Wikis and Moving Image Education

Wiki's

This week we started to learn more about wiki's. "A wiki is a Web page or site that can be modified by anyone who visits the site," (Green, Brown & Robinson, 2008, p.24). From this input, I learned that a wiki is an online space that can be used by groups collaboratively for sharing ideas, working on a project together or in the form of a blog. We got the opportunity to set up our own Wiki within our ICT groups which we are going to use to communicate ideas with each other and share the work we have done individually to put together a whole group effort. We plan to use this for various tasks we have to complete as a group and in particular for planning our video and organising who is going to take on the research for which area of The Discovery story. One thing that I took away from the session that is important to remember when creating a wiki with a group you have to make sure each person has their own page to do their work on. Otherwise if more than one person works on the same page as soon as someone else starts typing the previous persons work will be lost. 

Although we covered wiki's in first year I feel I am a bit more familiar with using these having gone over this again and had another look at how to set these up. I think I would use these in the classroom when asking children to do group projects where they each have individual task or part of a topic to find out which they then have to put together and present to the rest of the class. However I recognise the importance of making children aware of how to use the software so would need to allow children to develop the skills and understanding of how to create and use a wiki during ICT time before applying this knowledge in another context.

Below is a survey which was done which shows a few different ways people use Wiki's.

References

Green, T., Brown, A. &Robinson, L. (2008) Making the Most of the Web in your Classroom: A Techer's Guide to Blogs, Podcasts, Wikis, Pages and Sites. London: Corwin Press, Inc.

Moving Image Education

"Moving Image Education is about helping our young people to question, analyse, explore and understand meaning of what they are watching and hearing," (Creative Scotland and D fi foe, 2009, no page).

This week we were given the task of researching Moving Image Education to find out exactly what this is all about and reflect on what we think about this. Upon reading, I have learned that Moving Image Education involves learning through things like cartoons, films and adverts to develop an understanding of moving images. Using these can encourage children to discuss what they see and hear. Using moving images can allow children to learn about different cultures and these can also be used across the curriculum in a number of areas.

The Scottish Executive (2006) supports the use of Moving Image Education and relates the use of this to the current Curriculum for Excellence. In this document on Moving Image Education they argue that teaching Moving Image Education can allow children to pick out features within film texts learning not only the vocabulary for this but then using what they have learned to make their own moving images through use of technology for example cameras. This can then be used as a context bringing in various aspects of the curriculum providing breadth with a range of subjects being covered and relevance linking everything together and making it all relevant to the context. These are two of the main principles which form Curriculum for Excellence (Scottish Government, 2009). The rest of the Moving Image Education document then goes on to relate Moving Image Education to the four capacities of Curriculum for Excellence. Within this they state that children become successful learners through being able to use the technology themselves and learn how to use this effectively.

An example of how Moving Images could be used with children can be seen in a programme developed by one of Scottish Screens lead practitioners Mairi Flood. She developed a model which could be used to teach children within the early years. In this children got the role of film detectives where they had to watch films and pick out features looking at characters, camera, colour, story, setting and sound. They then used what they learned to plan and create their own clip using photography and sounds.

This example and many others can be found online at http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/earlyyearsmatters/m/genericcontent_tcm4453413.asp [Accessed 28/01/12]

Reflecting on all of this, I think using films and focusing on Moving Image Education is something which children would find quite interesting. A lot of children will watch television or films almost daily so using this as a context I think would motivate children to want to learn. However the issues which may arise from using this is choosing films which the children will be interested in whilst also making sure it is relevant to what you want the children to learn about.

References

Creative Scotland and D fi foe. (2009) Moving Image Education.

Available online  http://www.movingimageeducation.org/ [Accessed 28/01/12]

Scottish Executive (2006) Moving Image Education and A Curriculum for Excellence.

Available online  

http://www.scottishscreen.com/images/documents/MIE_ACfE_for_ScottishScreen_email.pdf 

[Accessed 28/01/12]

Scottish Government (2009) Curriculum for Excellence: Principles for Curriculum Design. Available online

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/understandingthecurriculum/howisthecurriculumstructured/principles/index.asp

[Accessed 28/01/12]