Development week: Round up

Interested in what else was happening during Development Week?

Middle leaders spent 90 minutes exploring portfolios.  

We imagined what our portfolios could be four years from now.

As a provocation, we listened to one current university student reflect on her High School blogging experience:

This student has continued to use a portfolio as a tool for learning in university:

“Ultimately, it is my vision that this blog will facilitate and document my journey – and possibly yours, too – in striving to become a better global citizen, life enthusiast, and lifelong learner: stumble, learn, repeat.”

We also listened to Louie, Georgina and Uzay reflect on their portfolio process so far:

We also hosted an optional 90 minute session on Learning Spaces.  

We looked at a few key provocations here, here and here to spark conversation, toured recently revamped spaces, and then worked on two classrooms in small teams.

Here's what we managed to accomplish:

Lastly, a group of teachers also learned about the basics of iBooks Author

We explored the possible applications to integrate into that amazing resource and had a wee bit of fun playing with the built in trailer feature on iMovie and the capabilities of PicMonkey.

To discuss any of those sessions further, see your friendly DLC!

Primary Bytes 1st February 2016

	Technology for Global Concerns All of our older IT equipment becomes available to our GCs at UWCSEA East. Keeping in mind that the benefits of technology for learning come mainly from shifts in pedagogy, not just having equipment, the focus needs to be on both hardware and quality teaching with technology. There is a process (in beta) to support GCs who want to develop a project with your service partners. Please first talk to Dave or Keri-Lee if this is something that you are interested in pursuing. There are Macbooks, iPads and iMacs that are available.
	Kiddle Research shows us that visuals are very important in helping us remember. The Kiddle search engine is safe search, powered by Google and has an image to accompany each of your search results. Try it out and see what you think.
	Video editing apps for iPhone & iPad iMovie is a fantastic app for the iPhone and iPad but sometimes you want a little bit more control. Have a look at these 4 apps and see what they can offer you that iMovie can’t.

iMovie with G1 students

Filming the X for "Don't do this!"

Our Grade 1 students were involved in a service unit recently, and one group of students decided to take action by creating a movie about how to play safely in the playground. I was invited to be a mentor to them as they went about planning, filming and editing the movie.

Their teacher, Ms Dakkouri, allowed me some time to teach the whole class some of the basics of filming. We explored:

• Keeping the iPad steady
• Not filming into the light (or a silhouette effect would occur)
• Using different camera angles (such as worm's eye view and bird's eye view) to keep the video interesting.

Filming and acting in the playground.

Firstly, I met with the movie group to plan their message, where I acted as scribe. They had a list of dos and don'ts they wanted to communicate to their audience. We mapped out where we might film each scenario, and who would take the role of filming/acting/extras for each section.

Filming became our next priority. With the help of a Justand, the students were able to keep the iPad steady as they recorded. They loved shouting, "Action!" to indicate the start of filming. Several takes were needed in some instances to get just the right shot. 

Collaboratively editing

The students began putting the clips in iMovie, however soon realised they wanted to include a sign like a cross to appear on the clips for what not to do, and a tick for the clips showing what you should do. I had not planned on teaching the students about picture-in-picture, however it was exactly the tool they needed, so I showed them how.

Adding the tick using picture-in-picture

Collaboratively, the students took turns to put the clips in, add the picture-in-picture (with frequent "helpful" reminders to those who forgot how), and include a title. One student observed that it would be, "way cooler," if we could slow down the clip about the sand being thrown, so that provided another opportunity to show them how to do that. They were gobsmacked! It was wonderful to see them all so excited and engaged.

Finally we finished! They were thrilled to show their teacher, who promised to share the movie in assembly with the whole of the early years students.

What I liked most about this project was that it evolved out of a student inquiry, and that the concepts of film-making were taught as needed, for just-in-time learning. Students were receptive to teaching points because it was real world learning, and that's what has the most impact on understanding. I hope you enjoy watching our finished iMovie below!

G1NaD from UWC South East Asia on Vimeo.