Gargantua

I've just returned from seeing the amazing production of 'Gargantua' at Tallis. It's part of the National Theatre Connections Festival and is being performed both in school and at The Soho Theatre next week. Fingers crossed we get selected to perform at the national Theatre itself! The show demonstrates the amazing talents not only of our young students (nearly everyone in the play is from KS3) but also the collaborative creativity of our staff. The play is fantastically entertaining and has everything from a live band to huge animations in addition to the wonderful performances.

Well done to everyone involved for another groundbreaking event at Tallis.

What motivates us?

Check out this really cool animated talk by Daniel Pink, an expert on motivation and economics, courtesy of the RSA. Apparently, giving people a financial reward for doing complex cognitive tasks produces poorer work. What really motivates people seems to be three things: challenge, mastery and making a contribution.

What does this tell us about how we organise learning in school? Do students work better if we reward them, not with money, but with better grades? How would learning change if we altered the purpose of coming to school? What if we were able to harness the more intrinsic sources of motivation that really get people going and make them care about what they spend their time on?

I had a thought today in the shower (where I get most of my best thoughts). I've not ruminated on it much but I'm going to share it with you anyway. What if we encouraged all students to spend a part of their week in school working on a personal or collaborative project of their own choosing? In other words, we would collapse the curriculum for a portion of the week (maybe only a couple of hours) or maybe for one whole day every month and we would say to students, "This is your time. Use it to learn what you want, to try something new or work on something you feel passionate about."

Would this work?

Animated Manifesto

This post is not intended to demonstrate any party political support but I confess I am impressed with the new Labour Party manifesto animated film. It seems to have just the right combination of wit, clarity and accessibility. Let's face it, getting to grips with (and remembering) manifesto statements can be a bit tricky. Perhaps we could take a leaf out of their book with our own Manifesto for a Creative Tallis?

Xtranormal evaluation

This animated film was made in my BTEC Media class this morning in about 15 minutes. I'm trying to encourage my students to evaluate their ePortfolio websites using a variety of tools. A couple of weeks ago we recorded podcasts on my iPhone using the excellent Audioboo app. Last lesson, we videod a couple of students presenting their sites on the whiteboard at the front of the room. These films will be uploaded to YouTube and embedded in the relevant sites. One student has already made a very detailed screen cast demonstrating an advanced use of HTML and CSS.

Having discussed the kind of language they need to use to gain merits and distinctions for this unit, I am keen to enable every member of the class to demonstrate their learning using the tool most appropriate for them. Today, I told them about Xtranormal and encouraged them to present their learning as a dialogue between a fictional me and them. This is one of the films that was made, published and shared with the group during the 1 hour lesson (from a laptop on a wireless connection).

What I like about Xtranormal, apart from its simplicity and speed, is the fact that films can all be remixed. This means that students who need more of a helping hand could be given a partially finished script and asked to complete it. Or, they could choose the camera angles, expressions and soundtrack to a completed scenario. The potential applications of this tool are almost limitless. For example, I suggested to a colleague at lunch that it could be used by A level Philosophy students to present competing theories as part of their revision.

If you haven't had a play with Xtranormal yet I strongly suggest that you give it a go.

Go! Animate for revision

GoAnimate.com: media models 2 by SamanthaHodges

Check out this amazing animation by a sixth form Sociology student in Mr Walsh's class. Go! Animate seems like a great resource for creating engaging revision resources. This is the best one I've seen so far. Funny, sophisticated and useful.

North American Story

George (Year 13 photography student) showed me this today. What a great way of starting a debate about social and environmental responsibility!