Writing using multimodal approaches KS3

Course information.........................................................................................................3

Learning outcomes.........................................................................................................3

Course schedule.............................................................................................................4

Introduction....................................................................................................................5

The Practitioner Research Cycle............................................................................5

Introducing ourselves.....................................................................................................6

Using the course resources in your project....................................................................6

The project.....................................................................................................................8

Reflect, evaluate and share with others..........................................................................9

Discussion............................................................................................................10

Shared learning.............................................................................................................11

Evaluation....................................................................................................................11

Resources.....................................................................................................................12

1 Using multimodal approaches...............................................................................12

Hard to teach topics..............................................................................................12

Other resources.....................................................................................................13

Background reading.............................................................................................14

2 Podcasting.............................................................................................................14

Hard to teach topics..............................................................................................15

Further activities...................................................................................................15

Classroom activity................................................................................................161

Other resources.....................................................................................................16

3 Composing, re-composing, decomposing.............................................................17

Making writing better...........................................................................................17

Further thoughts...................................................................................................18

Thinking more broadly.........................................................................................18

Other resources.....................................................................................................18

4 PowerPoint counterpoint.......................................................................................19

Other resources.....................................................................................................20

5 Gathering digital assets.........................................................................................21

Other resources.....................................................................................................22

References....................................................................................................................22

Acknowledgements......................................................................................................24

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Course informationThis is one of the ‘project courses’ from Vital. It provides an opportunity for you to plan, carry out and evaluate a project in your classroom. It is supported by a set of resources and activities to give you ideas for possible projects. You are not expected go through every resource but to pick those which are most relevant to your interests, context and possible project.

You will need access to:

a computer with a web browser headset (including microphone and speakers) for online tutorials (optional

webcam)

a class/group of students – groups could be within classes, whole classes, or groups across classes (e.g. clubs) and schools (e.g. clusters of schools or in collaborative projects).

Duration of the course: You should allow for about one to two hours per week for this on top of the time taken to do the project in your classroom or other setting.

Learning outcomesN.B. The technology or technologies to be used are identified in the Resources section for the course.

Professional and reflective practitioner skills

At the completion of this course, you should be able to:

identify areas within the curriculum where you can introduce multimodal writing activities

identify opportunities for the effective use of technology to support learning activities linked to your curriculum plans

reflect on and discuss the impact of the use of technology to support learning in multimodality, writing, ICT and English at KS3

share your learning with others in your field.

Practical skills

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At the completion of this course, you should be able to:

use technology to support teaching and learning in multimodality, writing, ICT and English at KS3

use a range of tools to support multimodality, writing, ICT and English at KS3

Knowledge and understanding

At the completion of this course, you should be able to demonstrate an understanding of:

a range of uses of technology to support multimodality, writing, ICT and English at KS3

the issues involved in using technology in multimodality, writing, ICT and English at KS3.

Cognitive skills

At the completion of this course, you should be able to:

critically review the use of technology to support teaching and learning in multimodality, writing, ICT and English at KS3

share these reviews with others, constructively critiquing others’ views.

Course scheduleWeek Course activities Type Approximate

duration

1 Activity 1 Getting to know others on the course Online 30 minutes

1–2 Activity 2 Exploring the resources Online tutorial 1 hour Activity 3 Guidance on using resources and planning for project 30 minutes

3 Activity 4 Drawing up course plans Individual planning 1 hour

Activity 5 Confirmation of course plans Online tutorial 1 hour

4–8 Activity 6 Classroom project Classroom No extra time needed

Activity 7 Reflective journal Individual 30 minutes to 1 hour per week

Activity 8 Keeping in touch with your cohort and facilitator Online 30 minutes to 1 hour

per week

9 Activity 9 Reflecting and reporting back Online 1 hour

Activity 10 Extracting our shared learning Online 30 minutes to 1 hour

Activity 11 Course evaluation and Online 30 minutes to 1 hour4

Week Course activities Type Approximate duration

certification

Total 9–12 hours over 9 weeks

IntroductionThe course applies a practitioner research model to look at how aspects of learning may be supported and enhanced through the use of technology. Your starting point is ‘a need’ within your practice, which you will investigate how to address. This will involve exploring how other people have already attempted to address a similar need in their practice (bringing in some practical examples of how particular technologies are used in schools), before you plan and implement their use in your school and reflect and discuss what worked and what needs further refinement.

At the heart of your learning is a project that you will carry out in your teaching and learning setting. These materials are written assuming that you have signed up for a course, although they can be followed in self-study mode. Where you have signed up for a course you will be carrying out a project with similar focus to others, both in terms of the phase of education, technology and the curriculum.

Throughout you have an opportunity to share experiences with other participants. Where you have signed up to use these materials as part of a course you will have a facilitator who will conduct tutorials and help support you in your learning and reflection.

The Practitioner Research Cycle

Vital courses are based on a Practitioner Research Cycle as shown in the diagram below.

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This cycle draws on, and develops, personal and professional knowledge bases. The latter may be seen in the literature, resources, policies and other materials that are used to inform practice.

Throughout the course small icons will indicate the stage of the cycle being addressed.

NB Prof/Pers KB = Professional/Personal knowledge base

Introducing ourselves For the purposes of clarity the activities from this point on assume that you are on a course with others. If you are in self-study mode then some activities will not be applicable.

This part of the course provides an introduction to each other, to get a feel for the contexts others are working in. This may allow for cross-fertilisation of ideas in projects and for supported reflection.

Activity 1 Getting to know others on the course

30 minutes during the first week of the course (online).

The objective of this course activity is to get to know the other participants on this course

Task 1 Go to the course forum and the ‘Introductions’ thread. There it will explain how these introductions will be done – e.g. face-to-face, online, using a forum.

Task 2 Where a forum is used, introduce yourself, and your context, telling the other course members what you hope to get out of the course. Reply to some of these messages, identifying areas of overlap with your own context and interests.

End of activity.

Using the course resources in your projectThese materials, are complemented by supporting resources and activities, which you can use to support your project. Your facilitator, and others on the course, will help to you to plan and refine your ideas for this project.

Activity 2 Exploring resources

1 hour over the first two weeks of the course (online)

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The objective of this course activity is to develop your understanding of the resources provided to support this course.

Go to the Resources section, explore what is there and reflect on how might use them in your classroom or other setting. You are not expected to look at all of the resources, but to choose those which seem to be of most interest and relevance to you. In Activity 4, you will develop a project of your own and these resources are designed to help frame that project. As you explore you might want to make notes that you discuss with your facilitator in Activity 3.

End of activity.

Activity 3 Guidance on using resources and planning for project

30 minutes over the first two weeks of the course (online)

The objectives of this course activity are:

to develop your understanding of the resources available

to develop a shared understanding of suitable project resources.

Go to the course discussion forum and to the thread ‘Tutorial: Resource and project guidance’. This will contain guidance on how the tutorial will be conducted – for example, it may be online or face-to-face. The tutorial will be supported by discussion in the forum. When you attend the tutorial, online, you should be prepared to discuss initial ideas for your project.

End of activity.

Activity 4 Drawing up course plans

1 hour during the third week of the course (individual activity)

The objective of this course activity is to plan your use of the resources and associated technology in a project in your setting.

You will need to consider:

how your plan fits with your performance management or other targets the classes or groups of learners to be used in the project

the learning gains or learning intentions

the intended purposes for using the technology and resources

what evidence you will look for of the impact of the resources and technologies on learning and teaching

how you will share your findings with others in your setting.7

End of activity.

Activity 5 Confirming course plans

1 hour during the third week of the course (online)

The objectives of this course activity are to:

develop your understanding of the resources available

develop a shared understanding of suitable project activities.

Go to the course forum and to the thread ‘Confirming plans’. You should go to this thread and outline what you plan to do. Comment on others’ plans looking, in particular, for plans which are similar to your own so that you may share ideas and findings.

End of activity.

The project

Having developed your plan on how to use the supporting resources in your classroom you now need to carry out the project. This will last for about half a term. Each week, as you work through the project, you should reflect on what you have learnt and the impact it is having on learners. You should be prepared to share your thoughts and reflections with others.

Activity 6 Classroom project

To be carried out during weeks 3 to 7 (half a term of classroom activity)

The objective of this course activity is to carry out your plan for the use of the resources and technology in your classroom. It is not intended that, in doing so, you spend any extra time over and above your normal teaching and preparation time.

End of activity.

Activity 7 Reflective journal

30 minutes to 1 hour during each week of the project (individual activity)

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The objective of this course activity is to reflect systematically on what you have learnt.

Each week you should note down what you have learnt from the project. This might take the form of reflection on your plans in Activities 3 and 4. These reflections may be kept in a blog or some other electronic journal. You will need to use these reflections to inform Activities 8 and 9.

End of activity.

Activity 8 Keeping in touch with your cohort and facilitator

30 minutes to 1 hour during each week of the project (online)

The objectives of this course activity are

to share your learning as the project progresses to gain support from colleagues on the course

provide support for others in the cohort.

Each week you will receive a message from your facilitator to support your progress through the course and project.

Go to the course forum and to the thread ‘Project discussions’. Share how your project is going, what you are learning and any other resources that you have found to be of use. Respond to the message sent by your facilitator.

You can also use the forum to ask for support and guidance and to support and guide others. You should check back into the forum regularly – little and often is probably the best method here (15 minutes every other day is likely to be much more useful than a one hour block once a week).

End of activity.

Reflect, evaluate and share with othersHaving carried out a classroom project, you will share your reflections of what you learnt from it.

Use the key questions below to help evaluate your project. Use your initial planning sheet and the reflections you have captured as a source of data to help you do this.

What did the learners do? This is a descriptive activity that explains your action with the learners.

What did they learn and how do you know? This is an issue of assessment including observation, discussion, question and answer, testing, etc

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Was it worthwhile, i.e. did it succeed in meeting your targets? This question relates to your purposes and intended learning outcomes.

What did I do? Practitioner research is often done by individuals in their own work. This question requires a description of your own actions.

What did I learn? This requires analysis of your data and reflection on your answers.

What do I intend to do next? This relates to your next steps for action. This is where you will try to do things to achieve an improvement and to make the work you do with learners more worthwhile in your terms.

Adapted from Open University Curriculum in Action materials (1981)

Activity 9 Reflecting and reporting back

1 hour (online) during the final week of the course.

The objectives of this course activity are

to share your reflections on the project

give feedback to others as they reflect on their projects.

Make a brief presentation to share your findings – maybe as a couple of slides, short video, images etc. Go to the forum, in the thread ‘Reflections’ upload your presentation, and discuss:

the extent to which your intended learning outcomes were achieved the evidence you have for this

the ways in which you shared your project with others in your setting

key reflections emerging from the consideration of the key questions for evaluation (listed above).

The use of technology in learning and teaching will provide you with evidence that may be useful when considering the Professional Standards for Teaching. You will have collected evidence from planning through to your notes and evaluation to discussion in the forum. Such evidence may be useful to you when demonstrating ways in which you have met the standards.

Depending on the stage of your career, certain Training and Development Agency for Schools TDA standards may be more relevant than others. Click the ‘Discussion’ button to reveal a possible set of standards. If appropriate you can reflect on these in your feedback to this activity.

Discussion

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TDA standards relevant to you might include the following:

C7 Evaluate their performance and be committed to improving their practice through appropriate professional development.

C8 Have a creative and constructively critical approach towards innovation; being prepared to adapt their practice where benefits and improvements are identified.

C17 Know how to use skills in literacy, numeracy and ICT to support their teaching and wider professional activities.

C27 Design opportunities for learners to develop their literacy, numeracy, ICT and thinking and learning skills appropriate within their phase and context.

P10 Contribute to the professional development of colleagues through coaching and mentoring, demonstrating effective practice, and providing advice and feedback.

E2 Research and evaluate innovative curricular practices and draw on research outcomes and other sources of external evidence to inform their own practice and that of colleagues.

E14 Contribute to the professional development of colleagues using a broad range of techniques and skills appropriate to their needs so that they demonstrate enhanced and effective practice.

End of discussion

End of activity.

Shared learning The reflective practitioner cycle is based on developing the professional knowledge base. We have come to the end of the personal reflection phase and will now develop a common understanding of what we have learnt. We will share the key learning points as a group so that these may be collated and added to the community knowledge.

Activity 10 Extracting our shared learning

30 minutes to 1 hour (online) during the final week of the course

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The objectives of this course activity are to discuss and agree what we have learnt as a group.

Go to the course forum and, in the Discussion called ‘Shared Learning’, post the key learning points that have emerged for you during the course. With your facilitator, agree on the common shared learning from the group.

End of activity.

Evaluation This final section allows for evaluation.

Activity 11 Course evaluation

30 minutes to 1 hour (online), during the final week of the course

The objectives of this course activity are to complete an evaluation form and rate and review the course.

Your task is to complete the evaluation questionnaire, which can be found on the course page. There are also links there to print a certificate and rate the course. The certificate will be ‘released’ by your facilitator.

End of activity.

ResourcesYou do not need to do all the activities contained in this Resources section. Select those that are most appropriate to your context, interests and possible projects.

Where possible we provide links to materials hosted by Vital. However, this is not always feasible so please bear in mind that over time material from external websites may become unavailable or obsolete.

1 Using multimodal approachesThis resource invites you to consider some key questions about using multimodal approaches in teaching and learning. Teaching methods are often adopted unquestioningly; indeed, it is part of a teacher’s professional skill to be able to select, almost instinctively, suitable approaches. New technologies can be disruptive in both valuable and harmful ways, so we’d like you to reflect on some practical examples before embarking on planning your own project.

Hard to teach topics

Spend a few minutes jotting down bullet points in answer to these two questions:

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1. What, in your experience, is difficult to teach or learn in English at Key Stage 3?

2. Select a couple of the aspects or topics you listed in answer to question 1. How do you think ICT could be used help teach these?

We’ll come back to your answers later.

Now watch the film Hard to teach – secondary English using ICT, http://www.teachers.tv/video/34475 on Teachers TV.

In this programme, three teachers demonstrate and discuss how they use ICT in their classrooms. Two are at Key Stage 3 and one is with a Key Stage 4 class but you will readily appreciate how a similar approach would work at Key Stage 3.

If you wish, it is possible to download the video and watch it offline; it lasts 30 minutes in total, though you may wish to pause after each example and record your comments, perhaps watching the other sections at a later time.

We suggest that you base your responses to the questions which follow on at least two of the sections. If you don’t have access to video cameras and editing equipment, for example, the final example on filming trailers for Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde may be less relevant for your situation, though we hope you’ll have time to watch it and decide whether there are things to learn from the approaches there.

Reflection

Reflect on the teaching approaches used in each example and make a note of the effect of using ICT in that setting. Your reflection may take the form of both comments and questions. Here are some you might consider, though we hope you’ll have others as well:

What contribution was made by each of the following – and how essential is that contribution?

o the technology

o the teacher

o the students

How far could these approaches be used in your own teaching? What would you need in order to do so?

Compare your reflections with the notes you made earlier on topics that are hard to teach.

Have you seen examples of ways in which multimodal approaches can enhance teaching and learning in English?

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Which approach would you most like to try out in your own classroom?

End of activity.

Other resources

Making hard topics easier to teach with ICT: case studies from a NATE/Becta project, www.nate.org.uk/htt (this page also links to the Teachers TV video mentioned earlier). We shall be referring to a number of the case studies in other resource sections.

NATE ICT pages, www.nate.org.uk/ict, these pages contain a range of documents on policy and practice in the application of ICT to English, including:

o The Entitlement to ICT in secondary English

o ICT in English: A NATE Position Paper

o Resources, including lists of websites for teachers and students, materials for interactive whiteboards, etc.

Becta: this government agency is scheduled to close in 2011, though the resources are supposed to continue to be available. The schools section has a number of useful resources that teachers and students can explore to reflect on the impact of ICT.

Visit http://schools.becta.org.uk/ and look, particularly, in the Curriculum section for English resources (some of which have already appeared on the NATE site) and in the Learning and teaching section for more general materials on how teachers can, in their words, ‘integrate technology effectively into their teaching to create an inclusive, innovative and exciting learning environment’.

Background reading

Twenty things to do with a word processor, by Trevor Millum and Chris Warren, Resource Education, 2001

ICT and literacy, by Trevor Millum, NATE, 2003: although aimed primarily at Key Stage 2, many of the materials here will be useful for Key Stage 3.

Sharing not staring, edited by Trevor Millum and Chris Warren, NATE, 2008: using the interactive whiteboard in ways which tap into its huge potential in English.

These three books are available from NATE, the professional association for those involved and interested in the teaching of English at any level in the United Kingdom:

NATE, 50 Broadfield Road, Sheffield, S8 0XJ; www.nate.org.uk; telephone: 0114 255 5419.

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English in the digital age, edited by Andrew Goodwyn, Cassell, 2000

  

This is one of a series of units written for Vital by Trevor Millum, Chris Warren and Tom Rank on behalf of the National Association for the Teaching of English. NATE is the professional association for those involved and interested in the teaching of English at any level in the United Kingdom.

2 PodcastingSpeaking and listening has often (most teachers would say always) been a poor relation in the English classroom. In recent years there have been a number of efforts to give due attention to speaking and listening (or oracy, as it’s sometimes called). These include making assessment compulsory at GCSE and, most recently, requiring GCSE students to study spoken language as part of their courses.

This unit explores some approaches to producing sound recordings. In the process, students will be using a range of strategies, including formal writing for planning, scripts and note-taking, as well as plenty of unscripted discussion. The final podcast may be scripted, improvised or a mix of both. (Strictly, there is more to podcasting than just making an audio recording – we suggest later that students might like to investigate this for themselves.)

Modern computers are likely to have basic sound recording abilities. For easier recording and higher quality you can use a range of additional equipment, from cheap microphones and speakers (or headsets) to portable sound recorders – you can clip a small microphone to an iPod, for example. You do not need access to expensive equipment, though of course if your school or college has facilities such as a studio, you can achieve better results. This unit assumes only basic facilities and shows you where you can find free editing software that is perfectly adequate for classroom use.

Hard to teach topics

Read the following Hard to teach case studies on podcasting, which you can find on the NATE site, www.nate.org.uk/htt:

Analysing the language of poetry through podcasts, Kate Murphy, http://www.nate.org.uk/cmsfiles/ict/h2t/15_Analysing_poetry.pdf

Using podcasting to improve close analysis of language in poetry, Carrie McMillan, http://www.nate.org.uk/cmsfiles/ict/h2t/16_Podcasting_poetry.pdf

‘Explain yuself wha yu mean when yu say podcast’: GCSE poetry podcasts, Phillip Lloyd, http://www.nate.org.uk/cmsfiles/ict/h2t/17_GCSE_poetry_podcasts.pdf

You will find links on the same page to some additional resources, including where to download the Audacity sound recording software and some help sheets and a

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presentation on Audacity that both teachers and students should find useful. (Carrie McMillan’s students used Apple Mac hardware and software, as detailed in the appendix to her case study; however, her approach will be of interest whatever equipment you propose to use.)

Reflection

How does the requirement to produce a recording affect teaching and learning?

What topics would be particularly suitable for this approach?

What would you need to produce a podcast in your own classroom? Does your institution already possess recording equipment or facilities, for example in another department?

What framework would you give to the assignment you set for students?

End of activity.

Further activities

Visit the Assignment: podcast page on the BT Learning and Skills website, http://www.btplc.com/Responsiblebusiness/Supportingourcommunities/Learningandskills/Freeresources/ResourceView.aspx?id=3. Read and listen to the materials there, especially the short podcast (of course) from two experienced broadcasters. This activity is aimed at both teachers and students – you may find it a useful resource for your own students to use.

Reflection

What is the difference, do you think, if your students are able to make their recordings available publicly?

Are there any issues that might be raised in publishing students’ work in this way?

End of activity.

Classroom activity

Select an appropriate task for students to record. Examples might include:

magazine programmes – perhaps with different groups taking topics of interest to their age-group

interviews, role-play, etc., associated with a text you are reading or a topic they are studying

investigations into a topic of interest in the school or community

interviews with adults – staff in different jobs in the school, older residents in the community, etc.

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You might also want to find out more about podcasting, which strictly involves more than just recording and publishing a sound recording on a website. Some of the sites listed in the resources list offer guidance and facilities for this.

Other resources

Podcast revision, from a school in Durham, has podcasts for GCSE English revision and the SATs, including readings of poems and commentaries in good quality sound, http://www.podcastrevision.co.uk/

Web 2.0 for rookies: podcasting, this article by Terry Freedman provides a concise overview with a number of useful links for more resources and case studies, http://www.ictineducation.org/home-page/2009/12/29/web-20-for-rookies-what-is-a-podcast.html

Software

Audacity software can be downloaded free from http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Podium is educational software which offers recording and hosting of podcasts and other tools; it is a commercial product, http://www.podiumpodcasting.com/

Sound files to use in recordings

Students can have fun creating and recording their own effects; these sites offer alternative sources which are free for non-commercial use:

A1 Radio Sounds, http://www.a1freesoundeffects.com/radio.html

SFX, free sound effects for multimedia productions, http://www.pacdv.com/sounds/

Royalty-free music from the Incompetech site, a good choice of music which is free to use, provided credit is given, http://www.incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/.

  

This is one of a series of units written for Vital by Trevor Millum, Chris Warren and Tom Rank on behalf of the National Association for the Teaching of English. NATE is the professional association for those involved and interested in the teaching of English at any level in the United Kingdom.

3 Composing, re-composing, decomposingThis resource looks at the writing process and the ways in which a multimodal approach can impact upon it and make it explicit. As for previous resources, we’d like you to reflect on a practical example before thinking about how this might be helpful in developing your own teaching in this area.

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Making writing better

Spend a few minutes jotting down bullet points in answer to these two questions:

1. What, in your experience, are the main difficulties involved in helping pupils to improve their writing?

2. Which of these might be aided by the use of some form of ICT?

Look again at the first of the lessons in the Teachers TV film referred to in Resource 1, http://www.teachers.tv/video/34475.

In this lesson, Phil Grosset demonstrates the use of the visualiser as part of a lesson in which pupils are moving from a prose description towards poetry composition. Look particularly at the points at which the teacher intervenes and the way in which the visualiser is used.

Reflection

Reflect on the way the technology is employed in the lesson. If you had access to a visualiser, would you use it in a similar way? When would your interventions take place and what would they focus on? In particular:

What does the visualiser enable the teacher to achieve which would otherwise be difficult or less effective?

What effect does the use of the visualiser have on the writing process?

What are the disadvantages, if any, of using this technology?

Finally, how far could this approach be used in your own teaching? What would you need in order to do so?

End of activity.

Further thoughts

Compare the interventions made possible by the visualiser with those you most frequently make in your own teaching. Which have the greater impact on the development of pupils’ writing?

What are the implications for Assessment for Learning and Assessing Pupil Progress?

What other methods might there be which would encourage pupils to look carefully and critically at their work in progress and, on occasions, that of others? Would ICT be helpful?

Thinking more broadly

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What other forms of assistance in the writing process might ICT enable? You may like to think about some of the following but will probably come up with others:

the ‘Insert Comment’ facility in Word and other word processors sharing feedback via the school VLE/learning platform

responding to pupils’ work using email or a message board

modelling the writing process using a blog. (You can read two case studies, one by Martin Brennan and another by Mark Ellis, which consider the use of blogs in English on the NATE website – see reference below.)

Other resources

Take a look at the case studies of Phil Grosset (Using a visualiser, http://www.nate.org.uk/cmsfiles/ict/h2t/3_Visualiser.pdf) and Sam Custance (Using SMART Notebook 10 for refining and presenting information, http://www.nate.org.uk/cmsfiles/ict/h2t/20_Refining.pdf) on the ‘Hard to Teach’ area of the NATE website, www.nate.org.uk/htt (this page also links to the Teachers TV video mentioned earlier).

Teachit’s Poetry Place, www.teachit.co.uk/poetryplace, provides ideas that will assist with the development writing, many of which involve the use of ‘low-level’ ICT. Navigate to the Workshop and then scroll down to KS3 Creative Writing.

Language is a virus, www.languageisavirus.com, is aimed at adult writers but has advice and tips ranging from the practical to the whimsical.

Creative Copy Challenge, www.creativecopychallenge.com, is also addressed to adult writers but has an interesting challenge which you may find useful to adapt. An article, ICT in education, provides some teaching ideas from an ICT angle which English teachers will find highly relevant, www.ictineducation.org/home-page/2010/7/5/the-power-of-words.html

Further back in the writing process come the difficulties of generating and organising ideas. The first of these is beyond the scope of this resource, but there are numerous applications which can assist in the organising of ideas as the writing process begins to get under way, e.g. www.bubbl.us.

  

This is one of a series of units written for Vital by Trevor Millum, Chris Warren and Tom Rank on behalf of the National Association for the Teaching of English. NATE is the professional association for those involved and interested in the teaching of English at any level in the United Kingdom.

4 PowerPoint counterpoint

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Visit the Vital page on the NATE site to see the materials provided for this resource, http://www.nate.org.uk/page/vital.

The files you can download and adapt there include the scripts for the speeches from Macbeth and Blake’s A Poison Tree as well as ‘PowerPoint counterpoint’, an illustration based on a speech from Macbeth.

The basic idea is simple – perform a poem, a story, or a scene from a play while projecting text and images in the background, and possibly playing a soundtrack.

The writing involves creating the projected image/text in such a way that it provides a commentary on, or provocatively disagrees with, the performance.

For instance, Macbeth is quizzing Banquo about his movements, trying to tease out key details. Although he sounds amicable enough, in fact he intends to murder him. Banquo senses the approach of a predator and tries to say as little as possible.

The projected text might simply consist of the two characters’ private thoughts, presented in cartoon fashion as bubbles. During the performance of the scene these thoughts would appear in the background as a counterpoint to the speeches of two live actors. It is fairly clear what well-chosen music might do to this scene – sinister music would also cast doubt on Macbeth’s apparent friendliness.

Or another example from Macbeth – Macbeth is thinking through the reasons why murdering Duncan would be wrong. ‘He’s here in double trust’. The screen behind the performer of these lines shows images of scorpions, spiders, sharks and vampire bats juxtaposed with single words from the text and other words – all working to undermine (counterpoint) the apparent sincerity of Macbeth’s words.

The activity involves groups of three students. A close reading of the text is followed by a brainstorm of ‘counterpoint’ possibilities; the writing and designing of the PowerPoint slides; the writing and adjustment of the performance scripts and the practice of the finished work to get timing and effects just right. Students ought to be encouraged to reflect on their work and adjust the text and effects accordingly.

Animation of text and images should be kept simple. Images can be sourced from ClipArt or tracked down using Google Images. As a teacher you need to have a basic grasp of stock animations in PowerPoint and how to sequence and time effects – so that the sequence tracks the script. Students will often be familiar with these features, but it helps to have tried it out yourself.

The same approach can be applied to performances of appropriate poems and readings of passages from short stories.

Reflection

What have your students gained from exploring these alternative meanings/readings?

How does the multi-modal approach assist the performance?

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Does the screen upstage live performance? How could this be addressed? Do words on screen distract from a careful listening experience, if what is read differs from what is heard?

With these limitations in mind, how could you design the activity for maximum impact? For instance you could use single words only – or use symbolic images rather than words.

End of activity.

Other resources

Two case studies from NATE’s project on ‘Making hard topics easier to teach with ICT’, http://www.nate.org.uk/htt, provide examples of other ways of using texts and images together:

o Caroline Mortlock’s work, Engaging with poetry, http://www.nate.org.uk/cmsfiles/ict/h2t/5_Poetry.pdf adopts a similar strategy. Here she uses MovieMaker instead of PowerPoint – and she provided a gallery of images to give her students a flying start.

o Also see Gregory Anderson’ project, Interpreting texts through interactive storyboarding, http://www.nate.org.uk/cmsfiles/ict/h2t/4_Storyboards.pdf, where he uses images to help analyse and interpret text.

  

This is one of a series of units written for Vital by Trevor Millum, Chris Warren and Tom Rank on behalf of the National Association for the Teaching of English. NATE is the professional association for those involved and interested in the teaching of English at any level in the United Kingdom.

5 Gathering digital assetsTo conduct successful writing activities using a range of digital effects, you’ll need to explore how to get ‘assets’ – the technical term for sound files, pictures, video clips and text-based information.

The most obvious starting point is the DIY approach. Pretty well all modern mobile phones contain digital cameras, often with the ability to record video. MP3 players frequently allow sound recording. Video recordings not only capture moving pictures but also the accompanying sound, so they too can be deployed as audio recorders. Thus, even if your school is not equipped with the very neat and cheap equipment currently available, you can still do some very interesting work if you ask pupils to work in teams, and each team has access to one of these devices.

The prospect of sending students out to record images or sound may seem daunting or problematic, although some of the best creative work comes out of giving students autonomy. If it just doesn’t match the culture of your school, then your next approach

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should be to look for assets on the computers themselves – Microsoft Office applications, for instance, come with a huge library of clip art. This can be the visual equivalent of a cliché – we’ve seen these images so much that they’re often stale, hackneyed and disappointing. However it’s always worth checking through clip banks – occasionally the image exactly fits what you want to do. The shark/spider/scorpion clip art is ideal for the Macbeth exercise outlined in Resource 4, PowerPoint counterpoint.

If your school’s computers don’t contain the material, the internet abounds in free resources. Apart from the sites that are routinely blocked by ICT departments (often misguidedly) such as YouTube and Google Images, there are many very fine sources. The Poetry Archive, The British Library, The JISC collections, the Pathé News – all these archives are rich in fine source materials to play with in English. There are also sites that offer sound-file collections for free, and although these sound snippets are very short, they can often do the job very well (see the unit on podcasting for details of some of these sites).

Reflection

What is the right balance between offering students autonomy (a state that they frequently enjoy outside school) and controlling access to content and the method of its collection?

How would the students you teach respond to the challenge of making their own films, capturing their own images, and recording their own sounds – as opposed to making use of second-hand assets from the internet? What might be the risks and the advantages of offering them responsibility and freedom?

What are school policies on accessing the internet and the issues of e-safety?

Who ‘owns’ the access to archive sites such as Pathé News? Is the password held in the ICT department? Does your school or college have any system for sharing ideas, experiences and materials from such sites?

End of activity.

Other resources

The Poetry Archive includes priceless archive readings from poets of the past such as Tennyson, Sassoon, Larkin and Yeats, classroom favourites such as Armitage and Causley, and lesson plans too, http://www.poetryarchive.org/.

The British Library, http://www.bl.uk/, see especially the Learning section.

JISC Collections for Schools enables schools to access a range of high quality online subscription resources at discounted prices: http://www.jcs.nen.gov.uk/

British Pathé News Archive, an agreement between British Pathé and the regional broadband consortia allows schools free access to high-resolution

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digitised clips of news film dating back to the 1890s. The collection includes 3500 hours of film and 12,000,000 stills, http://www.britishpathe.com/.

The British Film Institute has a wide range of resources, including film clips freely available to schools and colleges, http://www.bfi.org.uk/. The BFI’s Screenonline site is also worth a visit, http://www.screenonline.org.uk/

You and your students may also find some useful material on this site, TrueTube, a free UK educational website which uses ‘real-life stories and issues to encourage teenagers to explore and debate the world of morality, ethics, politics and religion’, http://www.truetube.co.uk/.

  

This is one of a series of units written for Vital by Trevor Millum, Chris Warren and Tom Rank on behalf of the National Association for the Teaching of English. NATE is the professional association for those involved and interested in the teaching of English at any level in the United Kingdom.

ReferencesA1 Free Radio Sounds Page http://www.a1freesoundeffects.com/radio.html Accessed 24 August 2010

Audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ Accessed 24 August 2010

Becta (2010) Schools http://schools.becta.org.uk/ Accessed 24 August 2010

British Film Institute http://www.bfi.org.uk/ Accessed 24 August 2010

British Library http://www.bl.uk/ Accessed 24 August 2010

British Pathe http://www.britishpathe.com/ Accessed 24 August 2010

BT ‘Assignment: Podcast’ http://www.btplc.com/Responsiblebusiness/Supportingourcommunities/Learningandskills/Freeresources/ResourceView.aspx?id=3 Accessed 20 September 2010

Bubbl Us http://www.bubbl.us Accessed 24 August 2010

Creative Copy Challenge http://www.creativecopychallenge.com Accessed 24 August 2010

Goodwyn, A. (ed) (2000) English in the Digital Age, London, Cassell.

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ICT The Educational Technology Site ‘Web 2.0 for Rookies: What is a podcast?’ http://www.ictineducation.org/home-page/2009/12/29/web-20-for-rookies-what-is-a-podcast.html Accessed 24 August 2010

Incompetech http://www.incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/ Accessed 25 August 2010

JISC Collections for Schools (2010) http://www.jcs.nen.gov.uk/ Accessed 25 August 2010

Language is a Virus ‘Widgets to cure Nanowrimo Writers’ Block’ www.languageisavirus.com Accessed 24 September 2010

Millum, T. (2003) ICT and Literacy, Sheffield, NATE.

Millum, T. and Warren, C. (2001) Twenty Things to do with a Word Processor Resource Education, Sheffield, NATE.

Millum, T. and Warren. C. (eds) (2008) Sharing not Staring, Sheffield, NATE

National Association for the Teaching of English http://ww.nate.org.uk/ict Accessed 27 August 2010

PacDV ‘Free sound effects’ http://www.pacdv.com/sounds/ Accessed 25 August 2010

Podcastrevision http://www.podcastrevision.co.uk/ Accessed 25 August 2010

Podium http://www.podiumpodcasting.com/ Accessed 25 August 2010

Poetry Archive http://www.poetryarchive.org/ Accessed 25 August 2010

Screen On-Line http://www.screenonline.org.uk/ Accessed 25 August 2010

Teach It ‘The Poetry Place’ http://www.teachit.co.uk/poetryplace Accessed 25 August 2010

Teachers TV http://www.teachers.tv/ Accessed 25 August 2010

TrueTube http://www.truetube.co.uk/ Accessed 25 August 2010

AcknowledgementsAuthors: Tom Rank, Chris Warren, Trevor Millum

Reviewers: Terry Freedman, Pete Bradshaw

Editor: Matthew Driver

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