Sunday 17 May 2009

New Creative Tallis website

In response to the Leadership Team's thoughts on promoting creative learning at Tallis, I have made a website called Creative Tallis. The idea is to pull together as much information about creative learning as possible, both in school and out, to create a one stop shop which can be used for staff training, sharing best practice with other schools and providing up to date information to all our stakeholders. The site is not complete yet (I suspect it may never be, such is the nature of rapid developments in school) but I thought you may like to take a look at what's there so far and give me some feedback. Please let me know if links don't work or you think things are in the wrong place. I'd also like to know if you think the information is useful and accurate. If you spot anything I've missed or forgotten about (or just not got round to including yet) please let me know and I can make a list. I thought it best to register our own domain names so we now have exclusive use of creativetallis.com and creativetallis.co.uk. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

14 comments:

Me said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Me said...

Looks great!
I looked at the video of Eye and I project, It looked like loads of fun.

Are we having a meeting on tuesday?

Jon said...

I believe so Billy. We need to nail down what the Tangled Feet residency will look like. Which students will be involved, who will help to organise it all, what do we do about the food idea etc? As much as possible it's you guys who need to running the show now.

Me said...

okay sounds like allot to get through and i know these meetings go fast, may I suggest missing afternoon registration and coming straight to the meeting or coming straight after lunch?

Jon said...

I think we should stick to a 3:30 start. There's nothing stopping you beginning a conversation online about all this though!

Me said...

Okay sounds good to me!

Unknown said...

Jon This website looks fantastic. You certainly have been very busy. I love the way it stores so many resources and associated information in one place. The documents section is really useful- have just recapped all the relevant SoC docs. Great for someone with paper overload. I agree with some of the ideas you propose in your email but will write back separately. Thanks for this excellent development.

Soren Hawes said...

I'm afraid I'm unavailable for the meeting on Tuesday - I'm delivering a training session as part of the New Media DSC project at a local primary school.

As regards the website I think it is easy on the eye, easy to navigate and rich in relevant content. I think the blog would have got bogged down if it had been used to create such a comprehensive archive and directory of resources and inspirations, and it makes sense for the blog to be placed as an important element in its wider context.

I also think it will be an effective one stop shop for people to familiarise themselves with the creativity agenda if previous efforts had passed them by or had proved unsuccessful.

I'm wondering whether there could be a regular showcase element that the ARG take responsibility for maintaining - or would the blog be the best place for that? The photos and videos sections give a lovely taste of the wonderful range of things that are taking place, but I think something that gives a bit of narrative might draw people in. I suppose I have in mind something where staff and students talk about a particular task, approach or way of working and discuss its impact, advantages or difficulties - or is the blog the best place for this. I suppose I'm thinking about ways of getting people to visit the site regularly to see what has been added.

Finally, can we pause and admire the lovely look of it. If you attend conferences or look at a lot of school websites you do tend to be confronted by iffy word art, death by clip art and other aesthetic crimes - Isn't it fantastic for school documents and websites to be so beautifully assembled and presented.

Soren

Anonymous said...

The new creative tallis website is amazing. It's great to have everything in one place and in a format thats so easily accessible and useable. Its design and easy navigation highlights the problems with the current school website, even more so.

ttgunner said...

its relly good ! i think it covered all the bases of what we want to achieve which is great!!

Jon said...

Thanks for all the positive feedback folks. I agree with Ms Hawkins that the main school website is in need of a face lift. I'm on the case with this. While we wait for a new VLE (probably a service called Fronter from our new ICT providers) I think it's important that we don't let the grass grow under our feet. It's so easy to make a website these days there really is no excuse for people not to have a go. Tom, maybe you could post a link to your photography site here so we can all have a look at what you did for your exam? Maybe encouraging students to make their own website might be a great way of promoting the Creative ePortfolio idea. I think it's important that people develop a sense of ownership of the things they make (I like the fact that we all seem to have collective ownership of this blog, for example) and carving out a bit of much larger edifice like a whole school website isn't perhaps the best way to encourage young people to document their work?! Maybe the plans for a new experimental curriculum in Years 8 and 9 could include some website building work, learning about Web 2.0 applications and just how easy it is to integrate media in one place with very little ICT knowledge. Would students be more likely to update a site they had made from scratch themselves? I think so. Finally, if any of you are in lessons that you think demonstrate some aspect of creative learning, let me know a few details and I'll follow up with the member of staff concerned. I'm sure they would love to know that their classes were being discussed here and used as examples of best practice.

Amber Rowe said...

Bit late but I agree with the general comments - its simple and it looks approachable if you don't know much about computers.
I think if people of any age were to make something like a website entirely from scatch it would encourage them to keep returning to it so having lessons in years 7 and 8 sound great.
Could the school website just be a database for lots of mini websites like this one? so students and teachers and the stuff already on the school website could all go on seperate pages but then have the option to include other media like video more easily.

Anonymous said...

Like Amber, sorry this is a bit late:) I think students should deffonatly be taught Web 2.0 apps, and website bulding in the lower years! At the moment I am not fully sure what they are taught but I belive it is just basic spreadsheet making and acsess databases.... (I cant think of one company that uses acsess any more its all about Oracle but thats somthing compleatly diffrent!!!) I really enjoyed the website I am thinking about making a post about my A2 Exam final piece which was a website with a slide show bult into most of the pages... The photography A2 exam has made me find a new hobby (urban exploring) so I have started making a website about all the "explorations" that I do these sites can be found at:
www.tomwheeler.co.uk

I am looking forward to the meeting tomorow lets hope lots can be spoken about!

Again, Love the site!!

Soren Hawes said...

Firstly, thanks to Tom for the link to his website. It's a really good example of how it is possible to create beautifully presented archives and make work available to an audience - something that I think is so important in motivating students and developing their critical awareness.

Like lots of the contributors to this blog I have really enjoyed using some of the web 2.0 applications and found them to offer opportunities that don't exist with conventional ways of working. I'm sure that Year 8 and Year 9 students would also enjoy the opportunity to investigate how web 2.0 could support their work across the curriculum and also give them the opportunity to make, share and review in a way that is not always currently possible.

Soren