Children are naturals when it comes to technology, according to teachers at Ballydown Primary School in County Down.
In 2008 Primary 2, 4 and 5 pupils and their teachers at the Banbridge School took part in a unique pilot project designed at encouraging the children's creativity through videoconferencing technology. The project was funded by the Kid’s Own Publishing Partnership, a cross border collaborative arts organistion which aims to bring children’s work to a wider audience. Technical support was provided throughout the project by C2K.
Building on the success of an earlier Kids Own project Trading Places/CREATE (exploring CReativity through Arts Technology in Education) Rathlin based artist Ann Henderson worked in collaboration with the teachers and children at Ballydown to explore the theme of Space and Place through the creative use of technology.
“Ann was our ‘virtual’ artist in residence for the school year and she worked with the different class groups for six weeks at a time,” explained Primary 2 teacher and Ballydown art co-ordinator Judith White. “We had worked with Ann before on another project and had established a good working relationship so when we were offered a chance to work with her again, we jumped at it – and we like to think the feeling was mutual!”
At the start of the programme and again at the end of each six-week block – each block had different theme such as mini beasts or nature - Ann visited the children in their classroom to discuss the project. In between the face-to-face meetings, she kept in touch with the children and teachers online, using webcam and Marratech videoconferencing software provided by C2k. They also communicated through their class online journal which can still be assessed by friends and family anywhere in the world.
Ann explained to the children how she got her inspiration from nature and then helped them to use technology to explore some of her ideas. For the project, one class group had a square metre ‘window’ or ‘Place’ in the school grounds and Ann, the children and the class teacher worked together collaboratively to investigate ‘the metre’ - both virtually and physically - recording what was in it and how it changed during the six weeks. With her encouragement, the children were able to make very effective use of equipment already in the classroom such as computers, digital cameras, laminators and printers to record and display their work.
“Nowadays children are so used to technology, that they were not in the least bit intimidated at the thought of using the webcams to talk to Ann. If anyone was intimidated or apprehensive, it was the teachers!” said Judith.
“The children were completely natural talking to Ann via the C2k videoconferencing service.
They would just walk up with photos they’d taken or pictures they’d drawn and ask what she thought of them as if she was sitting right beside them in the classroom.”
Throughout the six weeks, Ann talked to the children about all the different ways they could record the changes in their window and then as a class they discussed how to present their work in their own virtual ‘space’ within the project web journal as well as the ‘real’ space around them within the school. Everyone in the class got involved in the discussions and at the end of their six weeks with Ann, each class held an open day, inviting parents, friends and other children in the school to view their work.
Although it was an art project Judith stressed its cross curricular nature and said it touched on all areas of the revised Northern Ireland curriculum.
“While numeracy, literacy, science and of course ICT were an integral part of the project, it helped the children in a lot of other areas such as their communication skills, their teamwork, powers of observation, research, recording and decision making. The Primary 2 children were the first to be involved in the Space and Place project and they were very excited when they asked to explain to the older children what it was all about. It was great to watch their confidence grow as a result of being involved in the project,” said Judith.
The project was an undoubted success and ticked all the right boxes but Judith and her colleagues Beatrice Glass and Julie Orr point out that a lot of work went on behind the scenes and after class to make sure they were able to make the best use of their time with Ann. While the teachers all agreed it was hard work and the project stretched them professionally, they also said they really enjoyed the challenge and learnt a lot - both from Ann, their ‘virtual artist’ in residence and from the children.
Ann Henderson for her part says she really enjoyed working with Ballydown PS. “As an artist I found it very exciting to explore my work practice and communication using videoconferencing as it gave me an opportunity to focus and develop my ideas and allowed me to share my studio and studio activity with the children and their teachers. This in turn informed our work process and conversations and interestingly, the communication itself became a part of our creative processes with the interactive whiteboards taking on a role as investigative spaces.”
Ann admitted that initially she did have reservations about how well the remote aspect of the project would work but by successfully combining videoconference sessions with ‘real’ visits, she said they were able to overcome any challenges.
“As an artist I am really exciting about the possibility of working more in this way, especially as I have chosen to live and to base my studio in a geographically remote place like Rathlin Island. When it comes to the creative use of Marratech, I think we have just scratched the surface as its potential is enormous.”
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