L4LTV Programme 3 Notes

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Programme Notes L4LTV Programme 3 - February 2014

BETT INTERVIEWSThe L4LTV programme has not appeared for a few weeks because I have been involved withestablishing joint projects with teachers and institutions to do with content making for the station. Ihave also been working on updating the design and look of the whole programme. CONTENT IS KING

However, like the monarchy, access is restricted. Content has been the stumbling block - gettingpermissions and signoffs for it and/or just getting video and audio from teachers has been half thebattle.Teachers are busy people - anyone who has tried to doorstep or cold call teachers in schools neverreally gets it; teachers are just too involved in the process of teaching and planning to beavailable at the drop of a hat unless its them doing the dropping and that will entail a whole set ofschool-based contexts to happen before they can become involved. Only very eager and dedicatedpeople will put themselves forward at an early stage in this project. It is building that first base ofmedia savvy teachers that this whole enterprise is about.Making content is time consuming and technically difficult. Writing a blog is a breeze compared tothe process of making a good film. I have seeded, with the help of Iris-Connect, Igloo in Education,Rising Stars and Computing at School, lighting, audio and cameras to be sent out to severalteachers. They have been busy making content or learning to make content. It is a slow and time-consuming process and we are making headway but very slowly. Life/ work gets in the way.I'm happy to say that, out of this, have come a few fruitful collaborations. A teacher-to-teacher TVstation needs content, a lot of it, on a regular basis but it also needs to come from teachersthemselves not just me. So putting in solid foundations for this, is my main concern no matter how

long it takes over time. All this also needs careful archiving which I have yet to crack but Imworking on some software solutions.
http://computingatschool.org.uk/http://www.risingstars-uk.com/http://www.iglooineducation.com/http://www.irisconnect.co.uk/


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TEACHERS USING GREEN SCREEN TECHNOLOGY TO PRESENT

So I'm pleased to include the film from Ashley Williams of the first day's training we did at the

University of Northampton. I will be blogging about each of the features in this month's L4LTV 3separately, each day, from the programmes release. The TV Programme is merely a briefmagazine view of what is happening in CPD up and down the country. The longer form video of thefirst days feedback from training has taken the time this month.


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SCIENCE LEARNING CENTRES CPDDr Carol Davenport and her team, especially John Swinburn, responded very quickly to my requestfor content. They made, in my opinion, exactly one of the sorts of things I am looking for in theirconcise, informative film about CPD in Science Learning Centres in York.L4LNews is trying to drill down into the subject associations and make active links with teachers

involved with CPD whom we think are doing interesting CPD in the classrooms, schools and widerinstitutions. The process is then to either film them or provide them with resources to filmthemselves or get allied sponsors or organisations to film them and then disseminate this as widelyas possible.I thought to go down the route of offering to film annual conferences and this is one rich seam but Iam finding more and more that the people who are on twitter and actively blogging about that theydo, are the first ones I follow at grass roots level before they even get to show at conference. Thecommunication with them is more immediate and they seem to understand the model.I do think there should be plenty of top down initiatives as well but there needs to be an open andactive dissemination of practice from the grass roots first; that is where the most interesting activity

always starts.I have found several subject associations to be a little hard to communicate with and, mentioningno names, theres been a certain amount of gatekeeping going on. There are only several times Iwill try this route and then I just wont bother - its too time consuming, bureaucratic and not veryagile - organisations have to be flatter and more agile to be able to take advantage of L4LTVsservices when we offer them for free.

I do understand that we can be viewed with a certain amount of suspicion but as everything we dois free (people do sometimes pay us!) and open to scrutiny and criticism and a right of reply, then Icant really see what holds people back from making decisions or putting barriers in the way.


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Fortunately Carol and her colleagues were more than willing to take up the challenges of makingvideos about CPD and we are happy to collaborate and give airtime to anyone in subject specialistfields who wants a platform for their CPD

MONTHLY LIVE VIDEO STREAM BROADCASTSSo much is happening in the education world right now and not very much of it is covered bymainstream media. They tend to go for the big targets and easy options; they dont want anuanced, more granular insight into what is happening. That isnt their role but it is one of my aims- it may prove too large a task but I am rebooting a few services from the start of March.Another reason I started up the station is to cover such issues and events in a deeper way but the

magazine format of the L4LTV productions cant possibly go into such depth so L4LTV's livestreams service broadcasts between 2 - 4 events every month now. Some organisations pay usand some we do for free depending on their budget (nil usually).


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From March onwards we are working on bringing people a more frequent news broadcast serviceusing video and audio around the issues of the day that are emerging. Some will be quickephemeral, short pieces; others will be more in-depth looks at one issue only.

TOUCHPAPER PARTIESThe other thing L4LTV is aiming to do is cover events that will never be seen on mainstream media- two cases in point recently were the TeachFirst Seminar featuring Dr Robert Coe and LauraMcInerneys Touchpaper Party (http://lauramcinerney.com/2013/12/08/announcing-the-1st-touchpaper-problem-solving-party/ ) that emerged out of a seminar she gave at that ResearchEDconference last year.Part of the process of making and archiving media is to keep a record of activity in and aroundemerging trends in education and, where possible, I want to document these stirrings of reflectionon pedagogies that might work based on current research (or research that needs to be done!). At the TouchPaper party I was able to record the audio from the day from two of the 7 groupsinvolved - you can hear the whole process from beginning to end in separate audio files here.(https://soundcloud.com/l4lnews/sets/touchpaper-party-audio)This should help give people aninsight into what was a fairly ad hoc process but turned out to be a one that could lead to applyingfor research through the EEF (Education Endowment Fund) and further modification of the processin bringing teachers together to pool expertise to determine possible ways forward. This section of the programme shows brief interviews with the people organising and attending theday. It is almost impossible to capture the flavour of the day using media but as a taster for those


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interested in taking things further you know who the main players are and can get in touch ifinterested.

MINECRAFT AT BURNT OAK JUNIOR SCHOOLA lot of what I do is to search out practice that may not be easily replicable but is of interest toindividuals who may want to go down similar routes or to modify and adapt activities that arentshrink-wrapped or run of the mill standardised content that fit easily into the traditional curriculum.

These necessarily involve cross-curricular exemplars involving people with a lot of knowledge andexpertise but doing things that are atypical. The arts have taken a back seat and been somewhatmarginalised in recent years so here is chance to showcase possible ways forward in somecontexts and subject domains.The installation of a MineCraft server at Burnt Oak Junior School is a case in point. I have beenfollowing developments at the school over the last two terms and seen the progress of the

resource over time.The ICT teacher Peter Barrett has now involved students from the local drama school to helpenrich childrens written and spoken language within the school by way of the King Midas storyfrom Ovids Metamorphoses. The project involved several people with expertise coming together tocontribute to a showcase day where the performance could take place.

People like Adam Clarke, a MineCraft artist/ coder recently shortlisted for the Tates IK Prize; MikeJupp the Local Authority Computer expert who helped install the server (when I last met him heshowed me how to control an Arduino buggy hed built with his mobile phone!). Peter Barrettwhose ICT and computing experience stretches back decades and Ive never known him to rest on

his laurels (where most research shows that teachers peak after 2 or 3 years Ive never knownPeter not to be involved in some ground breaking innovative project that involves a fair amount ofrisk!). I merely helped film the day.


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Whatever your opinions on this approach to learning in the Primary sector - have a look at the filmand remember all the work that may not be evident that has gone into making the day a successwith the school community as a whole. I wish that the project could have had a researcher frombeginning to end to document properly the process and outcomes.

Genevieve Smith-Nunes - CAS Master Teacher Series

As part of the ongoing Master Teacher interviews Im doing - this week it is Genevieve Smith-Nunes whose readysaltedcode organisation has just been awarded a prestigious Google RISEaward.As part of the Computing at School Sponsorship I am doing 13 interviews with Master Teachersbetween now and September 2014.Each interview with each Master Teacher is fully transcribed and a free book of all the interviewswill be released in the Summer Term.

Genevieve is another teacher who works across the curriculum and is well placed to co-opt peoplefrom the computing and games industries to build arts and code based projects.

I hope the next edition of the programme wont take so long - I have been assiduously learningmore and more about Final Cut Pro and Im getting faster day on day. Keep sending me yourcontent please.Leon Cych

[email protected]


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Documents

L4LTV Programme 3 Notes