B A CK G RO U N D
George Stephenson Community High School is a 13-18 school with 950 students. Two hundred and twenty students are currently in years 12 and 13, following a variety of courses including 'A' Levels, ‘A/S' Levels, CPVE, Business courses and BTEC. In addition, all year 12 and 13 students follow an Entitlement Course with a wide range of options, ranging from Performance Arts to Cooking for Pleasure.
The school, five miles north of Newcastle-upon-Tyne is situated in a new town, now some 30 years old, based upon an area of long established coal mining villages. The catchment area is mixed. Students are drawn from surrounding mining villages with long-defunct pits, local authority housing estates and good quality private housing. Unemployment in the area is high. The school enjoys a rich social and academic mix, although there are very few children from ethnic minority groups.
ANALYSIS O F LEARNING N EED S
The school’s IT co-ordinator assessed the position of the school in relation to previous experience with interactive video.
The school had a Domesday system, with the Domesday discs running on Nimbus. Although the system had been in the school for a number of years, it had been used in a very limited way and eventually had been abandoned when hardware problems arose. Awareness of interactive video throughout the school was limited and the attitude of the staff who had used the Domesday system seemed to be negative and rather sceptical. The project support at George Stephenson was therefore determined by the need to focus on raising awareness across the school and raising the profile of interactive video. A new resource centre which would house a range of technology-based equipment was planned for the future.
The interactive video project would provide the school with a platform to evaluate the needs of the staff and the effectiveness of video disc as a flexible resource, allowing decisions to be made in relation to equipment purchase for the resource centre. A financial investment was necessary but the purchase would be determined by the outcome of the project.
An analysis of hardware requirements would be made at a later stage in the project. It was essential that a decision to purchase hardware was made within the time constraints of the project, allowing staff training and management strategies to be developed.
CU R R IC U LU M PLANNING
Presentations to the staff aimed to involve at least one representative from each subject area and were designed to:
• cover all areas of the curriculum, showing clearly the range of discs available for individual subject areas
• focus on different hardware platforms and compatible software • reflect future developments
• demonstrate the flexibility of the video disc for group presentations, as an information resource base, to present interactive learning material, and as a multi-media resource used to create presentations and teaching material.
The presentation, relating to case studies and examples of effective applications within Flexible Learning strategies, reflected a resource capable of making an important contribution to student-centred learning.
CU RRICU LU M IMPLEMENTATION
At this point in the project an application relevant to the Modern Language Department was identified for integration within the teaching environment, allowing the staff involved a period of practical exploration. The school was temporarily provided with an IV system based on a BBC Master (IVIS), a copy of Siville and the original version of Opensoft, an authoring package.
A programme had to be selected from the IVIS project because the school was limited by the system it was using. The Modern Language department was already using a flexible approach to teaching and was committed to the integration of new resources into the learning environment. Siville had been a popular and successful programme and offered video and still images suitable for authoring.
The original Siville programme, based on a shopping expedition in a small French town, was introduced to a group of low ability pupils in year 10. The pupils’ initial suspicion soon gave way to enthusiasm. They were clearly motivated by the material and were anxious to use the technology in other subject areas.
The video content contained on the disc related directly to text-based material from a book used to support the French syllabus for years 7 and 8. After basic training which took place during non-teaching time, the French teacher used Opensoft to access images and video from the disc, producing a teaching module that complemented other
resources.
A new Flexible Learning co-ordinator was appointed halfway through the project and, once in place, disseminated information through FL support group meetings, subject- based meetings and other internal management structures.
At this point an interest in interactive video had been stimulated and staff from a wide range of departments were showing a positive interest in viewing discs specific to their subject area.
The Flexible Learning co-ordinator suggested that the interest in interactive video had encouraged some members of staff to attend the Flexible Learning support group. After discussions with the headteacher, the FL co-ordinator and the IT co-ordinator, a decision was made to purchase the Philips 2000 IV workstation. The system has a dual
standard disc player, capable of mnning both NTSC and PAL video discs and is based on
a PC platform. It will support generic training discs, which are particularly relevant for
post 16 students, as well as a number of authoring packages.
The final project visit involved a training session with the IT co-ordinator to ensure ongoing internal support. The equipment was based in the new resource centre and managed through a booking system by the IT co-ordinator and librarian. Further developments were to be supported through:
• Flexible Learning support groups
• cross-curricular groups such as the Library Steering Group • information circulation to departments
• INSET focusing on interactive video
• encouraging departmental bidding for funding.
Closing snapshot o f George Stephenson Community High School
IV System
Location
Project Areas
School Support
Further Developm ents
Philips 2000 IV System with a dual standard video disc player and CD-ROM
Central resource area French
Siville, using original software teaching staff developing material with the original version of Opensoft
FL co-ordinator IT co-ordinator