One of the many projects I am involved in is the production of the complete Advanced Higher Physics course as web site with video clips, podcasts, wikis and blogs. Following my Glow meeting on Wednesday morning I had a meeting with the some of the teachers and pupils participating in this project. At the moment two schools are involved in it. Millburn Academy a large secondary school in Inverness with a school roll close to 1000 and Mallaig High School on the remote west coast, with a school roll close to 200. The resources of course will be available to all schools. The idea is for the teachers in Millburn to film their lessons and make them available on the internet to help support the pupils in Mallaig. some of the pupils have been supplied with video iPods so thay can download the lessons as podcasts. The Scottish Interactive Technology Centre is involved in providing support and will be researching the whole idea of using podcasts and other web tools to support learning. This area of research is, I think, crucial.
We have worked together to design and develop a dynamic web site. The guys at SITC are very skilled at using php and mySQL. So in the next week the first video clips for podcasting will available. There will be two kinds of video clips. The first will be a traditional teacher presentation (lasting about 15 minutes). The second type of video clip will be filmed and edited by the pupils. They will be given the task of producing a digital video tutorial on a Physics investigation. This should be very interesting and is very much in the spirt of A Curriculum for Excellence.
While I was there the teacher gave some pupils the task of filming an experiment on acceleration and then using iMovie to work out some of the results. They were really comfortable and confident with the technology. I was impressed by their enthusiasm and maturity. No doubt these pupils are used to YouTube and MySpace. Hopefully when it comes to them being asked to participate in the wiki and blogging part of the Physics web site they will use it. It will be an interesting part of the project. Perhaps we will need to look at the actual web design of YouTube, MySpace and Beebo that draws young people to participate in these social sites.
I recently came across a very interesting article on Slate about the design of these web sites that appeals to young people to post, publish and collaborate within them. This is the type of virtual space they inhabit.
Perhaps there are lessons we can learn about the overall structure and “feel and look” of these popular sites.
[...] Jim Henderson has written a post to his blog describing the joint project between SITC and Highland Council to allow students at Highland schools to film their Advanced Higher Physcis lessons and make them available as podcasts. [...]