Yesterday, as part of my Microsoft Evangelist role I was invited to run workshops at Little Ilford School in London with year 10 students as part of their deep learning day, alongside Jan Webb (@janwebb21) and Ray Chambers (@lanky_boi_ray).
The school was very welcoming and I was impressed with the way the day had been organised. Students went to the various workshops in their tutor groups with just half an hour being spent on each activity. Short and snappy sessions worked well as it meant students never spent very long on one particular activity. The idea behind the day was to give students a taster of various ICT tools and software and to look at how ICT could be used in the workplace. Throughout the day they visited the following workshops on a carousel:
- Autocollage, Plex and Stamp
- Kodu Game Lab
- Songsmith
- Building PC’s
- Think U Know – Internet Safety
- BT Work Inspiration
- Creating Ringtones
- Careers in ICT
- Film Trailers
- Olympics – CAD design
- Social Media
- Gaming Corner
All workshops received very positive feedback (I almost wished I wasn’t presenting so I could take a peak at the others!). I ran the Kodu workshop which consisted of a very quick run through of making a simple game – collecting apples and being chased by an enemy, the students then logged on and spent 20 minutes trying out the tutorials and making their own games. The session was well-received by the students and I am sure many of them will be downloading Kodu at home!
As a whole I was so impressed with the day and the positive attitudes of all the students involved, I may have to suggest we do something similar in my own school, I know our students would really appreciate it too!