jackl’s blogThe Grove Junior School multimedia & multimodal learning experience
The wife and I were invited to Grove Junior School last night (5/2). Home away from home for The Girl, the school has just started a new initiative that sounds like a lot of fun. Being a progressive, informative school they decided to tell the parents what it was about so that we could offer support at home. The idea is to increase a child’s interest in reading and writing by using film/media studies. They have picked some films to study to enhance the general literacy curriculum. Each year group has a different film, The Girls is ‘Monsters Inc.’, the others being ‘The Incredibles’ and ‘Curse of the Wererabbit’.
Please Miss, what is e–learning?
All the formalities were in keeping with a good, well mannered school. We were offered tea or coffee on arrival and even had proper adult–sized seats and tables at which to sit. We had an introduction by the Headmistress (Mrs Slee) and once Mrs Wragg did start the presentation she didn’t make the mistake of talking to us as though we were eight.
So far so good. We learnt that our children were enjoying this method of learning. She showed how, with a simple snap–shot from the film, she got the children to understand how colour and light affect emotions. The subtitles available on DVDs were used to encourage reading (apparently works wonders for boys). She could add text to a screen–grab and ask the class what was wrong with the punctuation. Luckily we got these right (phew).
She even managed to explore some cinematic devices such as camera angles and the effect that certain audio backgrounds have on the moving image. By the end I almost wished I was eight again. Sadly the bell didn’t ring for playtime but perhaps, in my case, it did!
Lovely, lovely technology
At this point she handed over to the Deputy Head (Mr Green). He took us through the technological aspects of their multimodal learning experience.
Till this point I noticed the ‘tech’ included the usual suspects:
- Laptop
- Projector
- DVD (for the film itself) — “remember to buy the 2 disc edition if possible, as it will have more educational material than just the feature”, Miss remarked
- DVD player software (to enable screen–grabs etc)
- Powerpoint (both types, duh)
However Mr Green was especially excited about the latest bit of ‘free’ software from Microsoft that the pupils were using: ‘Photo Story 3’.
I had to admit the software was really clever. It allowed you to produce a professional slideshow of your pictures that could play on other peoples computers or the internet1. Once he had demo’d it you could see that Microsoft had a winner here, it was simple enough for a five year old to use and produce a watchable slideshow that would put Flickr and its ilk to shame. With some practice (and decent sample media) you could quite easily produce a simple promotional film in 30 minutes that might have taken a week not so long ago!
It was also my first look at the school’s ITC suite. It held few surprises but looked to be effective. The Wife was driving and fell out of love with the (ancient) balled mouse very quickly. Most of the other PCs had the more current (and generally better) optical mice and so we just shuffled to the next desk. It appears even the simplest of software can cause problems to the uninitiated and so it was that Mr Green had to help a few newbies with the concept of shift and click to highlight the pictures to load into Photo Story’s interface.
1 This assumes you have a Windows–based PC that has (at the least) Windows Media Player version 7. If Aunty Alison has a Mac, don’t expect her to be able to view your latest Photo Story, ’cos it ain’t gonna happen. Return
Switched on
I was glad to see that Mr Green got round to mentioning copyright. Until that point I had the feeling that using screen–grabs of the film, with background music ripped from the original soundtrack was perfectly fine and dandy. I could almost feel the salivation of RIAA as the more advanced students started to proudly exhibit their creations on the Internet in contravention of copyright.
The other bonus of the night was being shown www.filmstreet.co.uk. Now this I liked. It is a flash–based website about the media of film pitched at school children. It is not often that I rave about Flash–based sites (this is the first) but this has to be the best example I’ve seen. It may not be as cool as some band sites but it fulfils it’s goals and then some. Kudos to the designers and those that put the spec together. There is plenty of good education here but you hardly notice it happening.
Microsoft, what else is there?
The only real downside to the night was the obvious Microsoft–centric leanings. I accept that Microsoft own Mayfair, Pall Mall, Piccadilly, the domestic supply companies, the railways and perhaps 90% of the rest of the board but while we have Old Kent Road and the entire Community Chest, we should at least be considered players!
It was pretty much taken as read that all the parents would have a computer and that computer would be running Windows. Mr Green kindly dished out CDs on which he had thoughtfully copied the latest version of MS Photo Story 3. The Wife gave me the don’t–make–a–scene look, as if I would ;-) and took the CD anyway.
What he didn’t mention about Photo Story 3 was its recommended requirements. These include: a P4 1.7GHz processor, 512Mb RAM, 400Mb Hard Disk space, Direct X 9 or later, Windows Media Player 10 and (the crowning glory) a genuine, certified copy of XP. This basically discounts any PC older than 3 years. OK I have a recent, average, IBM laptop that should run this (I’ve left Windows on it as my “only in emergencies copy of XP”) so I shouldn’t complain too loudly. However I’m pretty certain that there will be parents that do have a household PC that won’t reach these requirements (sadly there’s still a lot of MS ME out there). If they do get it installed they will find the program a more sedate experience than they expected.
Of course being an Open Source advocate I searched for a similar offering from the community. Perhaps unsurprisingly I found nothing that matched Photo Story. I’ll admit that I wasn’t searching for hours and there may be something that is similar but all I found were video editing progs or web–based slideshows. So for the moment Microsoft have another “killer” app that is ‘free’ as long as you don’t mind only letting those with Windows PCs see your creations and allowing Billy–boy to regularly check your PC for genuine copies of MS software.
No windfall for Apple
You’ve got to feel for Apple and their customers, the Linux crowd are a little more accepting when MS does this sort of thing but Apple really do expect to be king of the computer–based media–orientated castle. Again I didn’t spend much time at the school but I failed to spot any Macs or other Apple produced kit. I expect OS X has an ‘i’ piece of software that could easily match Photo Story. It probably looks as smooth as chocolate and is as easy to consume. It probably produces a file that could be read by more software than just Windows Media Player. But the school is a Microsoft house.
Shutdown
If anyone reading this has the opportunity to attend a session like this in the future I can definitely recommend it. It was well worth making the effort to leave work early and I thank the teachers for taking the time to do it.
Attention Grove School teachers/governors
Please consider the alternatives before the inevitable retirement of XP. The computers you have in the IT Suite should be perfectly capable of running the latest version of Edubuntu. How about experimenting with just one PC and see how you like it? It will cost you nothing. If the thought of installation is an obstacle I’m more than happy to come and sort it out and show you what you’re missing.
NB As far as I’m aware Grove Junior School has no external website though the Infant school does and, as they are merging, I have linked to that.
Photo courtesy of C.P. Storm.
- Reference URI: http://www.groveinfantschool.ik.org
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