaNet Fellowship through writing up their recent work with teachers about young children’s mathematical concepts.
Dai Thomas, Ringmer Community College, Lewes
Knowledge Schemes and Visualisation: a whole-school approach
Dai has been working on the use of visual stimuli to reinforce concept formation. He has linked this to the use of concept maps as a way of underpinning curriculum links for students. The ACTIVboard provides the ideal multi-media environment for students to interact with the teacher, each other and the learning process.
Kirsten Lowe, Castle View School, Sunderland
Changing expectations: The Effects of IWBs on Underachieving Boys
Kirsten’s research looked at what underachieving boys like, and don’t like, about school – then used the ACTIVboard features to structure an environment that incorporated all of those things that motivated them: competition; constant feedback; visual recall; presentations and reflection. Her research provides a model for ways in which ACTIVboards can be used to raise achievement.
Sue Mainstone, Sir Charles Lucas Arts College, Colchester
The Impact of IWBs on Departmental Praxis
Sue has used ACTIVboards in the Maths department as a way of building departmental resources, improving student motivation and performance but, most significantly, changing the perception of the students. Mathematics has become fun.
Karen Graham, St. Giles CE Primary School, Shrewsbury
Switching On Switched-Off Children
Children who daydream in the classroom; children who miss critical parts of the lesson because their attention drifted; children who are never fully engaged with the learning process: we have all encountered them in every classroom in which we’ve worked. Karen’s project examined the strategies and facilities made possible with using ACTIVboards, ACTIVstudio and online resources and evaluated their effects on the previously switched-off children – who switched on to learning.
Jonathan Wood, Ringmer Community College, Lewes
ACTIVboards, Visual Learning and Mathematics
Many mathematical concepts rely on the learner visualising processes and forming concepts: Jonathan’s work on the Promethean Action Research Scholarship explores the ways in which these processes develop learning. He has also explored learning theories, and found that the reviewing facilities within ACTIVstudio and the flip charts provide powerful support for revision and effective learning.
Tony McNally, Castle View School, Sunderland
Transforming Music Teaching
Young people are often inhibited in music lessons: they are self-conscious about their perceived lack of skills; they worry that their work fails to meet curriculum criteria and often fail to see the progression they have made from one lesson to the next. Tony has integrated all of the music technology with the ACTIVboard: this means that his students have access to all of the resources necessary for their individual, group or class work. Student work is now shared; suggestions are made; standards have risen. Perhaps more importantly, all of the students are active, engaged learners in music: and they enjoy it.
Joseph Kolecki
Joseph is a physicist with the Power Technology Division at the NASA John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field in Cleveland Ohio and has been working with Lawrence Williams on the Science through Art (STAR) project. STAR is an innovative approach to teaching wherein subjects are not as partitioned into specific categories but presented as an integrated whole. See Joseph’s profile on our website.
Our new scholar - Wilma Clark
Wilma is currently completing the second year of a 2 year PGCE conversion course in Information Technology at the University of Brighton and enjoying it very much. She is currently in her first placement school and enjoying learning to 'read the classroom', getting to know the children and trying to understand how to apply her IT subject knowledge in the classroom.
She has a particular interest in interactive whiteboards, multimedia and digital literacies and during the first year of her course conducted a mini-research topic on the impact of IWB use in the classroom and the concept of resource centred learning.
Following on from this, Wilma has gone on to develop a deep interest in the potential impact of technology on teaching and learning and, in particular, the possibility that it may transform the way we think and learn or are motivated to learn. She hopes to carry out some future research in this area and is particularly interested in exploring the dynamics of teaching and learning drawing on the pedagogical theories of Vygotsky and more recent interpretations of his work (her first degree is in Russian language and culture) as well as the semiotic theories of Yuri Lotman.
She loves to read, write, travel and debate and when she's not being passionate about technology or learning, she's usually being passionate about one or other of these things. Like Dennis in the November newsletter, she has been a frequent member of various Writers' Groups and has (just to see if she could do it) written a work of historical fiction set in the ancient Middle East.
More Project News
Ben Franklin and Marion Scott-Baker, who are already MirandaNet Fellows, should be congratulated on their recent case studies, which they presented at University of Huddersfield, Interactive Whiteboards Seminar on Friday 21st November.
Ben Franklin, Sir Charles Lucas Arts College, Colchester
Embedding IWBs in the curriculum
Ben has examined the impact of ACTIVboards on pupils from Years 7 to 10, and shown how their use leads many pupils to consider learning to be ‘Fun’. Ben has also experimented with ways in which interactive whiteboards can transform the process and improve learning outcomes when teaching digital photography.
Marion Scott-Baker, Cheam School, Reading
ACTIVboards, Reading Skills and Phonics
Conventional strategies for developing early literacy skills are based on a number of processes: letter discrimination, matching, sequencing and grapheme – phoneme awareness. The tools that teachers have to use – flash cards, charts, games, posters, and so on – often prove to be less than suitable for young children with limited concentration skills. Whole class activities often mean that those with learning difficulties find it difficult to succeed with the process of reading and writing. Marion has worked extensively with the ACTIVboard, ACTIVprimary and other resources and found that it is a highly successful way of overcoming the barriers to literacy.
Well done all of you who have been posting students’ work on this website.
Mayflower School was one of the first to respond to our invitation to young people all over the world to share this web space by sending us their aspirations for citizenship. These six year olds knew exactly what they wanted to say to us all.
Other contributions come from
Gill Hillman, George Mitchell Community School – Citizenship Themes
Mara Chrystie and Anne Hafford, Hermitage Primary School – Homelessness and Living and Everyday People
Beth Chrystie, William Patten Primary School – Recycling Project
Susanne Bello, Mayflower Primary School – Peace Posters by 6 year olds
Nigel Riley, Knowle Primary School – Posters on Global Citizenship by 10-11 year olds
Marion Scott Baker, Cheam Primary & Junior School – A school tour and projects on sharing cultures with USA schools
Lawrence Williams, Holy Cross Convent School – NASA Project and Japanese Links
Middle School – attached to Northern Jiaotong University (c/o Geoff Scott Baker) – A knowledge base about Chinese Theatre
The TES featured an interview with Tina about the philosophy behind WE in the online supplement on 7th Nov.
Do get in touch with us if you want to start a project. There are a lot of resources in the secure web based learning environment that is attached.
2004 Seminar Programme
Please make a note of these MirandaNet seminar dates, all to be held at the Institute of Education. Seminar titles will be sent out at the start of 2004. Let Tina know if you want to speak.
22-23 March 2004
28 April 2004
27 May 2004
21-22 June 2004
Some Fellows might be interested in this conference in Portugal:
25-26 March 2004
IADIS International Conference `Web Based Communities 2004`
http://www.iadis.org/wbc2004/
Lisbon, Portugal
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