action-research

Just seems like its getting started now!

A shame really, but still got to try these things out and give em a go.

I used the Newspaper club for the last history session, where children are now writing up the historical detective work, and I was so glad I did ;)

Even though it is very very simple, it still had me & the teacher running around from group to group helping out the computer problems. A couple of the children almost instantly come against the limitations of the Newspaper club, asking to do creative things with their layouts. But I was really glad a I didn’t use indesign for this class – that was a very wise move!

Newspaper club

The Newspaper club has an online widget type service – “… in a nutshell it’s this; we think the web is wonderful and printed newspapers are a tremendous, highly-evolved way of reading stuff. We think combining the two is a good idea. We’re not about news or any particular form of content, we’re about ink on newsprint. Whatever you think would be good to print that way; we think you’re probably right.”

www.newspaperclub.co.uk

Children dived in and started creating their maps, developing their ideas.A great amount of energy and buzz about the class as they all focused on what they were doing.

Some fascinating discussions went on (I wished I’d audio recorded them) – talking about all aspects of their maps within their groups – what it should/should not show, where things should appear on the paper, how big it should be (should smaller roads be shown the same size or smaller?). A lot of drawing & rubbing out (making the curve of the road just right, children talking about how it bends and connects to other roads was interesting hearing them discuss the nature of the curve and coming to a consensual agreement).

Though they are still seeing their maps as the conventional map showing rds, shops, etc. I’m asking them to mark aspects you do not usual see on these coventional maps, which some are doing more then others.

The group of boys who are mapping a woodland bike jumps asked if they could make their map 3d – I hadn’t anticipated this! This 3d aspect was then picked up by some girls mapping tescos (which I’m a bit worried might become too much like a dolls house) – this might mean I’ll have to amend my last session where i was going to digitailse their maps & then go into the computer suite for them to finish.

but lets see what develops next session.

I took the classes for the two history sessions and have my age old problem of dominating a room. If you do not take control of the class of 32 children then your ideas, your communications do not get clearly transferred. This is were I really have to rely on the skill / expertise of the teacher.

Otherwise the first session was a success, the children feedback their top story idea (which was my expected story lines). Good to hear from the children though. & good to hear they remembered things from 2wks ago!

But found out the histroy class can not now move into a computer suite to produce their newspaper! I presumed we would be moving onto computers, but as always it is bad to presume things.

Lesson to learn – confirm things doubly (as always) – could we have booked computer suites earlier – would it have that been possible?

i.e. can we book a suite over a GCSE class? Was this a mistake in not booking a suite earlier?

As things stand we will be using 12 computers that are quite slow in the library, these will have to be shared amongst the 32 children, so I’ll have to plan for group work.

my session with the art class on making their own emotional map of the area went very well. Originally I’d stipulated that they have to map the local town the school was in, but most children in the class did not live in the town and were bussed in. This was a major issue and after discussing with the art teacher (luckily we have some free time after each class to catch up) we’d decided to widen the area the children can map.

So this session had two aims;
– one they decide on the area their map will cover.
– And next they decide on the important features they will illustrate.

Started off with my showing a wide range of maps, highlighting that maps are a 2d visual representation of our 3d world. Despite their apparent message of objectivity, maps select and even distort, because maps, like all images, are made for purposes, and those purposes influence the final form.

That this is an art class and that our maps will be about image creation; using their immediate world as inspiration. For children who worried about having to draw I emphasized that their map does not just have to use drawing, but photographs and text (typography/writing) as well. Also that they will be collaborating and creating a collective map.

Session was excellent & maybe should have started with this session. Probably one of my focuses of getting them out of the school grounds was a distraction?

Another big benefit of this session was that I had become very worried (from the last session before half term) of how a couple of groups (one in particular) had a personality clash and I had not seen these groups really jelling together and creating a piece of work – I imagined most of my time being fire fighting the discord. This was resolved by moving a couple of children into different groups that matched the sort of mapping the individual child wished to work on.

Another benefit was one of the children voicing what’s the point to this from previous week – too can I bring in some photos of him doing bike jumps in the area he wished to map (some woodland outside town that has bike jumps).

We then used google earth for them to each show their chosen area to map and hear about what they would be showing.

A fascinating choice of locations were chosen and the reasoning behind their selection. These varied from very wide geographic spread of four towns along a major A road; a large supermarket, including car park; local village; nearest biggest city (shopping / recreational); and the bike jump area outside town. Great possibilities and I can’t wait to see their ideas develop, unfortunately only have 3 wks (that is 3hrs) left now!