See me, hear me
Miraz Jordan discovers a whole new world of learning.
The film crew wait anxiously, camera rolling, as the car pulls up and five year old Amy climbs down. As Amy walks in to Maungaraki School for the first time the camera captures the moment for ever.
Her first entry to class, her first playtime, making new friends --- the camera captures important moments in Amy's day. The Year 7 and 8 students who are recording Amy's First Day keep an eye on her, making sure she has friends to play with, that she knows where to go and what to do, even while they follow their carefully planned filming outline.So what makes Amy so special? She's a student at a school which truly integrates computers into its curriculum, using Macs and low-end PCs for research, study, creation and innovation.
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A responsible buddy
Every new entrant (with parental approval) is filmed by senior students on their first day at school. The seniors have a set of more than 50 steps to follow to create a storyboard, carry out the filming, and then post-production which will see Amy taking home a beautifully labelled DVD to her proud parents by the end of the week.
The video is also placed on the school Intranet so children throughout the school can watch it. With more funding the school would be able to allow parents entry to the Intranet from home, but some things have to wait.
Along the way the seniors are learning about making a video as well as helping to introduce a newcomer to the school and to provide a warm and welcoming environment for the five year old.
Back the classroom the film crew transfer their footage to a suitable Mac and use Apple's iLife suite to create their DVD. Their video project contributes to the Visual Language Strand of the English Curriculum and helps them develop higher order thinking skills.
Some days there may be as many as a dozen new entrants and Maungaraki's staff have to beg and borrow video cameras from friends and neighbours so no child misses out.
But the First Day programme is only a tiny part of how Macs are integrated into Maungaraki School's curriculum.
Rich learning tasks
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Maungaraki School doesn't believe in separating computers out into a separate subject, to be studied in isolation. For them the Macs, cameras, Internet and other technologies are tools with which the students can do interesting projects --- projects which allow them to communicate with others across the world. They can share experiences, learn about other cultures, understand their own environment. These children use computers the same way they use crayons, pencils, scissors and paste. They are tools to help achieve a grander purpose, not an end in themselves. |
Calling Morocco!
"Hello Morocco, this is Peru calling. Maungaraki, are you there? Come in, Belgium."
Maungaraki School connects with 8 other schools in a total of seven countries in the Rock our World project. This is penpals gone wild.Students create original 3 minute movies of themselves and their community. They include a narration and original backing music made with Apple's GarageBand software. Then, in a video conference with the other countries they share their lives and experiences.
Arranging a conference with people in half a dozen time zones is not easy. You need skills in geography and you need cultural knowledge. Communicating with the partially-sighted students from the US involves learning to decode Braille.
The Maungaraki students now have friends in Peru, Belgium, Morocco, the US, Japan and Australia, and even Selwyn Ridge School in Tauranga. From video conferencing they go on to exchange emails, newspapers, sweets and recipes. They even discuss topics such as nuclear power --- a fact of life for the Belgians and a foreign concept for the Kiwis.
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This is the kind of project which brings students in before school to work on it. They happily devote lunchtimes and stay after school. Even so, it doesn't stop them from taking part in sports or from getting on with more traditional learning. Computers aren't the be all and end all at Maungaraki. Instead, it's all about approach.
If the project is to communicate with other children and learn about other cultures then the students might read a book or newspaper, watch a video, listen to songs, email a friend in Japan, or send a video of their own. The video they make will need a plan, a storyboard, a real-world deadline, music. They'll need to learn skills of teamwork and co-operation along with the purely technical skills about which up to hold the camera.
Big Macs, little Macs
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The school doesn't have a huge budget and they certainly don't have money to waste. That's why they've chosen appropriate Macs. The Macs come with great software such as iMovie, iDVD and GarageBand. The staff and students don't have to worry about viruses and the Macs just work so they don't have to waste valuable time getting them running.
There are a few fairly powerful Macs which are used for video editing, and each classroom has both a desktop Mac and a laptop. If it's only used for emailing and other light-weight tasks it'll be an inexpensive machine --- maybe one of the 15 iMacs the school managed to win last year. In the Library there are a few low-end PCs, used for information gathering.
A school Intranet allows anyone within the school to access appropriate information, as well as the New Entrant videos. The wireless network is great for the laptops, in particular. Good security measures, including some off-site storage, help keep the technology safe when it's not being used. |
Enthusiasm
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An hour in Principal John Western's presence would convince even the most hardened technophobe of the benefits of this inclusive approach.
These students don't study computers, they use them. They don't just learn about other cultures and other countries, they talk to children who live there and share their own thoughts and ideas with them.
The biggest drawback in this whole programme is the cost. Videos and video conferencing quickly suck up expensive bandwidth and it's no surprise that the budget is limited. This valuable project really needs a good sponsorship deal, or perhaps a wealthy philanthropist.
Watch out for the children from Lower Hutt's Maungaraki School in 10 years time. I have a feeling they'll be the harbingers of both a new creativity and a vastly improved cross-cultural co-operation. |
Article from the 2005 March / April Mac Guide