Thursday, January 31, 2008

Computers and Creativity

You know how you get pages in newspapers that appear to be a regular report but when you look more closely you see the words "Advertising Feature" at the top? Well this post is like that - it's an advert. However, in my defence it's an advert for something cool and interesting. :-)


14/365: #1 Look out!
Originally uploaded by DavidDMuir
Jordanhill is hosting an Apple Teacher Institute (ATI) in March. The anual ATI in England is extraordinarily popular and usually runs during the Easter holidays. We wanted to try something similar in Scotland but since the Easter holidays were already spoken for, we thought we'd try three consecutive Saturdays - the 1st, 8th and 15th of March.

One of the advantages of three Saturdays (we hope) is that people will be able to take the ideas and skills developed on the Saturdays back to their workplace and try things out in the weeks in-between. That way they can come back the next week with problems and questions and get help from ATI tutors and their peers rather than being left on their own to work it out. We are arranging for laptops to be made available to participants. They will be able to borrow these laptops and take away with them in the weeks between the Saturdays. That way, they can easily show colleagues and pupils what they produced on the Saturday and (if they wish) continue to work on ideas during the week. {The expectation is that these new laptops will be available to buy at a discount at the end of the course if the participant wants to keep one.}

The emphasis of the three days is on creative uses of technology in the classroom. The topics we will be exploring include music production, digital video, animation and podcasting. Beginner and Intermediate level workshop sessions will be on offer so hopefully there will be something for everyone. As well as keynote speakers and practical workshops, there will be the opportunity to work in a small group to produce something that will be of value to you in your school or workplace.

We have produced a flyer with all the information regarding costs, the programme and how to apply. If you want to know more, leave a comment here, or email karen.mcdairmant@strath.ac.uk for application details.

I think this could be really interesting and I hope it will be the first of many Scottish ATIs.


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4 comments:

Gordon McKinlay said...

Good idea, I hope it works. DO you want it publicised?

David said...

Do I want it publicised? Absolutely! Tell your friends... and then get them to tell their friends. :-)

Anonymous said...

Hi David, it certainly looks like an engaging and creative course. I wonder who the target demographic is? Is it for ICT teachers like myself to give us ideas for courses and classes or is it for the wider curriculum and teachers of all subjects to increase their use of ICT? Does the Apple Mac focus mean that the skills are so specific that they'd be of limited value to a PC oriented school or would the ideas be applicable to a whole range of software?

David said...

Hello Tony

We he there will be somethig for everyone with a choice of workshops and activities across the three days. So far we have applications from primary and secondary teachers. We have Computing teachers and teachers of other subjects.

The practical work will be carried out on Macs but the focus is on creativity. Not focused on the tech but the teach, so the ideas should be useful to all... even to Windows users. :-)