Virtual CPD – Lead Creative Schools – 

Creative practitioner Bill Taylor-Beales

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<<All videos and print outs are at the bottom of this page>>

 

Introduction

1. SHERLOCK - Getting to know the practitioner – This simple “Sherlock” game of inviting the pupils in groups to guess aspect s of the practitioners life – i.e. Age – family – pets – etc and sharing some of the practitioners skills and achievements in a humorous way  - giving out silly amounts  points for correct answers enables an immediate relationship and sets the rules of engagement for the creative journey ahead

2. ISLANDERS - Getting to know each other through a rolling guided set of circumstances that the pupils respond to first as individuals and then as small groups  - they share common interests in Music  - film – food – etc and then they are given 4 ways to resolve conflict as they set about choosing what items they can take to the island – Vote – Veto – Random – Compromise – this again sets the rules of engagement for how we go about resolving conflict and creative differences

3. CREATIVE JOURNEY – unpacking that this is about a creative journey with some landmarks but the input of all taking part should steer this project to new places and create new mind maps of how we work and think about subjects

4. SELF LEARNERS – our ultimate goal to enable and inspire young people to become self learners – by giving them time – space and tools to work together to explore and become excited by the subject area in ways that suit them and allow them to have full ownership with their pupil voice being heard

5. CREATIVE PRACTICE - to enable and inspire teachers to look for more creative pathways to explore there topic using a wide range of creative practice – to grant the teachers permission to take time out to divert from standard practice and equip themselves with a more creative toolbox of engagement:

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Creative Elements:

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• 1 - Chatterpix - Created Avatars and record a version of “I’m…” according to the lesson they were in - French/Welsh/English/Art

• 2 - Photo - Self everyone had their portrait photo taken and got to use an SLR camera to take their partners pic

• 3 - Portrait - Mrs Fry class took the portrait photos onto another stage of exploration with words and image

• 4 - Photo montage - demonstrated how to cut up pictures to create composite portraits of mixed pupils for use in Animation

• 5 - Objects - Amy and Tracey - invited pupils to bring in objects of meaning to them and be interviewed on camera about them - personal story

• 6 - Phil Okwedy - Story teller experience - telling personal story with myth and using an objects a prop - exploring other cultures and identity

• 7 - I am cake - using adjectives in French/Welsh/English to describe ourselves as a made up cake - with a full recipe - i.e. a Pinch of anger - a cupful of humour etc

• 8 - The islanders - a group process to get to know each other - find a collaborative way of working using conflict resolution methods

• 9 - Creative Habits - exploring the 5 creative habits of mind to understand how we can improve our possibilities and working process

• 10 - Animation - using Stop Frame apps on tablets - stands - green screen - letters and plasticine to bring to life the ideas the pupils had created in their group scripts

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CREATIVE HABITS – these are 5 ways of holding up the creative practice not only as a creative toolbox for the classroom but as fundamental life skills for the young people to grasp and understand and appreciate how powerful they can be to their own learning and personal lifestyle. These are to be discussed at length in the first days of the project and to allow the pupils to use the spider gram as a way of self reflection as they understand where their own strengths lie. The spider gram allow for a scoring of 1-5 in each area and then this can be reassessed at the end of the process to evaluate any movement in their practice of the habits

Imagination – Perseverance – Inquisitive – Discipline – Collaboration

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MASH UP – this is a multi level process that can embrace many different ideas into a single digital statement/film and allows for all the pupils to produce different work that can be meshed together into a cohesive dynamic whole.

 

The MASH UP ELEMENTS:

 

(01) – THE ISSUE – create a mind map as a small group

i. Looking for key evidence / facts on the subject

ii. Find emotive reason to be involved – why should you be passionate about the topic

iii. A“call to action” to create ideas that people can engage with and be able to act upon

 

(02) – THE ACROSTIC - (02-10) – how to develop a narrative/plot/storyboard

i. Generate an acrostic with a word or phrase based on the theme

ii. Assign everyone a letter in the group and have them create a word or phrase relating to the subject

 

(03) – THE LETTERS - (03-49) – create an illuminated letter on the subject

i. Use any method applicable to the class/situation from paint to collage to computers

 

(04) – THE HAIKU – (06-16) – create a Hai Ku using the word or phrase from the acrostic as a starting place

i. A simple three line piece of prose

ii. Each line is structured by its syllables 5-7-5

iii. EG:

1. It’s the air we breathe

2. Pure clean fresh pollution free

3. Keep the carbon out

 

(05) – AVACHAT – CHATTERPIX – (08-34) – using the free Chatterpix app

i. Create an avatar  - from anything  - cut-outs – hand drawn or just photograph an inanimate object

ii. Make sure the objects are connected in some way to the subject

iii. Then photo it – draw single line mouth – record your Haiku or any other prepared audio – 

iv. GREEN SCREEN if we photo on green card, we can then replace the background later

 

(06) – ANIMATION – (12-06) – using stop frame process to create animations

i. Set up – Tablet – Tablet Stand – green card – materials/objects to animate

ii. Use story boards to work out ideas 

iii. Do this as a small team of three to four people

iv. Overall aim to create small animations that can illuminate the topic – complete imagination here as there are no limits with Stop Frame

v. Move on to add back grounds and music – additional audio in Imovie or any other basic edit package available on all tablets

 

(07) – THE EDIT – (19-55) – bringing all the elements together

i. Looking at the storyline and adding in the elements 

ii. This is a very creative part of the process 

iii. The options for adding voice overs – sound effects  - music – special effects – transitions – filters text etc are endless…

 

(08) – OVER TO YOU – (25-55) – example of a video using some of the techniques described above.

I. Free music: https://www.purple-planet.com

II. Free Photos: https://unsplash.com/

III. There are many sites offering Royalty Free Stock material – read the licences carefully and ensure you have full rights to use.

 

 

Inspiration.

Inspiring videos about why we need to move into a more creative mindset when it comes to the education of our young people and the way we share information to enable, educate and inspire them to become self-learners:

 

Ken Robinson: https://sirkenrobinson.com

A New York Times bestselling author, he led national and international projects on creative and cultural education across the world, unlocking and igniting the creative energy of people and organisations. Sir Ken was the most watched speaker in TED’s history, with his 2006 talk ‘Do Schools Kill Creativity?’ being viewed online over 60 million times and seen by an estimated 380 million people in 160 countries.

He was named as one of Time/Fortune/CNN’s ‘Principal Voices’; acclaimed by Fast Company magazine as one of ‘the world’s elite thinkers on creativity and innovation’ and ranked in the Thinkers50 list of the world’s top business thinkers. In 2003, he received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II for his services to the arts.

 

Two must watch videos to challenge us on our approach to education and creativity:

 

1 – Do schools kill creativity?

https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_do_schools_kill_creativity/transcript?language=en

 

2 – Changing education paradigms.

https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms