Making Films

In ICT, Year 7 have been working on making a silent film for a project we were working on. Everyone has almost finished their films and already one has been posted on this blog. Soon all of them will be for viewing on the Kellett ICT blog, TeacherTube and YouTube. We started a little bit on film and cameras in our English class, so we are already got a head start on this unit.

Year 7 Video - The Great Chase

In a project with ICT and English, Year 7 pupils have been scripting, shooting and editing a short movie. Groups of 3-5 students worked together on producing the films.

Using Media Wales' "Making Movies Make Sense" to help them understand about camera angles and composition, they tried to use different techniques to help convey meaning in their work.

As usual, in any film project, much of the hard work is carried out without a camera in hand, namely planning and editing. The project was a great success and students learnt lots about the film-making process. It was good to see that even at the end of the project they all had ideas about how they could further improve their work if they had the opportunity.

Well done to all those involved.

The first film follows;

Visiting Artist

Yesterday saw the first visit of Beulah van Rensburg to Kellett to begin our Art/ICT project. She spoke to Year 7 students showing examples of her work, referring to her inspirations as well as the Surrealist movement in general.

We also had chance to ask some of the technical 'how to' questions that will help us to produce our finished artwork.

Beulah is pictured below with one of her images, entitled "Bellybuttons".




Beulah also works with the Chameleon Workshop. They have an exhibition entitled Day Dreams from April 11th. Full details can be found here.

The Byron Review

Well done to all those who successfully identified the lady below as Dr Tanya Byron, author of the recently published Byron Review. Having given out so many points I am now virtually bankrupt!

Byron was asked by UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown to report on the potential dangers to children in using the internet and playing video or console games. Her report makes fascinating reading and is available in a number of formats. The executive summary is certainly something that parents should note. All pupils from P3 to Y7 will be receiving their own copy of the summary specifically written for young people.

Some of her advice on safe use of the internet is copied below;

10. The internet is a vast many-to-many network which allows users to communicate freely with others all over the world – ideas can be spread quickly, cheaply and freely. One consequence of this is that there is no obvious single point at which editorial control can be exercised. This means that it is very difficult for national Governments to reduce the
availability of harmful and inappropriate material. However, the majority of material accessed by internet users is hosted on a relatively small number of highly popular sites,the rest of it occupying a ‘long tail’ of less popular material. This means that we should focus our efforts on reducing the availability of harmful and inappropriate material in the most popular part of the internet.


11. Parents also have a key role to play in managing children’s access to such material. There is a range of technical tools that can help parents do this (eg. safe search), but they only work effectively if users understand them. So restricting children’s access to harmful and
inappropriate material is not just a question of what industry can do to protect children(e.g. by developing better parental control software), but also of what parents can do to protect children (e.g. by setting up parental control software properly) and what children can do to protect themselves (e.g. by not giving out their contact details online).


12. Just like in the offline world, no amount of effort to reduce potential risks to children will eliminate those risks completely. We cannot make the internet completely safe. Because of this, we must also build children’s resilience to the material to which they may be exposed
so that they have the confidence and skills to navigate these new media waters more safely.

Another key element concerns empowerment of our students, and Byron states;

Children and young people need to be empowered to keep themselves safe – this isn’t just about a top-down approach. Children will be children – pushing boundaries and taking risks. At a public swimming pool we have gates, put up signs, have lifeguards and shallow ends, but we also teach children how to swim.

There's certainly a lot more to digest from this significant report and more will follow.

Who Is This Woman?????

Or maybe lady is a more polite term? Anyway, she was in the news a great deal last week after publishing a long awaited report, which we will look at in greater detail in the next few weeks.

If anybody can let me know the answer before the end of the week, they will receive huge numbers of points, plaudits and praise! Here's a clue; she made her name presenting as a parenting guru and fronted a number of TV shows tackling poorly behaved children, one of which was delightfully called 'The House of Tiny Tearaways'.

Who is she and why should all pupils, parents and teachers at Kellett know about her??? Answers on a postcard... no, not really, just walk up to me and tell me. Or if you're not sure about that, send me an e-mail!!

Well done to all those who have responded so far. 100% correct, but don't forget to say who you are when you post to the blog.

Australia

Great beaches, great scenery, great food etc, etc. Awful wireless internet access! It's been a struggle to find anywhere to get online since leaving Hong Kong, even the internet cafe I found was closed! Here in Sea World there is the chance to connect and catch up on a few e-mails and see what's been happening in the blogging world. Heading up to Brisbane tomorrow, so there should be more online time before returning to the luxury of wi-fi enabled Hong Kong.

Are You Paying Attention?

Good to see the often mentioned Derek Robertson getting some press in the UK for his groundbreaking work on games-based learning. His pilot project on the use of the Nintendo DS within Numeracy has now been funded to allow for a larger scale study after the Easter break. It will be fascinating to hear how it goes.

Derek did the rounds on the BBC last week, filming interviews for Breakfast TV as well as Radio Scotland. As is normal, the BBC felt obliged to provide a couch opponent to games-based learning who managed to completely miss the point!

Judge for yourself!

My thanks to Ewan McIntosh for editing these clips together. Copyright BBC2008

Accessing Homework Pages During School Closure

Well done to all those students who have accessed the work left by teachers during the school closure. It's good to see you all using ICT to carry on your studies.

A big reminder to all those students who haven't entered the Digital Photography Competition yet. The closing date is next Tuesday so there's still time for you to get your entry to me! Of course, you will have to send your photographs in as attachements now by e-mail. For those of you in P1 or P2 it's ok to get somebody at home to help you with this part.. just make sure it's you that takes the photograph.

Here's one of the entries to get you inspired!

E-Learning During School Closure

With the school temporarily closed, the teachers have been working hard to ensure there's plenty to do over the next few days. P5 teachers pictured contemplating their learning objectives.

All year groups have homework provided on their individual pages, which can be accessed via the Useful Websites section here.

The specialist teachers have also provided homework which can be found on their pages; Art, Chinese Studies and PE all have lots of activities for you. If you're reading this you've already done some ICT! Why not carry on down the page and follow some of the links to sites such as Brainbox Challenge and the National Geographic channel. The archived site to the right also has plenty of info for you to look at.

It's good to see the Year 6 teachers using a Web 2.0 platform to communicate with students. The Kellett Ning now has audio by Miss Nichol and Miss Hitchcox reading their class text, as well as links to a popular video sharing site! The forum is available for students in Year 6 to post their homework too.

I wonder if anybody is able to give an audio or video response!???

School Closure

Like many schools in HK, we're closed today. More info can be found at

http://www.kellettschool.com/Announcements.htm

Later this morning you will be able to find lots of stuff to keep you busy here and on the school year pages. Year 6 pupils will be able to use the Ning to discuss work related (and non-work) related STUFF! Please use the forum section of the ning rather that mailing individual friends... that way everybody can join in.

Are You a Brainbox?

I'm grateful to Derek Robertson for pointing out the Brainbox web site on his blog. Brainbox Challenge is a TV show in the UK and the online version is an excellent tool for looking at various types of learning, such as spatial and visual.

P4 students had a quick look earlier today and they were pretty impressive in the way they answered the challenge. It's the sort of actvity that they could carry on at home, although seemingly it can only be used by one person at a time and retain the records. It would take far too long to take all the tests at once.

Have a go and let me know how your Brainbox Quotient looks. I have to admit my Spatial score was really bad, whilst my Language and Visual scores were much better. Obviously some improvement needed there!

You can visit the Brainbox Challenge website by clicking here.

Google Sketchup... again!

This time it's P3's turn to use the excellent Google Sketchup. A quick look at the basic tools and we're off and running. It's very simple to use and the creative power of the software means we can do all sorts of things.

Here's the HSBC building created in Google Sketchup... not my own work sadly.

Google Sketchup is completely free and should be at the top of the list of home PC downloads, along with Google Earth.

If you don't have Sketchup you can download it via the following link.

Room With a View

Here we are in KL... Day Two of the FOBISSEA ICT Conference about to start. Here's the view from my hotel room... pretty nice!

Just watched an excellent presentation on Scratch by Glenn Malcolm from BIS in Hoh Chi Minh. We used Scratch in Computer Club earlier this year and we'll definately be looking at it again in the near future.

Destination KL

Off to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow for a conference of FOBISSEA ICT co-ordinators and teachers. It should be a great opportunity to share good practice and look at the issues that face our schools as we come to terms with what it means to be a 21st century learner.

Hopefully there will be opportunities to update what's happening on this blog and I may even keep the Twitter going (see right hand menu).

This type of event is really important in an international environment as it helps to set up meaningful connections which can be built upon in the future. Another conference on the horizon is the Hong Kong 21st Century Conference coming up in May... more about that soon. It's also good to see that the Shanghai Learning 2.0 Conference will be taking place next academic year. This was widely regarded as hugely influential last year and was attended by a large number of HK schools.

National Geographic Film Site

If you're at a bit of a loose end, National Geographic have a nice video editing site which shows how students can use a basic timeline to create a movie from video and audio clips.

It's a great introduction to a timeline editor and a useful exercise in matching the video content to an appropriate soundtrack. Try adding the video clips first and watching your movie. Then add some music and see what difference it makes to the overall feel of the clip.

P3 have tried out the site with great success although the sharing and saving element was a little unreliable.

Have a go and see if you can share your movie. You can find the site here!