Tag Archives: expressive arts

Aberdeenshire, Apple, Critical thinking, Curriculum, Learner, Sharing devices

Mackie Academy: The learners’ perspective

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Working with the stylus on the iPad

The iPad pilot at Mackie Academy in Aberdeenshire has been situated in the Expressive Arts faculty. The staff met to identify where the iPad and the apps they had access to would best suit their needs over the course of the academic year. This agreement led to the creation of a rota that would enable effective sharing of the devices across year groups.

We met with some S3 learners in their art and design class to hear what they thought of using the iPads in their learning and interrupted Jessica and Kirsten who were using a stylus to paint in a specific app. They both felt that the contact point of the stylus and the iPad was too thick and that it did not allow enough control when they were creating their work.

They liked the fact that the app allowed them access to a range of digital materials to draw and paint  on. They felt that this was a good way to explore a wider range of materials, even though they were in digital format.

MackieArtPupils Interview with Jessica and Kirsten

It was interesting to see that there were definitely some critical judgments being made by the learners in this class about when it was and when it was not appropriate to use an iPad in their learning in art and design. The learners said that they preferred non-digital materials at times and that their decision to use the device depended on what they were trying to do, what the brief was or what they felt was the best medium to suit a particular task.

Aberdeenshire, Apple, Sharing devices, Teacher

Mackie Academy: iPad in the art and design classroom

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Exploring the digital creation tools on the iPad

The iPad pilot at Mackie Academy in Aberdeenshire has been situated in the Expressive Arts faculty. The staff met to identify where the iPad and the apps they had access to would best suit their needs over the course of the academic year. This agreement led to the creation of a rota that would enable effective sharing of the devices across year groups.

We met with Miss Norrie (art and design teacher), who talked with us about her experience in using the iPads with her learners. She thought that having the devices available meant that her learners had greater to access to digital media in art and design classes and broadened their experience of using different media to create art. She also liked the fact that the iPad had  everything contained within one unit, which meant that learners could search the web for images by and information about artists such as David Hockney and then move straight to an app that would allow them to create work themselves.

MackieMissNorrieArt Miss Norrie interview

Miss Norrie also felt that by having the iPads mirror to a presentation screen via Apple TV was of great benefit, as was functionality which allowed lessons learned or techniques mastered to be shared wirelessly by any learner during the course of a lesson.  Although the pilot was in its early stages, she felt that she was seeing a more open and collaborative culture in her classroom.

One criticism that she had of the device was that the contact point of the stylus that can be used to draw or paint on the iPad was too thick, compromising the learners ability to create fine detail in their work.

Aberdeenshire, Apple, Curriculum, Sharing devices, Teacher

Mackie Academy: iPad in the music classroom

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Garageband being used to help learners compose their music

The iPad pilot at Mackie Academy in Aberdeenshire has been situated in the Expressive Arts faculty. The staff met to identify where the iPad and the apps they had access to would best suit their needs over the course of the academic year. This agreement led to the creation of a rota that would enable effective sharing of the devices across year groups.

We met with Barrie Drennan (music teacher) who explained to us how he and his colleagues had planned to use the iPads in their subject area.

The S1 classes were due to be involved in inter-disciplinary learning activities that were going to involve the use of movie making and audio recording. It was expected that learners would create sound effects and soundtracks in Garageband and import them into their movies.

MackieBDrennan Mr Drennan interview 1

The S3 classes were going to look at the composition aspect of the new Music and Technology Qualification and look at creating loops from the existing bank of samples within Garageband. They would then move on to recording their own material, which could be  used with the samples already available on the device.

MackieBDrennan2 Mr Drennan interview 2

Aberdeenshire, Apple, Pilot overview, Sharing devices, Teacher

Mackie Academy: iPad pilot overview

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iPads shared across the Faculty of Expressive Arts

Aberdeenshire Council has a long history of commitment to and use of digital technologies to help deliver better outcomes for learners. This past year has seen them continue this as they have begun to explore the use of a range of devices in their schools with pilots trialling iPads, Android tablets and iPod Touches.

One of these pilots saw 30 iPads being made available to Mackie Academy in the beautiful coastal town of Stonehaven. We visited the school and met with Fiona Robertson (DHT) who gave us an overview of how the school planned to use the devices in their pilot.

Mackie Academy: iPad pilot overview Pilot overview (apologies for slight interference in this recording)

The school decided to share the devices between learners across the Faculty of Expressive Arts. This faculty was chosen because they felt that it might have been the obvious choice to put the devices into the language or maths departments, so they wanted to see how they could enrich the learning in the arts. The teachers in the Faculty of Expressive Arts worked together at the start of the year to identify the key aspects of learning they would like to cover with the aid of the iPads. From this meeting an agreed rota for learner access was established to meet these objectives.

Early thoughts on impact on learning

Mrs Robertson commented that Mackie Academy wanted to make sure that their young people would get a range of experiences with ICT provision, but that this had to be linked to effective methodologies that teachers could employ so that better learning could be achieved. She was keen to stress that a device, and the iPad in the this case, is not solely the answer to helping effect change. Although the school was in the early stages of the pilot Mrs Robertson felt that she was seeing teachers making good use of the devices to complement existing practice and that there were growing examples of the devices being used to present learning in different ways to learners.

MackieFRobertson3 Early views on impact on learning audio recording