I Should Be Marking

Clicky!

Phew! Well, it took two whole lessons to get right, but such is life.

My Year 8s spent half a lesson using the rubber stamp and lasso tools in Fireworks to create ‘Spot the Difference’ pictures. The plan was to spend half a lesson uploading them to the class blog for all the world to see. I’d spent quite a bit of time getting the permissions right on the blog to make sure the kids had access to the files area and had thought everything should be fine. Hmmm.

First of all, the file size limit was too small, so I opened it up.

Secondly, the files were still too big as we had saved the edited versions as PNG files. So do I stop and have a lengthy discussion on the pros and cons of file sizes or rush through a quick export in order to get it done? Well, as I’m being observed I go for the latter in order to reach my objective.

Thirdly I find we can’t upload files with spaces or punctuation in the filename - which is about two thirds of them, so we have to fix that.

Fourthly the software is set up to allow one directory per blog rather than per student, so we need to get them to create their own folder within the files section - using their first name for example.

Three of them are called Michael. At this point I’ve managed to create a nice head-sized dent in the wall.

Brilliant! We’re all uploaded. Now simply write a post and use the ‘Files’ button to add the images in. Except that this opens a new window which doesn’t automagically close once you’ve added the files. And so, Year 8 pupils being Year 8 pupils, they simply click the ‘Add’ button until it realises what they mean and does it right, resulting in half a dozen entries consisting of 24 copies of an image set to 1280×960. Then the bell went.

The next lesson we started from the point where we had done the image editing. I talked a lot about file types, the export process (people kept complaining that when they exported their PNG as a JPG they still had a PNG file on their desktop. Aaarrgghh!!), the upload process, the adding of images to the blog post and the structure of a blog entry (Introduction, Description, Discussion - the last part always being the most difficult to tease out).

So a partial success and a lot of lessons learned. I don’t think blogs are cutting edge, although their use in lessons still is to a large degree - especially in secondary schools where lessons are shorter, classes change more frequently, etc. I certainly feel like I’m on the forefront, but maybe that’s just me!

I’m still here and I haven’t forgotten my promise to write up the iMedia units. Unfortunately I was ill for a large chunk of last week and am on half term this week - and left all of my notes at school. Tsk. I’ll have to do some marking now instead.

Incidentally - I had the ‘experience’ of a whole day’s PD day on the new ICT curriculum. The one interesting part of the day was comparing our current Y7 Scheme of Work to the new learning outcomes. And we’re already meeting or exceeding each one.

I had been looking at HoD jobs in the area, but if I have to sit through a number of those days as a result then I wonder if any amount of money can really be worth it…

OK, so following up from my training, here is my abridged tutor handbook for Level 2, Unit 1. Expect the other 7 in due course. I’ve included the key notes from what I was given plus notes I made myself during the day. Any inaccuracies are my own fault and if in doubt - check with Alison!!! (more…)

I know I said I was going to write-up comments for each unit over the weekend. Well, it’s still on the list of things to do, it’s just that other things have temporarily taken over.

I’m sat here with a rare 15 minutes spare and I’m contemplating what to do next with my iMedia group. The project brief I gave them, to create an advert for a local business, allows sufficient depth to meet the assessment criteria - a minimum of 3 edits with different tools. So basic cutting, adding titles, transitions and/or video effects ought to be fine. I’m still not sure they’ve got enough theory under their belts though, and I’m not sure they’re all good enough for my liking.

I’m trying to think of an alternative project brief for next time and, inspired by the montage sequence in Team America: World Police I was going to get them to make a trailer for a film. Of course they need to capture the footage for themselves and the more I think about it, the greater the gulf between professional trailers and our low-timescale, low-budget attempts  seems.

Another thought was a music video, but I’m not entirely convinced that this will lead to anything other than messing around for a couple of weeks. So what else? An interview? A documentary? An advert for the school? The course? A chosen GCSE subject? Do I give them all the same script? (I’m pretty sure I’m allowed to as that’s not part of the assessment criteria - although storyboarding is).

It needs to be a project that will allow them to film with a minimum of props and other equipment, and in a short space of time. Being able to film people without needing a change of clothing is useful, and the ability to add effects, transitions and edits without it looking too ‘primary school’ is key.

Feel free to offer suggestions. I’ll let you know what we decide…

NB: I’ve added an iMedia category to the blog but have not (as yet) retrospectively tagged previous posts. I won’t make any promises but Multimedia should provide similarly themed posts in the archive.

Yesterday I attended an iMedia training day, mostly aimed at those planning to deliver the course form next year. As we’re halfway through the year with our first cohort we thought it might be sensible to get some training and so we spent some time with the Chief Moderator, Kevin Wells, as well as Alison Pearce, the head honcho.

It was my first formal training course for a specific qualification but I got the impression it was somewhat unusual. We got to ask direct questions to the two most important people, and were given direct responses. It seems that they have gone out of their way to make the course easy to manage without being a pain to assess or adminsiter (administrate?).

Most importantly, it seems that we’re delivering the course more or less right, but I thought some of you might appreciate a brief rundown of the topics covered. As such I’m going to take the unprecendented step of using the ‘more’ tag. If the world as we know ceases to exist, I most humbly apologise.

(more…)

[slideshare id=194611&doc=mount-grace-priory-1196970055611422-4&w425 width=318 height=270]

Today my Head of Department and I took a group of 17 iMedia students out to a local English Heritage site (Mount Grace Priory) to take some photographs for the Level 2 Unit 1 (digital images).

I’m not really involved in that unit as I’m focussing on Unit 6 (digital video) but as I understand it they’ve been examining the Passionate People, Passionate Places documentsand have been runnning through some tutorials in order to emulate the. Using the photos we took today they’re hoping to create a designset of documents to advertise the site.

The pupils were excellently behaved and took some really great photos. Sadly, due to a lack of foresight on my part, we ran low on batteries and the slideshow above was taken using my VGA cameraphone.

Expect to see the finished results on the iMedia blog in the near future.

As part of my new officially snactioned blogging spree I’ve created yet another blog - similar in ways to my Thunks blog but with a slightly different emphasis.

Where Thunks are about considering the world we live in and the ways in which we can ask questions, Deep Thought is more introspective and is aimed at investigating how we feel about the world we live in.

My first entry is a video about the Pale Blue Dot, a photograph of Earth taken from a distance of approximately 4 billion miles. Does it make us feel insignificant? Hopeful? Useless? Guilty?

Why?

To add your thoughts or to read the thoughts of others, follow this link. And please take part - as always.

As you might have noticed that blogging isn’t at the very top of my list of priorities at the moment but I figured it was about time and I’ve just updated my iMedia students’ blog, my Thunks blog and the latest school podcast episode so have a gander at:

egglescliffeblogs.org.uk and egglescliffepodcast.org.uk 

For the first time we’re running iMedia Level 2, and I’m currently in charge of putting 18 students through Unit 6 - Digital Video (with enormous help from the head of Drama and Media who is teaching me all sorts about framing, filming and timing).

Being me, I’ve set up a blog to showcase some of their work. And I think I’ll be adding to it pretty frequently as well.

I’m really impressed with the effort and enthusiasm they’ve shown. I was seriously concerned over the summer that the whole subject would be seen as an opportunity to mess around. I couldn’t have been more wrong and so I want to show what they’ve done to the world.

For this activity I gave them 2 hours, 5 pieces of music to choose from, a 60 second time limit and access to BBC Motion Gallery.

As always, please leave comments on their blog in the first instance - I’m sure they’ll get a kick out of it.

The full RL is http://egglescliffeblogs.org.uk/imedia 

As the school is getting a site licence for Quark Xpress I decided to teach myself how to use it. The end result? 15 posters giving a brief rundown of the tasks. skill and qualifications needed for 15 different IT based careers. Details are taken from Learndirect and the images from Stock Xchange (royalty free).

I actually did them a good while ago but have been posting them to Senduit (or is it USendIt?) and putting the link on the TES forums. Hopefully this will stop me having to update the thread every couple of weeks.