Loisath-My ICT Journey

THE project is over and all the files have been emailed or sent home on CD or USB drive. Another huge component of the whole exercise – so would I do it again?

Yes I would. The learning for students, teachers (including me) and even parents was considerable. Teachers learnt about network structure, managing files, photos, photostory, email attachments and staying calm while under pressure to complete the project in time for Father’s Day. You can imagine that when there is an emotional investment in a project with young children and their parents that the intensity is magnified. In addition teachers supported each other and worked as a team.

Students had similar learning experiences, photostory, audio, coaching and supporting their buddy with recording, email- but also in resilience and patience while their frazzled teachers found where they had copied the mssing photos, helped edit photos that had been sent in a composite image, tried to download email attachments with strange formats and so on. Some students learnt a lesson about the cost of not being organised which would not of happened with a regular project and assessment. The real evaluation was the students satisfaction and sense of achievement in creating a unique gift for someone in their family so it soon became obvious to those students who weren’t putting in an effort that they were missing out. This was a project with authentic purpose.

The one extra bonus of the whole exercise was the rise of some students as mentors and experts to help other students when time was running out to complete their projects. They became experts in all aspects and part of the team pulling together to get the job done.

Feed back from the parents was fantastic. And yes it would be a project I would do again but with a lot more communication and a couple of extra weeks up my sleeve.

My last multimedia project has involved between 300 and 400 students. The students were required to bring a short series of photos from home to use as digital images as part of a digital story. The students were told of all the ways that they could get the photos to school, memory stick, cd or real photos to be scanned.

It wasn’t long before the enormity of this project began to dawn on me. In reality it was the huge range  of the technological skills and understandings of the adults involved, parents and teachers that made the project soooo big.

Clarity of communication – parents did not understand how much work it was if they sent along their photos for us to scan. Teachers equally needed to understand that part of the expectation was that they would learn how to scan the photos for their own class. I felt the project was in danger of failing if I didn’t support the teachers with this but it was a huge commitment. Thirdly, in retrospect, the project was excellent and met so many VELS/ICT skills but it was the first time it was done and it would have been better if it was planned with the teachers commitment from the beginning. Once they saw the finished products they understood but it was already well into the project.

This is the dilemma of taking hold of a great idea and running with it, balanced with time to plan, consult, and communicate with a team before moving forward. The team approach is the ideal method but not always possible if you are hoping to cease the moment- so then you have to be prepared to fill the gaps and support those who haven’t quite got on board.

We have so far to move in technology before we can expect a consistent experience/expertise from our community. Here we are talking about online communities in our classrooms yet we have teachers, students, and families who are ot familiar with the basics in handling photographs, using USB memory sticks, or transfering files.  Education is incredibly complex when you think of the background each student, family and teacher brings to the equation.