Snapshot of learning for MovieMaker and Skype
Communicating our learning and supporting the learning of others
Contributed by Myles Webb, Melville Intermediate School, Hamilton.
Focusing Inquiry
The ongoing focus is supporting literacy by engaging students with multiple opportunities to create meaning through speaking, writing and presenting.
The success of these opportunities relies on the selection of authentic, engaging contexts. In 2010 contexts used included: raakau, waiata, poi, and mihi.
See Ka Mau te Wehi for support material.
Literacy cycles , originally developed by Pt England School, were introduced to the students at the beginning of the year. Students were supported to refer to these cycles to ensure they are used habitually to guide students through the planning, speaking, writing and presenting processes.
Teaching and Learning
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Setting up and establishing a purpose for the class blog.
The teacher had previously created a class blog in 2009, using Blogger. He continued with this site in 2010 to make the most of the existing visitor traffic that had already been generated.
The teacher facilitated a class brainstorm focused on possible content for the blog:
•What is the purpose of our blog?
•What would this class like to see on their class blog?
•What will our audience find interesting? -
Creating a Mihi
A school-wide expectation at Melville Intermediate is that every student will learn and perform a mihi for their portfolio.
• Exemplars are shared and criteria for mihi are established.
• Students create and share their mihi with a peer.
• Students have the option of sharing their mihi with a wider audience through video.
• Staff with expertise in tikanga Māori also support collegues to explore the cultural appropriateness of these practices. -
Capturing the mihi on video and editing the footage using Movie-Maker.
As part of the literacy planning process, the characteristics of a quality video clip are explored.
• A peer captures footage of the student sharing their mihi.
• Students work in pairs within a set time to edit their footage. This includes deleting inappropriate footage, adding relevant text and inserting credits of origin.
• Most students are familiar with Movie Maker. A student expert is also available to provide support if required.
• The previously explored characteristics of a quality video clip are repeatedly referred to and self-reviewed by students throughout the process. -
Uploading mihi to the class blog and promoting to the class networks.
• The teacher uploads the completed videos to the class blog.
• The teacher promotes the new blog post through his online networks. These networks include Twitter and other classroom blogs within and outside the school.
• Comments on the post are received from around the world. -
Peer Tutoring students from another school using Skype
• As a way of further engaging and celebrating the students’ strengths and to celebrate Māori Language Week: Te Wiki o te Reo Māori the teacher wrote a post that invited visitors to collaborate with members of their class to learn Maori.• Room 3 from Broadlands Primary responded. The two classroom teachers ‘skyped’ to plan the learning experience. This included discussing the needs of the students, the students that would be involved, the objectives, the timeframes and the technology that would be used.
• The class Skype protocols were revisited.
• Student to student tuition sessions between Broadlands Primary and Melville Intermediate took place using the video-conferencing functionality available in Skype.
The clip below shows students from Melville Intermediate providing feedback to students from Broadlands Primary as they practise their mihi in preparation for a marae visit.
This process could be used in a variety of contexts for peer tutoring and to share unique learning experiences, for example, rearing a lamb, sharing a special environment.
Learning Inquiry
Teacher reflections
- The students are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of audience and are becoming more reflective in their work.
- The students found it extremely empowering to receive feedback from sources other than their teacher. This increased their confidence and motivation in other curriculum areas.
- Engagement and motivation was high, particularly for diverse learners. This was evident from students’ written feedback.
- Incidental learning, particularly in relation to geography, was generated through regular checks on the origin of visitors to the blog.
- Connections between the home and school increased as students who had their work posted to the blog shared it with their whanau and encouraged them to leave a comment.
Next steps:
The teacher intends to further assist staff within his own school to set up their own classroom blogs. It is hoped that this will result in further collaboration between classes and a greater network of support and sharing. The teacher would also like to explore further ways to promote the class blog to their wider school community, for example, by holding information evenings to support whanau to access the blog.
