Recordings, comics and reinforcement
Profiles in Success: Ringwood North Primary School
While the school is making significant headway in the production of movies and music, audio recording is being as an effective learning and teach tool. Even the Indonesian Language teacher has embraced GarageBand and is using it to create and edit recordings that reinforce correct language usage and pronunciation.
In an environment where comics are traditionally regarded as ‘rubbish’ literature, a combination of the Apple Mac and Comic Life software is bringing about a major rethink. “As well as using GarageBand, our Indonesian teacher has started using Comic Life to create comics with all the text in Indonesian,” Brice explains. “This further develops the ability of students to not only speak but write in another language and is yet another example of how the Mac can be used across the entire subject range in the school.”
Aside also from being used by teachers to create posters and montages, and for storyboarding movies in Years 5 and 6, Comic Life has found favour within the school as a valuable literacy program support tool. By developing comics that combine visual appeal with literacy skills reinforcement, Ringwood North is encouraging learning outcomes by creating materials to which students can easily – and enjoyably – relate.
In another example of how Ringwood North teachers are using their Macs as teaching aids, many of them are using GarageBand to record students reading. Each recording then becomes a part of the student’s portfolio and at the end of the year, provides a valuable guide to their progress.
The junior school’s Reading Recovery (Literacy Support) teacher has even taken to using iMovie and the Mac’s in-built iSight camera to create video and audio records of students’ reading progress. With a new recording made every few weeks, the students build up a series of iMovie files that are exported to iWeb and, with help from the teacher, form the basis of a portfolio that is burnt to DVD, which can be taken home to share with their family and friends.
One of the real advantages of the teachers doing that is that parents, for the first time, can actually listen to their children reading in the classroom – and this is a much more valuable indication as to their progress than a written report from the teacher.
— Adam Brice, Leading Teacher
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