You mean there’s a plan???

It is often said that people fail to plan, but never plan to fail. So for a while now I have had a loose collection of thoughts that I have kept in my head about the way that I see my role in our organization progressing in order to achieve the goals that we would like to see accomplished. It sounds a bit woolly and vague I know, but there is a need for flexibility in all things innovative.

So, to know where we’re going you really need to know where we’ve come from. If you’ve read my blog from the beginning then you’ll know that we’re clawing our way out of the dark ages (didactic PowerPoint) into pastures new, full of the green grass of Evidence Based Teaching growing from the fertile soil of technology. In order to understand this analogy you need to understand that our students are the sheep (I like sheep ) gaining sustenance (knowledge) from the grass (our teaching) which is aided in its growth by the fertile soil (technology).

But we have a problem… only a few of our staff (the farmers) know how to use these new techniques and even less know how to use the technology. Therefore it is imperative that we invest in our staff time, money (resources) and personal commitment so that they are empowered in these areas.

So we need a team to teach the teachers, but who teaches the teachers’ teachers? That would be me when it comes to technology!!

I’ve come up with some loose objectives to try and achieve, they’re relatively simple. They are:

1. Teach how to use the technology to create resources
2. Demonstrate how to use the technology within a classroom

Like I said vague, but there are some other things that I am going to throw in as personal objectives:

3. Raise the standard of course resources.
4. Allow the teachers to be more creative
5. Encourage a culture of sharing and collaboration

So how am I going to do this?

Well, I intend to use our Moodle VLE as the medium for pretty much all of our lessons. From this I was asked if I intended to use e-learning packages to teach and the simple answer is no. From my check list above I would meet objective 1, partially objective 2 and 3 but would barely touch on 4 and would not encourage 5 at all.

What I am going to do is to use the other activities within Moodle, wiki’s, databases and forums within lessons. So, some examples:

Using a wiki + choice activity:

First get the class in to pairs. This is done through the use of a choice activity. Students select a number from 1 to 5 (there is at most 10 in a class) with the maximum limit of 2 for each choice. The students cannot see who has picked which number until after they have chosen, therefore guaranteeing that the pairs are random.

Then we get on to the actual exercise: comparing the design of four websites against a list of suggested criteria that they will be learning about in the rest of the lesson. To do this the assignment is presented as the first page in a wiki, with 5 sub pages already primed, but not created, for each of the pairs. One person uses their PC to access a web page, while the other accesses that pairs page and begins to take notes on the aesthetics. To ensure that they both use the wiki they are required to swap roles for each web page.

At the end of the allotted time, about 10-15 minutes, the class is called on to look down the front and the thoughts of each pair are shared with the rest of the class. Common traits are picked up on and good design principles are emphasised. These are then bought out in the topics that follow.

This hits all 5 of my personal check list items and more.

1. The teachers are using the technology to create a learning resource: the wiki pages
2. The teachers are using the technology within an actual lesson.
3. The teachers are learning good design principles through what they themselves like and, more importantly the collective thoughts of the group reinforced by myself.
4. The teachers are exposed to sources of inspiration and are allowed to format their wiki page however they wish.
5. By working in pairs, and ultimately as a group of 10 within a single wiki they are sharing information with each other and working collaboratively.
6. The teachers are gaining an advance knowledge of the principles they will be learning about later, this helps them to retain future information.
7. The teachers can relate what they learn about with what they have seen.
8. The teachers are already thinking about design principles when the actual teaching occurs.

In short this is a highly engaging activity which forms a strong foundation for the rest of this subject area.

Using a database activity as a consolidation exercise:

A simple database is created which has two fields, a file upload field and a description text area. There are to be no student names attributed to any of the views of the database or any of the files uploaded. Comments are enabled for each database entry.

Following the “basic design” lesson students are asked to design a two slide PowerPoint presentation, consisting of a title slide and a simple content slide. They then upload this to to the database and are asked to look through the other slide shows that are uploaded. They are asked to make written notes on each entry.

After the allotted time (10-15 minutes creation and 10-15 minutes browsing) the class discuss each of the slide shows in turn, the teacher emphasised the anonymity of the owner by asking everybody providing two points of positive and negative feedback. A brief class consensus is drawn up and a member of the class is called upon to enter this as a comment on the database.

The students are told that if they like the resources then they are free to use them but to comment if they do so.

What this achieves:

1. The teachers are using the technology to create a learning resource: both the PowerPoint slide shows which can be used as a template by others and the commented database.
2. The teachers are using the technology within an actual lesson.
3. The teachers are employing good design principles through what they have produced.
4. The teachers are actively encouraged to try new things.
5. By uploading their slide shows and providing feedback they are both sharing and collaborating.
6. The teachers are using what they have learned in a practical manner, meaning that they are more likely to do it again in the future.
7. The teachers comment when they reuse a resource, this means that the person that has generated that resource gains recognition for their efforts

The most important thing though in a both of these examples is the way that they are created: there is a great deal of weight placed on active participation by all involved with no option for a student to sit back and do nothing.

The use of peer review, pairs work and whole class discussion ensures that sharing and collaboration occurs. More importantly it allows people to be honest without feeling the intimidation of acting as an individual. Even in the slide show exercise when students are asked individually for feedback to the group: no-one knows who produced the slide show so that honest feedback can be given by all.

The final point that I am going to make is that this way of teaching is then passed on to the other teachers. Hopefully they will enjoy the level of interaction and collaboration that occurs in the lessons and be more inclined to be less didactic in their own approach.

Only time will tell…

Style over substance?

This one will hopefully set the cat among the pigeons or even put some Piranhas in the tank as one of my friends says.

There is a common misconception that content is paramount to style. That what you say is far more important than how it looks. That if your content is sufficiently well worded or factually accurate then any style will be superfluous.

I hate to say this… I totally disagree.

Personally I see “Style over substance” as a phrase that some people use to be lazy, or to conform. Both are bad in my opinion. The other that I hear a lot of the time is that we must consider those with Specific Learning Differences like dyslexia, dyscalculia or dyspraxia. Again I feel that this is wrong, not because I discriminate against those with SpLD’s but because I feel that there are far better ways of doing things that make everybody’s life easier.

What we end up with in my teaching establishment is something along the lines of:

Yellow text in comic sans on a bright blue background

As someone interested in design this makes me feel physically sick!! Now imagine that you are a student who is having to sit through 7 hours of this a day… over as long as twelve months. At some point you have to ask yourself: WHY????

The answers that you get back are the two that I cited above: what about SpLD’s and my content is that good that it stands alone.

Well to dispel each of these in turn. Firstly it is true that high contrast between fonts and  backgrounds make reading easier for SOME people suffering with SpLD’s However, anyone that knows anything about scotopic sensitivity knows that each person is slightly different and that if you get the colours wrong then you make things worse. Therefore the opinion that we will be serving most people with SpLD’s better is, in my opinion, balderdash. We can serve everyone better by using the software properly, making the presentations available and teaching our students how to alter the colour schemes for themselves. In doing so we teach our students coping strategies that will enable them to move forwards and not be left abandoned when they leave.

The second point is that content stands alone. Hmmmm…. if that were true then there would be little work out there for web designers, graphic designers, illustrators, advertisers, movie directors, animators… you get the gist.

We need to make our content appealing to maintain interest – at the very least so that it does not put people off. But if we try hard we can make presentations that actually grip the attention of those listening. By not cramming them with information we create key points which the students can focus on, even better would be to use a single slide with a model map or another graphic organizer!

The simple truth is that we can work both smarter and more creatively to achieve more… in actual fact, a lot more.

There is a feature within PowerPoint (our tool of choice) that allows us to create a template by which all slides conform to. This is the Master Slide and you can find it under the View menu. The reason that this is so important is that if you design your master first and use it as a template for all the other slides then you can make a change on the master and it automatically updates every other slide. This reduces the amount of work that you need to do to produce the slide show initially but more importantly it makes your design infinitely more flexible.

Now you can design to your heart’s content, and should one of your students have trouble with your slide you can quickly tailor the slide-show to their needs. Even better than that:

They can download the slide-show from Moodle and alter it themselves so that it fits their needs exactly!

Now that you have done that, you can break free of the monotony of yellow on blue and begin to get creative. Have a faint picture as a backdrop or a smart gradient fill. Try other fonts, but choose Sans Serif fonts (without the squiggles on the letters) so that they are clear to read. And remember it is always best to get your presentation previewed on the medium that it will be used on, for example an interactive white board or a screen to make sure that the colours work. It is often best to get some help with this as a second opinion can bring in useful feedback and some brilliant ideas.

Most importantly TRY!!! If it doesn’t work the first time then try something different: colours, gradient direction, font, placement, images, borders, animation, transitions. Just remember that a slide must only be as complicated as it needs to be: a single word does not need lots of animation, an explanation of a circuit diagram may need more.

The way that I see things is that style adds to content. It helps to create the narrative and ethos of your lessons. The students see how much effort and care you have taken with your media, whatever it may be, and they will respond accordingly. More to the point, when you produce good work, you show it off to the best of your ability.

Good style coupled with good content produces an excellent backdrop for learning.

In the meantime, here’s some points to think about.

The way things are

Gradient fills

Adding contrast can add coherence

Too many styles loses coherence

Be Bold, Be Brave

Children are the future

My daughter wanted to be a fashion designer; she has loads of really good ideas for dresses, tops, skirts and trousers. But she’s a little bit too much like me – she loves computers.

Over the past few months she’s been looking at some of the work that I do and has been quite complimentary in her feedback. So I started to teach her a few things.

Firstly I scanned in some shapes that could be used as clothes and converted them into brushes in Photoshop. Then I showed her how to use them in “anger”, using layer styles to add patterns, effects and gradients. She became quite proficient but she soon tired of it as she ran out of brushes and combinations.

I’ve had her create a short (20secs) stop motion animation in MS Movie Maker that she planned and animated herself with her camera. But she seemed to bore of the repetitive nature of the task. She is like me: she hates monotony.

So I showed her Fireworks. I love Fireworks because it allows for a more structured creative experience. Vectors are much easier to manipulate and alter and the styles are easier to apply and reorder. Admittedly for image editing it does not have all the features of it’s big brother but then… it isn’t trying to be. So she got to grips with it and began to produce some good stuff.

Now she has moved back to Photoshop. She still uses Fireworks but now it is very much a tool and not an outlet. It is a means to an end. She is taking the concepts that she has learned and applying them to her Photoshop work, learning from me as she goes. I have no doubt that in time she will be an excellent designer.

The point that I am trying to make, albeit somewhat circuitously, is that we have to give our children, students and colleagues chance to grow and develop as individuals. With a little nurturing and encouragement they are a thing of beauty.

But for now I’ll let her work speak for itself:

Her sister

A gift

First commission!! :D

Experimenting with HSL and Layers

Fun with a name

Homework

More home work!