1. During the INSET session, how clear a picture do you feel you acquired about the
possibilities/opportunities for IV across the curriculum? (Please tick) I’ve a clear picture of several ways in which IV
might be used across the whole curriculum
I'm clear about a possible but restricted way in which IV might be used in some (though not most) subjects or courses I’m unclear about the potential value of IV in most or any areas of the curriculum
2. During the session how clear a picture do you feel you acquired about the
opportunities for IV in your curriculum /course area? (Please tick) I’ve a clear picture of several ways in which IV could
be used in my own teaching subject or courses I’m clear about a possible way in which I could use IV in one of my courses with one year group or topic I can’t see a practical way in which I might use IV in any of my teaching
3. How clear do you feel about the school’s planned involvement in the IV Project?
(Please tick)
I’ve a clear picture of the school’s IV plans I’m unclear about the school’s IV plans
4. How and when will you disseminate the insights you have acquired in the INSET
session to your colleagues?
5. At this stage, how interested are you for your department/course to be involved in the IV Project as one of the two or three main initiatives?
Very interested and hope we can be one of those involved Interested but have some reservations about being involved We might choose to be involved but I am not interested at present Unlikely to be interested as a department at this stage
We definitely won’t be involved in the project initiatives
6. At this stage, how interested are you in IV that you’d like to be personally
in vo lved in an IV D evelopm ent Group which will share developments internally, monitor and evaluate the project initiatives and consider the future expansion of IV across the curriculum?
Very interested, would like to represent the department
Interested, and would represent the department if others weren’t Yes, but it depends on the involvement of the department in IV I’m unlikely to be able to be involved personally
I’ll definitely not be involved in the IV Development Group
7. Were there any particular programmes/laser disks which impressed you? Please
give details:
8. Were there any which you looked at which you thought were particularly poor in
any way(s)? Please give details:
9. How many laser disks did you get chance to see in the session?
10. Did you feel the session was about the right length and paced well?
signed (if appropriate) ____________________________ session: morning/afternoon
CHAPTER 3: CALDER HIGH
SCHOOL
Calder High is Yorkshire's oldest comprehensive school, established in 1950. There are 1,100 pupils, including 190 in the sixth form. The catchment area is the semi-rural Calder Valley, with pupils whose backgrounds range from remote moorland farms to urban areas of Halifax. The Flexible Learning developments in the school have focused on: • faculty secondments to develop resources and approaches to Flexible Learning • appointing and training four technicians to support IT and AV
• developing a learning resources centre • INSET for staff on Flexible Learning issues.
ANALYSIS O F LEARNING N EED S
The first meeting at the school was with the Flexible Learning and IT co-ordinators who wanted to explore the potential of interactive video in the context of a multi-media resource centre. Staff in the school were not familiar with interactive video, so the first objective of the project was to demonstrate the potential of IV as a flexible resource to members of the teaching staff.
The main hardware platform in the school was Archimedes but there was a certain amount of development with Macintosh and PC systems. The school already had a Philips video disc player. As a result of early discussions, two local hardware distributors were contacted to offer specifications and costings to run the video disc player through a PC platform.
The decision to use a PC platform related to the range of material available. It was felt that a PC-based system would meet the future needs of the school by running:
• easy-to-use authoring packages with any video discs (PAL or NTSC depending on the video disc player)
• generic training packages designed for use in an Open Learning environment and suitable for post 16 students
• three new secondary Maths discs focusing on numbers, funded by NCC.
There is a range of generic Open Learning material available for the PC platform suitable for post 16 students, as well as robust, easy-to-use authoring software. Although generic packages are expensive, Calder High School has a large sixth form and so it was important to have the option of running appropriate training packages in the future.
A 386SX PC with a video board was purchased and placed in the temporary resource centre, along with a complete set of eight Interactive Video in Education (IVIE) video discs which had been acquired from the LEA.
A good authoring package will allow video discs to be ‘re-purposed’ so that teachers and students can create classroom applications or multi-media presentations. An easy to use authoring package, PC Opensoft, was purchased to allow access and manipulation of any PAL video discs. The authoring route is accessible on all of the main hardware platforms but the PC platform will also run a large range of material specifically designed for Flexible Learning.
The IV system was situated in the resource centre where support was available from an IT