Highland pupils express project work through new media
Pupils in the Highlands are being given the chance to try out new ways to display and convey what they have learnt in class as opposed to the traditional essay writing or homework project to hand in to school.
Cannich Bridge, Drakies and Scourie Primary Schools are taking part in a Curriculum for Excellence initiative supported by the Scottish Arts Council called “iScreen”. The initiative is organised in the Highlands by Highland Council’s Education, Culture and Sport Service through the Arts Links Officer, Lynn Johnson.
Lynn Johnson said: “The technique of iScreen links the expressive arts, technologies and health and wellbeing experiences of pupils enabling them to communicate their educational outcomes through video installation.”
Artist John McGeoch from Arts in Motion added: “iScreen is a fun and interactive initiative which helps pupils learn about creating video installations. The medium allows a completely different (and frequently playful) way to work with media and visual content more akin to magazine pages or web pages than a traditional projection screen or film.”
Councillor Bill Fernie, Chairman of The Highland Council’s Education, Culture and Sport Committee said: “This is an excellent opportunity for our pupils to learn about their class topics in an exciting and interesting way. Teachers are moving beyond traditional methods of teaching which help to engage our young people.”
The initiative will result in a multi-screen installation art work roughly four feet by three feet that will remain with the school. Drakies Primary School’s installation will follow the theme of the rainforest.
Pupils at Drakies Primary school commented:
• Ruairidh Steele: “It is really fun! Making animations are great because you can take lots of pictures and put them on the whiteboard and it looks like a movie.”
• Chloe Riddle: “It great fun and I’ve learnt a lot about how to move pictures from paper onto the iScreen.”
• Arran Haigh: “It is very enjoyable. The background for our animation is the rainforest. We are drawing rainforest animals and animating them. “