I continue to be amazed by the potential Second Life has for learning, I have just watched the video on this blog post and was completely blown away. Clck below to see a low res version, or follow the link above for a high quality version.
Do you like playing computer games? Do you like playing/composing music? If the answer to these two questions is ‘yes’ then xbox have got a competition that is just right for you, check out their website:
Forget music for movies – that’s so last-century. Music for games is the next creative frontier. Lead the revolution by creating the ultimate Xbox game trailer soundtrack.
Our judges will pick their favourites, then the public will get to vote for the best of the best right here on Xbox.com. If you win, you’ll make gaming history with the chance to lay down your track with one of the Universal Music team. (Worldwide fame and adoring fans are sure to follow – but don’t hold us to that.)
Don’t miss this exclusive chance to share your soundtrack with the world. You have until 31 May 2007.
My ibook’s have gone mobile and have landed at Barrow CE Primary school, the pupils are busy playing around with Comic Life. You can check out pupils progress on the school blog.
Russell Prue has just demonstrated the ‘Mixman M2 Digital Music Mixer‘ to an audience at the Derbyshire ICT conference, this is one of the coolest gadgets I have seen lately. I would really like one, never mind letting the kids get their hands on it! The only downside for me at the moment is that it doesn’t work on the Mac, I will have to dig my tablet pc out.
I have just gate crashed David’s workshop on Creativity, the focus of his workshop is podcasting. He used Garageband to produce a very small podcast and uploaded it to the Digital Teacher Network - a free blog that makes uploading and hosting podcasts very easy.
He then went on to demonstrate Gabcast, this is a site that allows you to produce a podcast via voip or mobile phone. At present the basic service is free, apart from the cost of your phone call.
Today I am in Derbyshire at their ICT Conference, I have a keynote this afternoon on Web2.0 technologies in the classroom. The day was kicked off by David Baugh (Denbighshire LA) an interesting keynote on Digital Creative Learning Environments, not VLEs or LPs, but creating an creative learning environment in school. It was great to see the creative work on many primary school pupils from Denbighshire. One of the key points that sticks in my mind is that youngsters are doing all this creative ’stuff’ at home but not at school, why not and how do we recreate a youngsters bedroom (minus the clothes etc) in school?
Via Lifehacker I came across a post on the Chief Happiness Officers blog that looks at 10 seriously cool workplaces, at the beginning of his post he states:
Physical space matters. It’s easier to be productive, creative and happy at work in a colourful, organic, playful environment than in a grey, linear, boring one.
Isn’t this equally true of schools, here are a couple of typical ICT classrooms:
 
These rooms are hardly creative environments, I hope when the BSF programme comes to Shropshire we will be able to take account of the creative workplaces mentioned in the previous article and would be keen to see any schools who have produced creative, colourful, organic and playful environments for their pupils.
How cool would it be to have a wall like this, one that you can write on:
All the photos from his post can be found on flickr.
Trying to think of a creative project that harnesses music and film, then think no further check out BoomAcademy.
BOOM! Music Video Academy uses the coolest music from the backing of the pioneers of the music video, MTV, and the latest video editing software from Adobe to enable teachers and students to create their own music videos.
BOOM! challenges you to tap into your creativity and produce the music videos of tomorrow.
Teachers can download a plethora of resources ranging from posters and lesson plans to copyright free music files to be used in the video. You can also view past winners videos to be used as inspiration and challenge your students. The student interface is really cool, it is very interesting to see the different approach to the website for students and teachers.
Even though the competition is being organised by Adobe and MTV, there is no requirement to use adobe software. I wonder if there would be any scope in using the web based software discussed by Theo at the recent Teachmeet: Jumpcut and VideoEgg.
Teachmeet was a great success – I was able to put a lot more faces to names I have read over the past year. The informalness (I don’t think that is a word) of the event was definitely a major plus, at times several of us were sat on the floor, similar to pupils in primary schools ☺ The only problem with these events is that you pick up so many great ideas and there aren’t enough hours in the day to investigate them all.
I would personally like to thank the speakers: Theo, David, Ollie, Chris, John, Kate & Sean, it was a shame we didn’t have anymore time to listen to anyone else.
A big thanks most go to both Stormhoek for supplying the wine and Promethean for paying the exorbitant corkage charges charged by the Crowne Plaza, and also for Ewan for doing the bulk of the organisation.
The meal at the Goat was a great success and I eventually got to meet Mrs Mc (Morgane).
I hope I get an invite up to SETT again next year so I can meet you all again and gain from your wealth of experience and creativity.
PS Ewan, we need to get a photo of you in your t-shirt.
You need to be in a band and to perform an original song not longer than 5 minutes in length. You will perform from your school to a panel of rock experts. The performance for the national finals will take place over a video conferencing link from your school or local VC centre. This will be seen live across the internet and everyone can vote online for you to win.
If you think you have got what it takes then enter the competition, but you will have to move quickly as the regional heats start at the end of the month.
Recent Comments