OCR Units 4

Unit 4

The design and production of a multimedia product (MMP) has been a very positive teaching experience for me as a teacher. It was the first unit we introduced as a Department that put the students in the driving seat, as a lead developer / decision makers within the lesson. The students are given the task of developing an interactive, multimedia product that supports ‘Red Letter Day’ experiences – and considering the old website was a little drab, it was not that hard to improve it. Uniquely, they were allowed to promote any experience they wanted to and most students chose  to follow their own personal interests. As a consquence, the students were more engaged than perhaps in previous ICT encounters as they were emotionally connected to the product. As an aside, staff were able to learn more about the students they taught and their interests outside of the classroom. Typically the boys created adventure or sports experiences with the young ladies creating personal shopping and life experience MMPs.

Powerpoint as a container for creating the MMP is fine but a little restrictive and outdated, so I sent an enquiring email to our OCR moderator….

Jeff, always looking to push the boundaries……

 Traditionally Unit 4 has always been a ppt presentation for us. What are the boards thoughts on a creative project based on a wiki or blog site that uses Multimedia? This could be embedded and created media. For example a virtual art gallery / experiences site?

 What would be the boards thoughts if we created a front page for the teaching group, from which the students could create their sites. This would enable the students to review one another’s work and potentially even link between projects?

 Now I am very likely to have such a supportive moderator as Jeff Bond. Jeff always encourages dialogue and discussion but has the experience and moderator expertise to mitigate over enthusiasm. He responded,  

HI Kristian,
 
Pushy as always.. not really, I find no problem with the concept as long as the exercise allows the students to introduce all the required multimedia components and allows the interactivity and user interaction that is required by the Unit.  Why don’t you put a suggested folder together and we can look at in detail.  Good to hear from you.

So, there you have it, I might run a pilot group on a blog site or wiki. Now the questions turn to which group, which blog / wiki, centrally hosted or online? Within Moodle or not? I have over half term to think this through any recommendations are welcome. I am leaning towards using a moodle course to promote the use of our VLE but have not ruled out WordPress MU.