Bolton Bloggers

This is blogging about blogging!

On the 14th February, a primary school in Manchester were featured on the BBC Breakfast show with a report of their pupils blogging their education.

The children are encouraged to blog about their work, interests and activities - which improves their writing skills. The blogging also invites feedback from other teachers and students from other schools across the country and globe. This greatly benefits the children as they feel inspired by the feedback they receive from others in the 'blogworld'.

The Breakfast program is usually watched by many as the early hours appeal to early workers, parents and teachers.

BBC News on the "Bolton Bloggers"

Children's response on new media

On Friday 11th February, we went to visit Milton Road primary school - where we could be filming some footage for the documentary.
We asked a number of questions to 4 children that on the next visit to the primary school, we will interview them for the documentary.
Charlie, Clara, Rachel and Archie are all between the ages of 9 and 10.

All of them except Clara have computers / laptops at home and everyone in Charlie's household have a laptop of their own.

Clara and Charlie both have mobile phones which only allow them to call or find their parents.

They were all introduced to new media at the ages of 4, in reception class at school.

They use the computers for their literacy and maths work, where there are educational games for the different stages of learning.

They all enjoy playing these educational games, especially one called  "Cool maths quiz"

They use the laptops / computers at home for personal use:  email, social messaging and games.
On average for 30mins every day or every other day, after they have done their homework.

All classrooms in their primary have 'smartboards'  which are the new generation of white boards.
These are very beneficial for their learning and all the children agree it is very helpful for them.

Their computers at school only let them access the things they are allowed to use in school.

On our way out of the primary school, there was a room like a library with lots of children using laptops and headphones. This would be good footage to put into the documentary.

Updated version of Poster

I added 'media' into the slogan, changed the words around for a better meaning and gave the font a glow to attract attention / make it stand out more.
Also, adding the time  and changing the style of the laptop to look like it has been drawn/sketched:

First Draft of Poster

Using photoshop, i made a first draft design of the advertising poster for our documentary:

The girl in the photo is my 10year old niece.

Listings feature

iLearn is a new documentary series about how young learners are using new media in a positive way.
Most media coverage of childrens relationship with media suggests that it's either dangerous or a waste of time.

Panorama's recent investigation (12th Dec 2010) suggested games were addictive.
iLearn will explore children's interaction with new media and its benefits. Most parents have limited knowledge what's going on in a childrens classroom, why would they be better informed about media in the classroom.

Are new media just extentions of traditional education tools? Do they help children to be creative, to develop relationships, to learn how to behave appropriatly? We will be hearing from the kids themselves of what they make of their media world and how it helps them to help themselves grow.

The four part series starts on Thursday, with the first installment of iLearners, from Milton Road primary school in Cambridge.

"We want to show how useful new media in education is and to reassure parents that it gives a positive outcome for their lives" say the documentary filmakers, who have worked in education themselves.

Design for Magazine

This is a basic design for how the listings magazine feature will look like:

Listings Magazine

The responses from the audience about the documentary has influenced the decision to target a more general audience rather than children. Adults, especially parents / teachers will be the chosen target audience, hopefully including young adults to appeal to the documentart too.

As we are no longer choosing a younger audience, the feature for the documentary will appear in an adult listings magazine - one of the BBC's productions magazines.

The most obvious choice is Radio Times, as it is specifically for tv listings.
It could also feature in a more educational magazine, therefore only targetting teachers.

Words for the feature

Brainstorm of sentence ideas:

- Most focus on the negatives about new media in schools, but this new 4 part series shows us the benefits and positive outcomes of the new generation of education

- Education and media are always moving
  new discoveries, syllabuses, information, guidelines  / rules
  media changes day by day

- But the basic principals are always the same in both media and education

- How media has improved the quality of learning with the new generation

- The children get the knowledge and experience with the technology of the new generation, that their parents would not have had the opportunity to

- Interactive and electronical learning  (i's and e's)

New generation - new opportunities
New media
New way of learning

* ~ * ~ *

This new series suggests basic principals remain the same as resources change so do the opportunities and methods.

Gives parents the opportunity to experience how the new generation is learning with new methods to the same basic goals.