
Tag: media
Emoji Story

Digital Scavenger Hunt PD
Over the summer holidays I spent quite some time thinking about how best to use 3 upcoming whole-staff professional development sessions planned for my school. In the past I have found that no matter how charming, funny, well prepared or handsome I try to …
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Visual Assessment Guide

Printable Version (PDF)
So, what's changed? Well, after a year of experience with student self assessment using the original guide, I have come to the following conclusions.- Self assessment is great, and students really learn a lot by revisiting concepts learned, and writing about them. However, students get bored of self assessment, so using it more than 3 times a year with one group is not so great. The assessment tool should thus by more general, useful for teachers and peers to use.
- The old guide was based around "strands", which were essentially high level learning outcomes. The new guide focuses on "attributes", as I really want to be centered around the kind of students I want leaving my course after three years. The two schools I am involved in (ICHK Secondary and ICHK HLY) include formal ICT learning from Years 1 to 9, and we have tentatively decided to use these attributes across the entire age range. Hopefully this will lend consistency to what we are doing, allowing us to be more effective.
- In the original guide there was mapping from the ways of learning (a Bloomsian set from knowing through creating), allowing these to be turned into numeric scores. This was never ideal, as it is too reductionist and focuses attention on the grade, not what has been learned. The new version dispenses with the levels, and just focuses on the ways of learning. It has been tentatively agreed that next year I can experiment with reporting the top way of learning achieved in a particular piece of work. Hopefully this will help
- The old category of "becoming" connotes a moral element to what is being taught, and means assigning levels based on my own world view. Whilst I might find this appropriate, others may not. This point was raised by Toby Newton, and whilst I was initially hesitant, I can see the value of his point that we need students to be more critical of what we say, not just accepting and applying everything automatically.
Friends Without Benefits
What Facebook, Twitter, Tinder, Instagram, and Internet Porn Are Doing to America’s Teenage Girls
This is an abridged version of the full article from Vanity Fair. It has been prepared for educational use with students in lower secondary school (ages 11-14). Inserted at times are …
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Communication Comparison
As ICT and media tools have become more and more integrated into our lives, certain limitations have become extremely apparent. This is especially true in terms of the ability of ICT tools to facilitate communication between individuals and groups. To give but one example, consider …
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Representation
This lesson used to be part of a unit which was dropped from the Year 7-9 ICT Course due to time constraints. However, the content is so powerful that I decided to include it, not as a unit, but as a single lesson. The aim …
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Misleading Images
This lesson aims to introduce students to the concept of misleading images, and to try and engender in students a certain skepticism when interacting with media. This lesson could potentially be used in a range of subjects including ICT, Media, History, Theory of Knowledge, PSHE/Pastoral …
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Movie Trailers
To round out three years of ICT & Media studies, I recently asked my Year 9 students to study the art of movie making (you might have seen our Zombiefest work, which was a practice exercise for the students). As their final piece of work, …
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Old & Rare Photos
This collection of fantastic old images was shared with me by my father-in-law, and is too good not to share onwards. Sadly, I could not find a web-based version of the list, so I have decided to host them here. Enjoy, a visual feast of …
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