New Media New Ideas

I spent a day with artists and KS3 students at Chalfonts Community College recently. This was during their regular off-timetable creativity/enrichment days. A key feature of the event was that these artists were mainly working in new media. There were filmakers, sound engineers, flash software animators, artists using digital images and even some using traditional crafts. This was an intensive two day experience. At the end of the day work was shared and most children had completed the task - made and edited the film, created the animation, recorded the radio jingle.

Some of these were full of the natural and naive humour of youth, others were more predictable. However, the main point is that the children and teachers were all gaining first hand and intensive experience of using new media: making and editing film and sound. These are new experiences and skills. It will be interesting to see how they will be developed in the next few years. Perhaps in three years time the geography homework will be to make a radio broadcast about traffic in the town centre rather than conduct the survey and write it up.

In addition to drawing down expereince of new media into the heart of Key Stage 3 and begining to develop a critical mass of users - both students and teachers - there is another model being developed here.

Every term the curriculum in KS3 is collapsed for one or two days and this provides an opportunity for students to work with greater intensity than normal. It also provides an opportunity to work with other professionals AOTs (adults other than teachers as they were once called). This is intriguing because it is embedded in the regular curriculum and sustainable by the AOTs because it involves focussed work for only one or two days. It is not possible to sustain this engagement by following the traditional school timetable of an hour a week. So this is a significant model.

Virtually teaching

I am so impressed by this course from Chalfonts Community College about designing computer games. It involved children in KS3, KS4, KS5 and some teachers. It was delivered on Thursday evenings at 7.30pm and access was from home via the internet using Adobe Connect (web conferencing software - free to Bucks Schools). The course was delivered by Roxana Hadad talking from Chicago. At the sessions Roxana brought in professional games designers from different parts of the USA.

Have a look at this session with Gary Rozenweig a designer of flash games, a company director and author of books on computer games. Gary is talking from Denver and using a simple web cam.

Here is a link to another session. The guest for this session is Gregory Trefry from New York. He is a senior games designer and shares some of his work and ideas about games and games design. This includes concepts of street games.

You will see that throughout the sessions the students are using text messaging to talk to each other and the teachers on the course. So interaction on a vareity of levels across the atlantic and the USA. The course was set up by Greg Hodgson (Chalfonts CC) and Roxana mainly using Skype which was convenient and free.

There are so many significant feature of this project. It demonstrates something that Greg and I have been talking about for some years. This provides some of the answers to our questions. Is it possible and what does it mean to use the web to have teaching/learning partners who are not teachers and may be in other parts of the world? Does it work - well yes it does. Is it expensive and dependent on high levels of technology? No it isnt. Can you develop an online course and deliver it outside the confines of the school building and timetable? Yes you can. I guess these courses show that the technology is freely available and works, the issues now are really all to do with the pedagogy. Web conferencing is no longer new but what does it mean for our schools, teachers and students to make the best use of it. Many questions still to be answered but this must be a glimpse of, at least part of, the future.

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Artist in Residence at Aylesbury County Museum

In April and May Ros Asquith will be artist in residence at Aykesbury Museum. Ros is a cartoonist, writer and illustrator. Her cartoons appear in the Guardian twice a week. During the residency there will be open studios on Monday and Tuesday afternoons from 1.30pm to 4pm. Schools may find this really useful in supporting the development of creativity and drawing.

MAD again

The annual arts festival at Waddesdon Manor has provided the venue for the second exhibition of A grade A level work from Bucks schools. It is an opportunity to show some of the extraordinary work being produced by our 6th form students.

Once again there was an outstanding entry from Chesham High school in the form of two massive cocks made from torn cardboard over a metal armature. This complemented the torso from plastic spoons which was exhibited last year and sold to Lord Rothschild.

However, several schools were unable to send work for the exhibition this year because moderation was still underway. It may be that there is a need to consider whether there is a better time and venue for this exhibition.

BATA or Bucks Art Teachers Association

We have been trying to establish an association for Bucks art teachers. This will enable them to be pro-active in managing and developing the support networks that can be so important at a time of far reaching change. The difficulty has not been the basic premise, which almost everyone accepts, but in taking that first step in establishing an infrastructure. We have been seeking to find a critical mass for this for almost 12 months now but at every meeting the numbers are just not high enough to give us confidence to proceed. However, at a meeting at Wadesdon Manor despite the relatively small numbers we agreed to proceed anyway. A brief constitution has been produced and circulated and no objections or amendments have been received. It does require the identification of officers or representatives at some stage but for the moment it was agreed to just begin and set up some meetings. So that is what will happen. There will be meetings in the north and south initiated by Chalfonts Community College and Waddesdon C of E School. In the meantime I will seek establish a comprehensive emailing list which can be used by the fledgling association.

NSEAD a new role

It is worth noting that the role of national subject associations has changed radically this year. In art the subject association is NSEAD. Traditionally the subject association has taken the role of subject champion and sometimes a trades union. However, as the key subject associations have now been commissioned to deliver the training for the new national curriculum their national role has changed. It suggests that they have taken on a much stronger partnership with national agencies and have a much more important strategic role.

This suggests that teachers should consider the benefits of becoming a member of their subject association. In art, membership of NSEAD will provide access to up to the minute news, advice, newsletters and a professional journal. It will also provide opportunities to contribute to the national debate.

The New Secondary Curriculum

It's always the way: you don't see an art adviser for years and then three come along together. It was good to welcome Dr John Steers and John Bowden to Bucks. They are the two national subject leaders for art and I have known and worked with them for the last two decades.

The art conference on Monday 21 April was important on a variety of levels. It was useful to bring into Bucks the national training programme. The key message of this is that we are moving away from a period of intense national prescription into a period where schools and teachers are being encouraged to take ownership of their curriulum and make it relevant to their own distinctive students, aspirations and context. In Bucks this will mean that the curriculum of a girls grammar school in Beaconsfield is likely to be very diferent to that of a mixed upper school in Aylesbury. The key resources, information and links from this event have been added to the Bucksgfl art website.

It was also good to have an opportunity for art teachers to meet and share experiences. In the next few years there will be many very significant changes to the educational landscape (diplomas, vocational education, new technologies, personalised learning, the new secondary curriculum, etc. etc.) and it will be important for teachers to be able to continue to be able to meet and share ideas. It was noted that in Bucks, as in many other Local Authorities, there is no longer an art adviser or consultant and that it will be harder to sustain the network of art teachers. It was agreed to develop an art teachers' forum to secure the networks. The forum will enable art teachers to take ownership of events such as the MAD art exhibitions. It will also enable art teachers in Bucks to sustain a working relationship with the Local Authority which will support their professional development.

A few art teachers will meet soon to create an initial constitution for the forum. This will be put to a meeting and hopefully adopted. It is encouraging that there is also likely to be an opportunity to sustain the relationship with John and John and NSEAD who will be pleased to provide further support for Bucks art teachers.