Virtual Learning Gallery at Waddesdon School, Buckinghamshire
Aims
As part of its Visual Arts College status, Waddesdon School had been considering the use of display as an educational tool and had looked at creating its own gallery for exhibitions. They wanted to embrace the hands on experience that takes place within a museum, transferring this into the classroom and an interactive online classroom, which they called a Virtual Learning Gallery (VLG).
Process
The activity with students in years 7 and 8 focused on developing an interactive Virtual Learning Gallery for the school where students could share their work in a gallery setting drawing on work with practitioners in three curriculum areas: history, science and vocational studies. The vocational group was a small group of year 10 students who found it hard to engage in the normal curriculum.
Rob Thrush, an expert on World War 1 and film maker/specialist effects artist worked with students to discover local stories about the war, bring in original artefacts, and explore ways of enabling participants to relive actual experiences.
Lindsey Shaw Greening, a science events organiser for Manchester and Milton Keynes worked with Key Stage 3 science on creative practical experiments using all manner of everyday materials familiar to young people.
Crispin Andrews, a journalist and sports activity organiser worked with a select group of year 10 students who work one day a week on a farm, hearing their stories and encouraging them to develop a better understanding of their vocational work by sharing it with others through film.
Eye Division (Alun Ward/Neil C Smith) who work with new media, found this project stretched their knowledge into the games sector and also introduced them to a higher level of research in liaising with both pupils and staff to develop the VLG.
Students, practitioners and teachers worked together to make and upload resources, experiences and information on the VLG. The ownership of the site by young people was seen as very important to maintain and build upon.
Impact
The Virtual Learning Gallery is stimulating and seen as great fun and an exciting resource by both young people and teachers. 11 teaching staff have gained greatly from the experience and like the young people are full of ideas on how the site might develop across the whole curriculum as well as reflecting on the implications it has for their teaching practice. The VLG has the potential to be a peer-led learning tool as young people felt they learnt both from the practical class work as well as viewing other’s work online.
Next Steps
The school plans to be doing more work on the project into year two of their Change School Programme, aiming to consider how the classroom adapts to a space for learning in the 21st century and have more input from young people, developing the site according to their ideas and feedback.
