Duke of Edinburgh’s Award – Banjos
Posted by Jim Black in Duke of Edinburgh's Award on December 20, 2011
Several of our S3 pupils recently commenced construction of banjos, as part of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award.
The pupils had taken an interest in our ’16 Plus’ banjo project and had noticed that its scope qualified them for the ‘skills’ element of the bronze Duke of Edinburgh’s Award: the ‘skill’ must take at least three months to develop. It is likely to take a bit longer than this to complete a banjo, assuming an hour and a half after school, once a week.
The slide show here includes photos from the first after school session, and more will be added to this slide show in coming weeks.
Visit to Meso
Posted by Jim Black in Advanced Higher Graphics, product design on December 13, 2011
On December 7th, a group of our senior pupils visited the offices of Meso, a product development company in Glasgow. Our contact there is former Royal High pupil Scott Salter.
Scott studied Product Design Engineering at Glasgow University / Glasgow School of Art, graduating in 2007. At the time of our visit, he had worked at Meso for seven months.
Scott took nearly two hours out of his day to deliver a super presentation about some of the products Meso has and is developing. He took us through the design / prototype / manufacturing process for several products, explaining design decisions, materials, ergonomics, and cost and manufacturing considerations. It was great to be able to handle the different prototypes while Scott explained each one’s shortcomings, and why it was rejected / further developed.
Scott also discussed university course choices. In his case, the engineering component of the degree he studied has proved useful in the job market, and he recommended retaining the study of maths at school. Using maths is an integral part of product engineering.
We’d like to thank Scott and Meso for hosting us. Take a look at Meso’s site, particularly the ‘our work’ section:
16 Plus Banjo – Pupil Work In Progress
Posted by Jim Black in 16 Plus Banjo on November 26, 2011
Pupils commenced construction of their banjos in mid November. Sessions are taking place after school once or twice a week.
The first slide show shows plywood rims being glued up – before the pupils opted to try for a more sophisticated form of construction incorporating a wood-turned rim and calf skin.
Mr Myles, now teaching at Broughton, is joining us to help out.
Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video. Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.
Banjo Prototype No.2 – Work in Progress
Posted by Jim Black in 16 Plus Banjo on November 26, 2011
This slide show shows progress in constructing a second, more sophisticated banjo.
This one will incorporated a calf skin stretched over a hardwood rim and a brass tone ring. The rim is ‘brick built’ and turned on the wood lathe.
Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.’16 Plus’ Banjo Project
Posted by Jim Black in 16 Plus Banjo on November 26, 2011
’16 Plus’ is a Scottish government initiative aimed at getting sixteen to nineteen year olds in to either full time work or education.
We recently received funding to help us offer pupils the chance to build a banjo, then learn to play it. Pupils will record their construction progress and photograph their final model. This evidence can then be incorporated in their portfolios, and referred to in their CVs.
The slide show below shows my prototype banjo, which is based on the ‘Fireside’ banjo available at http://www.backyardmusic.com .
Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.Test Post – Non-Flash Gallery 2
Posted by Jim Black in Uncategorized on November 5, 2011
Trying out Blip slideshow.
S1 Personal Projects
Posted by Krysia Smyth in A Curriculum for Excellence on June 25, 2011
For the past twelve weeks, one of our S1 classes have had the opportunity to embark on a Personal Project. The aim was to give pupils the opportunity to devise a practical project, that they could realistically complete, and would give them a sense of ownership over their direction of learning. They would be assisted by their class teacher but the onus would be on them to plan and complete their work. Early on pupils were advised that it was OK if their project didn’t work out – the focus was on the experience and the ability to make mistakes and learn from them. The learning experience forced pupils to become real decision makers, and although there have been a few ‘failures’ along the way, it is clear that at the end of our projects the pupils have developed a phenomenal degree of confidence, a much wider range of practical skills (wood turning, wood bending, routing, forging, brazing to name a few), and a real ability to recognise the importance and application of skills such as working with others, problem solving, and planning.
Video Project
Daniel Cringean, decided early on that he wanted to make a video or animation for his project, simply because he had had interest in this area but had never had a shot of it before. The video below gives a taste of what the pupils were up to – it was shot and edited entirely by Daniel. I only helped him to source the free video editing software he used – JayCut, which was excellent and simple to use.
Assessment
The pupils assessed the success of their own project throughout and at the end. Using Blooms Taxonomy as a structure to base our reflections on, the pupils had to recall at speed ’30 things they learned’ during their project. This varied from ‘sanding’ to ‘knowing that I need to understand the bigger picure’. They then had to outline what they did using a ‘flow diagram’ type structure. This made them highlight the critical stages of their work, when they had to make decisions and understand the connections between tasks. Finally they were asked to apply what they experienced to other contexts. All pupils reached their own conclusions about their work, every pupil valued their ability to work things out for themselves and work with others rather than discreet skills such as ‘sanding’ or ‘cutting’.
Teacher Reflections
Overall, I felt the project was a success. I was interested to see that if handing over the reins to the pupils and allow them to drive their own projects would create a much deeper learning experience than if the usual ‘I show and you copy’ approach of CDT in S1. The experience was very similar to S4 Craft and Design without all the folio requirement. Initially I asked the pupils to reflect weekly on their learning but it became apparent that the pupils were absorbed in the ‘doing’ any attempt to pause and reflect seemed tokenistic. Perhaps an area to develop for the future.
Logistically it wasn’t as difficult as first imagined. The initial set up of each project was a fair degree of work but, like Craft and Design, after a few weeks pupils got into the flow of what they were doing. I found myself becoming much more of a facilitator who had to keep a watchful eye on the safety of pupils in the workshop. I also had an S6 prefect, Andrew Peach, who was superb at helping out. Without Andrew, I would have felt a lot more pressure at keeping everyone busy.
Out of the 20 pupils, around 5 struggled with their projects, lacking focus, direction and drive. Despite this, I can confidently say that they have each understood where they struggled and are at a stage that they would change things for the future.
On a positive note, I have been amazed at the enthusiasm and skill of some of the pupils. Many arrived early for the class and returned for extra work at lunch times. Taking away the usual restrictions has allowed some pupils to really flourish.
From a teachers point of view, the biggest learning curve, has been being able to ask good questions. Finding the balance of producing a solution for pupil (which would be easy to do) or asking the right questions to allow them to figure it out for themselves has been difficult.
The future
If we were to repeat this project with future classes, there are many things that could be changed – but that could be said for almost type of school experience. Fundamentally it has been a great experience for the class and I can’t wait to see what they choose to get up to in S2.
I would really welcome your comments.
Sustainability ‘Service Design’ Project
Posted by Jim Black in A Curriculum for Excellence on June 20, 2011
Curriculum for Excellence identifies sustainability as a factor to be investigated by pupils.
Recently, I wrote a proposal for a new S1 / S2 project that asks pupils to design a service that will allow humans to live more sustainably. You may download it here:
http://cdtlog.net/documents/sustainability_project.doc – Microsoft Word document, 111KB.
I forwarded the text to Sarah Drummond: former pupil, service designer and director of Snook, asking for her advice. She obliged me with a detailed reply, and has agreed to allow it to be reproduced here:
A service only comes to life once you have experienced it. Perhaps ask the class as a 1st off exercise to take their cameras and create a journey map of their experience. Highlight the bad and good stuff and outline key problems, key opportunity areas for improvement and initial ideas. Then (I think this term is used in SQA Product Design) create a specification of what the new service should be. Try to get them to think emotionally about what the service should look and feel like.If it’s Mcdonald’s it must be quick, efficient, in and out.
If it’s the Bodyshop maybe it’s more tied to a new service being similar to a memory (thinking smells etc).So they create a range of;
My new service (or service redesign) must;
Be easy for customers to use;
Have them through the door in under 5 minutes;
Feel like they are getting a personalised service;
etc etc.Also try and get them in their specifications to think about what other services their service may be like. What services epitomise what they are trying to do. Tell them to steal (borrow) from elements of other services they have had.I think a customer journey map is a good template to use as it really breaks a service down both in sequence/process, through the eyes of one customer and then you map emotions on that help you to understand how a customer is feeling. Both can be done as a discovery exercise to improve or create new services or to actually communicate a new service. It can also be done spatially so if it is a service done in a space (like Heathrow terminal 5) you can use a ground layout to show the customer journey through a space and map on the same thing with boxes (where the story takes place) pointing to footsteps.I’ve attached a basic template for this if you need. There are two, take the logo off, one is more complicated but boxes are for storyboarding journey, smiley faces are for creating like a varying curve of emotions that are annotated. i.e. a high smiley is when customer could be annotated as ‘feeling relaxed because I have sat down with smiley member of staff’ – we then understand that connecting with staff members is a good thing for customers…. (or could be the opposite if they find them intruding their personal space). Also really get them to think about the before/during/after of a service experience. During is the thing that you are paying for doing to use the service, like sitting on a train. Before is ordering your ticket and after is receiving a coupon for a discount next time and a thank you for using us…Secondly, the customer stuff, get them to create personas, (attached another template and a filled out one) and create statements using the word I for what their customer wants and needs. For example “I like services that I can connect with using my mobile phone, I’m a really busy person” or “I hate fuss, I just want things to be simple”. Get them to interview a family member, friend, or base it on someone they observed. Get them to always refer back to this one (or few) personas so their design works for people.
Lastly, I think show them some prototype videos and use some techniques like roleplay, lego, mocking up.
When they develop their service concepts, perhaps using journey map, colour in touchpoints which is a really useful term for them to understand. The way they bring a service to life is through mocking these touchpoints up. Does it require a website, a ticket, a poster to advertise it, a service desk, a member of staff with a badge on, an Ipad with some selections on it, a train, a branded post box, an interface… Be loose with felt tips and mock up as much as possible, asking people to interact with these mock ups, before they jump onto computers and make everything look nice. So, I’d say touchpoint is a good term to keep reiterating to them, essentially, away from your academic understanding of a touchpoint, I’d say it is points you can literally touch. (or see).
Prototype videos;
http://vimeo.com/21013867 (tweetbox)
http://planet.globalservicejam.org/projects (all global service jam projects, videos, storyboards, process, amazing resource)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrV2SZuRPv0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkvgsTCV3tE
Lots of great stuff on here;
http://everythingiknow.squarespace.com/
I hope that’s everything.
Best Ever Craft & Design Class
Posted by Jim Black in craftanddesign on April 26, 2011
I’ve been running Craft & Design classes for over a decade. You’ll see examples of pupils’ work in the Craft & Design section of our web site, where most of the work featured there is by pupils in my classes:
http://www.royalhigh.edin.sch.uk/departments/departments/CDT/scd_students_work.html
For nearly two years I’ve been working with a Craft & Design class whose pupils’ practical work has become the best I’ve ever encountered in S4. The final folios were also high in quality, with almost everyone achieving ‘Credit’ level. Though I think I know why this is, I’ve asked the pupils for their input, to help me help pupils in future classes become better engaged.
The pupils’ work has now mostly been photographed and scanned, and will be featured on our main site, bit by bit, in the coming months.
Here are the questions I’ve asked the pupils to try to answer:
1. First a general question. You’ve done well this session: why is that?
2. If you had the chance to do S4 Craft & Design again, how would you make sure you enjoyed the experience better?
3. You’ve produced a high quality folio. What did your teacher do to help you get there?
4. You’ve produced a high quality practical model. What classroom / workshop conditions did your teacher put in place to help you get there?
5. What could your teacher do (or stop doing) to help pupils in future classes engage more fully?
Please note that pupil responses have been removed from this post.
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