Visual Communication Strategies and Project-Oriented Pedagogy Using Imovie

Visual communication strategies and project-oriented pedagogy using iMovie.

Norway

PART I: INNOVATION DESCRIPTION

A. Descriptive background information

The Innovation took place in a lower secondary school (grades 8-10), with 8th grade students, in the third largest town in Norway. The school is situated in a lower-income area with an above-average number of minority language-speaking families. Several schools in the area have a history of dealing with students who are unruly and poorly motivated for schooling.

Huseby lower secondary school[1] has been working along the principles of project-based learning since the mid 1970s. In different periods they have struggled to get acceptance from educational authorities for their educational vision. However, in 1997 the national curriculum that was implemented had a very strong focus on project-based learning, which gave the school a renewed status as a school with long experience in working with students on projects.

The school has not received a lot of extra resources from the National Education Office in the county. Since the mid-1990s the school has oriented itself more towards using ICT to support its educational profile. It has not had the funds to buy a lot of computers, and has therefore worked more on how to develop project-oriented pedagogy linked to the use of ICT. In their activities the teachers have focused on certain groups of students instead of relating ICT to all students at the same time. Because of the interest of the teachers involved the focus on visual communication using ICT has become important. As a consequence of their work Apple-Norway got interested in the school, and invited them to participate in the Apple Distinguished School Project in Europe three years ago. The school had a few Macintosh machines from before, but as a consequence of being part of this project they received some extra machines and new software suited their needs.

One class, or work team as they call it, has between 40-60 students, 40 in the innovation team. There are 5 teachers in each work team, one of them is a teacher of students with special needs, and one is a teacher in art and crafts.

PART II: ANALYSIS

A. Meso-level context of the Innovation

A1. School background

The school was built in 1976. Even though the school appears to be a quite traditional square concrete building from the outside, it is different from most other school buildings on the inside. It was initially built as an open school. Instead of traditional classrooms for each class, they had one big room where each group of students had their own part of the room. In the middle of the building they built an amphitheater for plenary presentations. From the start all rooms were without walls. However, because of problems with noise they decided to build a few walls to create rooms for group work and close off the amphitheater.

The school is situated in a lower socio-economic area with lots of social problems. The school area scores among the lowest on regional socio-economic scales. The school reports that many students have problems at home relating to parent alcohol abuse and live in high crime rate neighborhoods. Seventy percent of the children are from broken homes. The student population consists of students from 19 different national backgrounds, with minorities making up 25% of the total student population.

There are 277 students at the school, in grades 8 to 10. There are 12 different work teams. The total number of teachers is 31, plus the principal and vice-principal, who has certain administrative responsibilities.

A2. School culture

Since the school opened in 1976 the focus on project-oriented pedagogy has been very strong. Nationally the school is well known for having a long tradition of working with alternative approaches to teaching and learning. From the beginning the school distinguished itself by its embracement of pedagogical principles different from most public schools, a distinction they have kept to this date. The decision to adopt such an educational platform was prompted by both the social and cultural problems of the community from which the student population is recruited, along with the fact that the school had a lot of students with special needs. The pedagogical vision at the school is based on the concept of “responsibility,” and is seen in terms of three levels: 1) the student’s responsibility for their own learning, 2) responsibility for other student’s learning and 3) responsibility for the working environment.

To support their school culture they have developed a certain work organization consisting of two work teams on each level. Each work team consists normally of between 40-60 students and 4-5 teachers. This year there are 40 students in each group with 5 teachers on each team. The teams are assigned to their own area of the school where the students are responsible for the overall learning environment, keeping things organized and clean. The teachers in each team are responsible for teaching all relevant subjects on that level and for that specific team. In their official planning document the school mentions that this makes it is easier to create collaboration among students and between students and teachers, and provides more flexibility for each team to define their own workplan independently of other teams. To encourage collaboration and foster inclusiveness, each work team is divided into basic groups of 5 to 10 students each. Each group lasts for up to one year, and the teachers pick the students for each group to get a well-functioning group. They work together on projects. The work team also has team meetings with all the 40 students at least once a week.

The role of the principal is important for generating educational innovation. The principal is very much involved in the pedagogical development of the school, but he does not get as much time for it as he would like. He has a lot of administrative responsibilities.

Both the principal and the teachers interviewed emphasize that they all participate in developing the school vision. They believe it is important for everybody to be involved in this process in order to make it a reality. Because of the organisation of the work teams the teachers have to collaborate closely and therefore constantly discuss how to best implement the vision for the school and the students. The teaching staff has been stable for some time according to the principal.

One important aspect of the school’s vision for teaching and learning is to create a learning environment where students can become better at what they are already good at. The principal puts at lot of emphasis on this when explaining the learning vision and results of the school. This implies an approach for fostering higher self-esteem and better learning among the students. Time is spent on finding a subject area where the developmental potential of each student is high. The challenge for the school is then to stimulate this competence in each student so that they can perform better and have confidence in their potential for learning. Later on this attitude towards learning might spread to other subject areas. This creates an inclusive school where all students and their problems are worked on within the work team. Students with special needs are kept in the regular learning setting.

The school also strongly emphasizes the need for students to produce knowledge and present it to other students. In this sense the school has moved towards developing project-oriented pedagogy beyond just posing problems for the students and seeking information for their projects. Instead of “cut and paste” approaches using the Internet, the students are encouraged to explore documentation of their project with video technology. This way they have to think more about how to illustrate their arguments and how to best present it to others to create understanding. This way the students gain experience on how be more conscious of and master their own learning process, according to the principal. The students are also responsible for teaching other students at certain times, because the school believes that teaching others is the best way to learn yourself.

In this sense visual communication becomes important as an initiator of learning and a stimulator of more than the traditional cognitive approach towards student learning. According to the principal, this relates both to the students’ presentations using visual tools and the students’ visual culture outside the school.

A3. ICT in the school and beyond

Even though the school has had computers available for some years it is only in recent years that they have developed a vision for ICT in the school. The process started during the 1996-97 school year. Before this time the computers were mainly used for word processing. In 1996 they got the first modem which made it possible for them to connect to the Internet, and the students created the first homepage. A few of the teachers were enthusiastic about using a Mac platform for arts and crafts subjects. They wanted to work with film and film editing and saw the potential of using computers for this purpose. The school applied for a small amount of extra funding (NOK 75,000, equal to US$7,000) from the National Education Office in the county, which they received. Some of this work was then presented in a session at a national conference.

These activities attracted some interest from Apple Norway, which suggested that the school be the Norwegian participant in the “Apple Distinguished Schools” project, a continuation of ACOT (“Apple’s Classrooms of Tomorrow” project). For the school this meant that they received a few extra iMacs with the standard program package and especially the opportunity of using iMovie as a tool for further development of their projects. Being part of the “Distinguished Schools” project also meant that some teachers and students have traveled to conferences to present their work. They were invited by Apple Europe to present some of their work at a conference in Paris. Both the principal and the project teachers explain that this has been important to the students and has created interest in their work outside the school.

The use of ICT at this school has, however, not changed their vision for teaching and learning. The principal explains the impact of computers more as a breakthrough for making their vision more effective and giving it a new direction towards knowledge production and visual communication. As a tool, ICT gives the students more opportunities in their own learning process and makes their presentations look better and more professional.

In relation to teacher competency in ICT use the principal explains that this varies widely among the teachers. Almost all the teachers are familiar with simple use of ICT, but only half of the teachers could be described as using ICT in their daily teaching. According to the ICT coordinator, between 51-75% of all the teachers use e-mail and Internet to some degree in their teaching.

The distribution of ICT in the school as a whole has changed from former computer labs to a combination of computer labs and 1-2 computers in each area where the students are working. The school has both a PC park and a Mac park. A relatively small number of students have access to computers at home.

A4. ICT support structure in the school

The Macintosh machines are used for the Innovation. As being part of the “Apple Distinguished Schools” project they received 10 extra iMacs. In addition they have two stationary Macs from before. All these machines are placed in one room.

They have two video cameras. From Canon they received a highly professional camera, also because of interest in their project activities. The school has installed special equipment for making animation films using these cameras.

Three people at the school are responsible for technical support. All of them are also regular teachers. One of them is responsible for all the PCs at the school, the other for the Mac’s and the third for the special room set up for video editing, and so forth. They do not have a special ICT person at the school, which the principal describes as a problem. Because of technical problems they sometimes experience stoppages until they can receive external help.

B. Macro-level context of the Innovation

B1. National and State/Provincial policies

There are national and regional policies that are relevant for the school’s learning vision and for the use of ICT in the Innovation. In 1997, a national curriculum was implemented strongly urging project-oriented pedagogy across the board. Contrary to most other schools in Norway, Huseby has a long tradition of project-oriented pedagogy, so it did not have to define any changes because of this curriculum. However, an important consequence is that it gives them better national backing at the policy level for developing their visions on student learning. It also gives them a better framework for implementing the use of ICT since this is mentioned especially in the national curriculum. However, it does not necessarily imply more money.

The municipality has established a special network linking all the schools in the city. However, the principal does not only see this as positive, partly because their Mac platform has not been compatible with this intranet. Lately they have managed to get a special deal to be able to link their Macs to this network too.

C. Thematic analysis of the Innovation

C1. Curriculum content, goals, and assessment

One of the reasons for developing the Innovation at the school was a genuine understanding that the students learn best by producing. The Innovation consists of different parts all through the school year.