|
Huntcliffe School, Redcar and Cleveland. Northern grid funded content development project. Hatipods final project evaluation document.
Background
History Club is now an established feature at Huntcliff School and has a reputation for innovative use of technology. As the school has Specialist Status in Humanities it seemed appropriate to further develop the club’s links with the community in a project specifically designed to bring together History, technology, students and the community.
As most current students have experience of using MP3 players / ipods on a regular basis, as well as downloading podcasts; the History Department decided to encourage gifted and talented students in Years 7 and 8 to produce their own podcasts to accompany a web page about the history of our local area. This could then be used on a walking tour of our home town of Saltburn. The target audience for this would be the local community (and particularly students in the local Junior School) as well as those further afield who could use a virtual tour (including any school wanting to consider the development of Victorian Saltburn or the impact of the Second World War on the coastal resort of Saltburn.
As an additional advantage of the project Huntcliff would be able to produce a ‘How to…’ report which would help other schools to produce their own podcasts and webpages.
Planning and Implementing the Project
The project had a number of features.
- The first step was to pull together all our local resources about the History of Saltburn and encourage students to conduct further research (e.g. using the internet). This was very time consuming and students struggled to access some sources and found it difficult to pull together their own concise information.
- Local groups and individuals in the community were then invited to come into school to share their expertise. This included local historians, somebody who had lived in Saltburn during the Second World War and the Victorian Society. Students wrote notes and videoed presentations by visitors and then asked questions to tease out further information. This part of the project was very successful, with students fully engaged. Unfortunately, the videoed presentations were not of sufficient quality to use extensively on the website without being adapted. One of the issues at an early stage was that the progress of the group was limited by the availability of groups and individuals to attend History Club sessions.
- During the project the school approached a computer technician working in the local community about the possibility of his actually implementing the web pages and hosting them on his www.visitsaltburn.co.uk website. It was helpful not to worry about the technical aspects of implementation, especially hyperlinking a map and streaming audio and visual inputs. Again this level of involvement with the community meant that there were time constraints which all parties needed to be aware of. His advice, however, was absolutely invaluable and saved us from making a lot of time consuming mistakes. He was also able to advise us on equipment purchase. In any subsequent project we would aim to budget in more time to evaluate the equipment before purchase and actually work through the project ideas in more detail before involving students.
- Students collated their own videos using Windows Movie Maker, recording commentaries and video clips (on site), and blending these with photos, the school’s existing resources from previous projects. It saved time to provide each student with a file with all relevant resources collected together that they could potentially use. This produced results for the students in terms of finished work relatively quickly and was worth the effort put in by staff. Students were quite autonomous in producing their own video clips, once empowered by being given all the resources in the right place and training in the use of Windows Movie Maker and Photo Story 3. Although the work produced was obviously created by teenagers, the community technician felt they were of a sufficiently high standard to be used unedited on his website – a recommendation in itself. The local historians are in the time consuming process of authenticating the work produced.
- Working with members of the community has made it more difficult to meet deadlines as more people have been involved. This has made it more difficult to maintain consistent motivation from students who have ended up involved with a much longer, drawn out project than had been originally envisaged. However, it has been immensely rewarding in terms of the specialist input which they have been able to give.
Success Criterion
The work produced by students is evidence that the aims and objectives of the project have been met. They have been involved in planning, researching, compiling and evaluating their own work in a way which would not be possible within the bounds of the normal History curriculum. There work reflects their awareness of having a ‘real’ audience and they have developed technological skills in terms of using programs which they have not used before such as Photo Story and (in some cases) Windows Movie Maker. The building up of community links was crucial to the project and one of the most successful and rewarding features.
Future Development
- To update the website with any relevant new work produced by students whether in History Club or lessons.
- To hold a launch of the website with all interested parties next academic year.
Hannah Mohon (History Teacher) & Cath Hargreaves (LSA), 25th April 2006.
|
Labels: 
