Learning Design Initiative in Explorations 8 - An Update

- Mr. John Kelly, Explorations 8 Learning Design Project
This project began at the beginning of the semester (February 2012) - See Link in "Projects"

    When I first embarked on this exploration I was heavily influenced by the Learning Designs grant that we had recieved at Fraser Heights.  I was most curious about the idea of cross-curricular projects and was really trying to find a place in the school where this could be put into practice without disturbing the timetable.  As a teacher of an explorations 8 strand that incorporates Art/ InfoTech / Drama I realized this just might be the perfect place to start.  I've always felt that each element of these 3 courses really leant themselves well to one another.  Since I am teaching this class with one colleague (Angele Thibault) and am responsible for each of the three strands I felt that I could blend the courses in a new and inovative way, without causing any disruption in the timetabling at our school.  The result has been very exciting for me.  With the help of Angele, I have created a series of Summative projects that tether the curriculum for each of the three strands of the explorations B curriculum together. 
    The purpose of this post is essentially to share how this is developing.  I'm really enjoying watching the ideas come to life; being the first time I have ever done something quite like this, the process has been quite organic and things have developed with a living and breathing energy of their own. The students have been truly excited about the process, although I have to note that it took a little bit of time to get the students accustomed to a class that rotated classroom space on a weekly or even daily basis. 
     One of the major challenges so far has been the timing and organization of the class in the midst of attempting to cover the core curriculum, of three subjects, necessary to complete our first project.  We decided to use Edmodo as our virtual classroom to keep the students connected to each other during group work and allow for us to update the students outside of class in a streamlined fashion.  The students have really taken to the virtual classroom and are only disappointed that it doesn't work more like facebook (something to consider for the future). 
    The first project we have completed has been an interesting combination of each class and has involed an explorations of a dramatic concept called TABLEAU.  The idea of the frozen picture was expanded with the student to capture the elements of story and plot.  The students were asked to prepare a plot for a story and then begin to story board 20 forzen pictures (Tableau) that would be essential to communicate to an audience their ideas.  Following the story boarding the students had to begin considering the compositional make up of their photographs.  We used iPads to take the photos and then transplanted them into keynote to test the strength of the stories plan.  The students had a lot of fun with this process.  It was really fun to do photo shoots and to get them to understand the concept of backgrounds, props, costumes, lighting and composition.  We extracted the photos from the iPads with the use of dropbox (a very handy tool when working with iPads if you want to keep the work you do).  Following this step the students used Powerpoint to create a slide show which will culminate in the presentation of a polished mulit-media experience.  The students also learened how to cut music in Audacity and then finish by layering the music in their PowerPoint to communicate tone and emotion as an aid to telling the story they created.  Our presentations are next week and I'm really excited to see what comes of it.  (Pictures will be posted!) 
    The class has also begun a research project which is titled The History of Explorations.  We've covered how to use Prezi effectively and are now going to apply our research to a Prezi format.  The students will create, with partners, a dynamic exploration of Histrorical and noteable figures, movements, artists, playwrights, software and hardware that relate to each course.  The result will be a wealth of information that should (hopefully) aid in each students further understanding and appreciation for Art, InfoTeach and Dramatic arts. 
   Next we head into working on Silent Films.... I'll keep you posted.