Laptop Classroom - Digital
Video and Multiple Intelligences
Despite 50 years of
technological advance, the exercise book full of hand written
words and the occasional pencil drawn diagram, is still the most
important expression of student learning in schools all over the
world. Doing 'well' in Humanities, whether in 1950 or in the
year 2000, is still largely calculated by how well the student
performs within the artificial constraints of the lines of the
traditional exercise book.
The problem with this should be
obvious: assessment of student work is neither relevant or fair.
It is not relevant because the skills required to succeed in an
exercise book classroom no longer resemble the skills required by
a multimedia 'real world'. It is not fair because exercise book
assessment privileges 'traditional' linguistic learning styles at
the expense of non-linguistic learning styles. Children whose
learning strengths are dramatic, musical or kinesthetic find
precious few opportunities to shine.
This section on the Humanities website is dedicated
to the types of learning that could only be widely disseminated
through the use of digital photographs and video. They are all
activities completed in the current academic year.
All videos require Windows Media Player. You
can Download
the latest version here:
Year
7 - Use MS Publisher (and glue and scissors)
to make a board game about the importance of the medieval
church. This page includes lots of stills and videos of both
the making and playing of the games.
Year
8 - Act the roles of brothers/sisters from
continental Europe who had spent a week together
experiencing life in London
c1600. They also reconstructed the trial of one of the
most notorious criminals in history, Guy
Fawkes.
Year
9 - Complete an online learning activity produced by
Spartacus
Education in the UK. They play the part of characters in
the 19th century with very different views on the question
of child labour. Also included is a rationale
of the activity.
IGCSE - Year
10 debate the question of who was responsible
for the First World War and whether the Weimar
Republic was doomed from the start. They also
put the Nazis on trial for starting the Reichstag
fire. Year
11 make Nazi
propaganda movies and debate whether Neville Chamberlain's
policy of appeasement in the 1930s was justified.
IB - spend a morning re-enacting the
1919 Treaty
of Versailles. These pages of the website include
links to video and photographic highlights of the 2000, 2001
and 2002 conferences of an activity hosted by the Guardian
(UK) newspaper's Learn.co.uk.
They also use video in their Internal Assessment websites.
Bryana looks closely at the film Amadeusand Robert and Matthew interview an expert on local Roman
history.
