Web n Play

Just a reminder that Sydney Thornbury from Web n Play is coming to talk with us on Tuesday. We'll meet as usual up in room 208 after school. Billy will be chairing the meeting. Try and grab a moment to check out their site to get a sense of what they do.

Soren

Bubble logo

In advance of tomorrow's meeting with the publicity team I thought I would share one of the logo options. What do people think? I tried another one with some dots, an exclamation mark and a question mark, but that met with spousal disapproval. Thanks to Freddie Darke for the bubble drawings.

Soren

The Measurement Shop

Check out the latest Tangled Feet project, The Measurement Shop. There are so many ways to measure things and so many things that can be measured. How happy are you? How can you measure happiness?

This project looks like another great opportunity for us to think about learning at Tallis using the talents of a fantastic group of actors and performers.

Web 2.0 and Prezi

I've just managed to upgrade my Prezi account to the new, free educational version. It was a bit tricky because the form of my email address had to match a school website (e.g. .com) and our system doesn't work like this. I eventually realised that I could use my Tallis LAB account which is another tick in the box for Google Mail as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, I was browsing through some really great Prezis when I found this one. It gathers together a lot of the ideas about and a rationale for using Web 2.0 tools in the classroom. It's American ( I still don't really know what K12 means) but applies easily to our experiments.

Just thought I'd share it with you and encourage you to get on board with Prezi. I still like Keynote, but Prezi is a whole new ball game.

P S Thanks to those of you who have joined the OK LDN Ning. More about this soon.

The Future of Learning

The always interesting Stephen Heppell articulating the connection between technology and the development of creative life-long learners.

iPhone app

I've just finished creating an iPhone app for Thomas Tallis School using the amazingly easy iSites.

The app, which you will soon hopefully be able to download from the App Store via iTunes, is a collection of all the blog feeds that are related to the school. At the moment, these are almost exclusively arts or creative learning based but, eventually, if blogging takes off, students and staff will be able to access the latest information about the school and the curriculum using this app. There is an Android version of the app on the way for anyone without an iPhone. Even now there are an amazing 25 different feeds from a combination of Blogger, Tumblr, Twitter and Flickr sites.


I'll let you know when it becomes available on the App Store. Exciting times!

Bubble

It may be that I'm having a bubble, but what would people think of branding the SCG with an image of a bubble? Why Bubble? I suppose it's playful, elastic, magical, the idea of created space, elusive, the idea of wonder, thought bubbles ... We could get a really nice graphic/logo created and use it without the word bubble. What do people think?

Soren

I know it may cause some problems but is there a chance we could consider re-scheduling ARG mtgs to week B? I would love to be part of the group but I don't work Tuesdays A.

Pls, pls, pls.....

Chenai - the idea machine!

It wont surprise anyone to hear that Chenai has already come up with some great ideas. Check out her email to the publicity group. Also, Matt, if you're out there, can we have your up to date email address.

Hey everyone!

So had a bit of a brainstorming sesh with Mr Hawes after the meeting and it sent me on an idea frenzy as I do. Well to be honest I only came up with two. Anywho, here they are, in particular order (no typo):

IDEA 1

Reference: There's a magazine called CTRL.ALT.SHIFT where a young journalist, Sian Anderson does "A Question of Port vs..." articles with different musicians and she asks them difficult WWUD (what-would-you-do) type questions. There are also certain army adverts which you may or may not be familiar with where they do a similar thing with options A, B, or C. Please take a look at aforementioned articles and advert, links below:

http://www.ctrlaltshift.co.uk/article/question-port-vs-griminal
http://www.ctrlaltshift.co.uk/article/feature-question-port-vs-mistajam
http://www.ctrlaltshift.co.uk/article/feature-question-of-port-vs-tinie-tempah
http://www.ctrlaltshift.co.uk/article/feature-question-port-vs-mpho

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UR4eqrgMrz0

Outline of idea: Basically flyers, filmed interviews and FB page with a series of WWUD questions we would generate in connection with arts and commisioning, for example:

"You are in a limo with Jay Z. You've just have a productive business lunch at a very exclusive and his favourite salad bar. You make a funny joke and Jay bursts into unctrollable laughter. That's when you see the beatifully lush evidence of the salad you both just ate stuck onto his front tooth. Do you:

A Tell him he has a piece of green in his teeth
B Hope he notices it soon because you don't want to kill the joy
C Discreetly check your own teeth for any tell-tale bits
D Proceed to burst into your own fit of laughing, at rather than with"

Each option will have a certain number of points and we'd say something like if you got 20+ points come to bla bla bla and enter the next phase, which would be the activities on March 1. We could do this on film, perhaps using help offered by Tallis TV and Raihan. We use 1 or two periods to interview students with the same questions to be played in the foyer. This would be really great because we might get people crowding round and watching these vids because their friend is in it our even they themselves are in it.

IDEA 2

Reference: Mr Hawes's mention of use of tutorial time and objects. Simple as! ;-D

Outline of idea: We could have envelopes, preferbly black and all secret-agent-esque with LOST PROPERTY printed on and an object e.g. glove, hat, keys with official school letter with the following message:

Dear [insert name of tutor here],

"Please volunteer five of your students to return this lost property to the rightful owners. They will be asked to participate in various tasks to determine the authenticity of their mission...."

And so on and so on. That one needs a bit more development.

What do you think? I'm leaning towards IDEA 1 hence the (no typo). If you have any ideas for any other strategies feel free to email them to me, or even track me down and discuss them. I also think it would be a good idea to post our ideas up on the blog as in the case of IDEA 1 we will need the help of the rest of our team.

SCG?

Like many people I'm not a big fan of acronyms. I think one of the first tasks of the publicity group could be to come up with a name, a brand or a logo that better represents what the Student Commissioning Group might be about. I think engaging and interesting people will be much easier if we have an identity that captures the idea behind the group. Do we go down the route of picking a verb - create, make, engage, involve, enthuse...? Do we choose objects at random to stimulate ideas? Do we have a name that is evident in the logo, but never written? Can we promise not to drop any Es like flickr, screenr, tumblr ...

There's a prize for the first person to explain why the picture above links to SCG

Soren

Minutes

Minutes of meeting

19th January 2010

Present: John Riches, KH, TWT, Chenai, Raihan, Billy, Matthew, Seb, JN, MST, RO, DL

1. HW - Sydney Thornbury will visit the ARG 2nd Feb to talk about Web ‘n’ Play and the prospect of working on a project with primary schools to develop new technology and drama skills this summer.

2. Establishing a Student Commissioning Group

Desire to use an SCG to get students to engage with and experience creative learning/experiences

JR invited people to consider challenges and potential problems:

Forming the group of students. How could we form the group?

Suggestion that the ARG students help form a commissioning group

Important to get some more people involved especially lower school

Need to recruit new members quite soon in order to complete one round of the commissioning process

Benefits of being involved: power to influence whole school development, UCAS statements, spending money,

Could approach year heads and tutors for nominations

Could we use assemblies to promote and recruit for the SCG?

Need students who are actively interested in the arts and who are already keen on pursuing a career in the arts

Should anyone be able to apply or do they need to demonstrate some kind of skills/commitment? Could we organise some kind of activity to help us select the most creative thinkers?

Could we work with the Tangled Feet group from last year as the core of a new group?

What should be the size of the SCG? Think about a range of roles for the individuals in the group.

If the ARG can devise a promotion strategy, could John organise an activity that would help us select the best people for the group? John agreed.

Do we need representation from each year group? Should there be a core group and a larger group of activists?

Responsibilities

Promoting SCG Committee - Matthew, Mr Hawes, Chenai, Raihan (Tallis TV)

Activity Committee - Ms Hawkins, Seb, Mike, Mr O’Brien, John

Documentation committee - JN, Billy, TWT, DL

Date: 1 March 3:30-4:30 Venue: Drama Studio (tbc)

Stdent Commissioning Group

Just to remind everyone that we have a meeting tomorrow (Tuesday 19th January in room 208 after school)

John Riches is coming along and is keen for the group to move plans forward for the Student Commissioning Group. You might remember that we talked about ways for a group of students to be given a budget to commission, manage and maybe produce work with a range of creative practitioners. It would be lovely to see as many of you as possible.

Soren