half term break - for school anyway!

As usual I had to work during half term but did manage to get a few days of fun with the kids. On Wednesday I took A to see The Sound Of Music, Thursday we had a lazy day and Friday we went for a walk with friends in the forest in the lovely sunshine. I found out that Monday 23rd was an inset day - shock horror! Great to have such good friends that helped out with the children as again, I had to work.

Saturday was a gardening day. We dug the vegetable patch and started to plan what we will grow this year. Tried to get the kids interested in it but with no luck. So much for family fun with the Farnham Food Initiative... I would love to join but only if the whole family was up for it. Can't seem to persuade them in the pleasures of growing our own... if it was cocoa beans to make chocolate - that would be another matter!

On Sunday we went to London - skateboarding on Portabello Rd, farmers' market at Salusbury School, Queens Park and Camden Market. A has a t-shirt from cyperpunk shop - Dog Save The Queen.

teaching fellowship award

I finally had official notification of the award from UCA earlier this week. I was quite surprised that I am to receive all the funding I requested and rather daunted by the prospect of providing a break down of all the costs on a month to month basis through to December. I have researched some costs, tried to anticipate when they may occur and have hopefully put together a reasonable projection.

I have been assigned a mentor, to make sure I clarify and achieve the aims and objectives of the project. KP is UCA's Learning and Teaching Researcher and we met earlier today. I think she will be able to offer me some guidance about measuring the impact and success of the project. She has already suggested that I interview the headmaster and the school children and possibly make an audio recording of their responses to questions about the impact of the project. This has led me to yet another creative idea - cutting audio over the digital grid of images that I hope to make at the end of the project. I need to look into the ethical implications of this - such as the need for releases from my interviewees.

KP also mentioned the governments Aim Higher Scheme and I need to research this to see how my project may meet it's aims and objectives of raising children's aspirations at an early age. 

http://www.aimhigher.ac.uk/programme/home/

In the past I have given plenty of talks in conference-like situations but have usually been invited by the organisers. I have never had to write an abstract and I have never delivered a formal conference paper, so I have asked for guidance on this too.

a few more Y6 photos

last session with Y6

We set up bit of the production line at school yesterday to get the remaining 22 children to edit their digital images, select and make a print. Again, some of them needed some gentle guidance to select an image that was actually 'technically correct'  ie. IB who insisted she wanted to print a rather badly composed and over exposed picture of her pencil case!! 

We couldn't access the network on the computer that was connected to the printer so had to transfer images on memory sticks and trot back and forth between the Y6 classroom and the ICT suite. As usual the computers were chugging away so slowly... it was 4.30 before the final print was complete. 

Finally we laid all the prints out as 3 x 4 grids (12 images in each) on tables and we began to get an idea of how the final image wall will look. How exciting!! The children have made such a wonderfully diverse and interesting range of work. Whilst some images are immediately obvious, others tease the viewer to guess what they could be, some play with form, reflections, texture, patterns and others add vibrant colour to the piece. The separate parts come together to form a fascinating view of the school. Some images are sadly missing - such as glimpses of the burgundy and yellow of the school uniform. There were some lovely photos that didn't make it to print. I will keep these as backup for the time being as they may have a part to play in the final presentation or the digital presentation. Let's wait and see.

I had a chat with Mr C. about the presentation and it was his very good suggestion that the image wall should be formed of a number of smaller grids to make it more transportable and malleable in terms of hanging in different locations. He also pointed out an outside wall where he would like some artwork so I am going to look into ways of 'weatherproofing' the work. We also talked about the option of updating the grid and carrying out biannual photo projects on other themes. 

first prints

We slid and slushed our way to school today as it finally opened after being closed for two days. The UCA campus is still closed because the carpark is too dangerous to use. I wasn't sure whether school would want us in Y6 today as the ICT refurb was probably behind schedule, the kids were probably behind with their work and Luke was stuck in Dover and/or ill - couldn't quite work that out, but he sounded awful when I spoke to him. First thing this morning Mrs M and Mrs A were really helpful and showed the best (only!) colour printer that currently works in the school and even did a test print for me. I had to rush off to my pilates class before it came out but at least it proved that a print was possible. I decided to go ahead and help a few children edit and print there work.

This afternoon I took the first group of four to the slow ICT suite and found all the computers were on and somewhat faster than previous weeks. The children found their photo folders and I explained the importance of organising their images by deleting the really bad photos, for example those that are out of focus -  a fault not always recognisable when editing on the LCD screen of the camera. Then I asked them to rename the good images so they could recognise them as something more meaningful than their DSC..... number tag that the camera generates. Each child then made a slideshow to assess the very best/most important image that they wanted to print. I am not sure I agreed with all the choices, but we discussed this and I made sure that there was a rationale decision making process taking place and encouraged them to re-evaluate their work where really necessary. However I think it is very important that the final decision was their own.

In all we made eight prints. I used my Epsom Heavyweight Matt paper and would like to experiment with other finishes for the final presentation. I was able to find a setting in the print dialogue box that gave me a fairly good result at medium speed. Photo quality prints do take a long time to print and saving time was somewhat important today. The detail in some of the close up prints is very satisfactory.  In the main, the children were very excited by the results - and so am I. Mrs A and Mrs M, who seem to be most interested/in charge of projects that involve photography within the school, were also very surprised that the printer was capable of such results. They couldn't believe that the photos had been shot on the 'rather basic' school cameras. They are 7.2 megapixel cameras so not too bad at all. I realised over the last two shooting weeks that the school cameras were often set to the 2M setting and explained the importance of using a higher setting for photos that are to be printed. I think they are going to attend my Powerpoint presentation to Y5 and try to get to grips with my megapixel maths.

Already I can see how the project is widening out to generate more possibilities than first envisaged in terms of Widening Participation. How about UCA hosting some Inset days for teachers in local schools to get up to speed with their digital imaging skills? This must be such a very important underpinning skill to enhance many parts of delivery of the school curriculum. For example, they want to put photographs of the children and/or their work onto the school website and don't know how. They also don't seem to know how to make best use of the photographic equipment on the premises. There must be scope for a day of development around this and other issues that I will discover during the course of this project. 

freeeeezing weather

University closed. School closed. Road into Rowledge impassable, blocked with skidded cars that can't get up the hill. That's our last two days. But what fun we've had in the deepest snow I've seen for ages. They say it was like this in 1991 but I reckon Mark and I were in India or somewhere because I don't remember it. We have built snowmen, been sledging, spent far too long in the pub, walked in the forest, had log fires and generally chilled out. It's so strange to have a couple of unexpected days with the family and no plans to do chores, visits or whatever. It is almost better than a holiday!

I'm a bit worried about the students losing a couple of days lectures but I am sure we will make up time somewhere down the line and I have been posting announcements into Blackboard that I hope they will read and act on - including a project to make a photograph a snowman!