Silverstone Study Centre

Boddington Primary students continued the PfS introductory day series today with their visit to SSC. They worked creatively across all the activities, made light work of the Enable Learning Platform, and exhibited an effective attitude with good humour throughout.

Their work with PhotoBooth was most impressive. PhotoBooth is a simple piece of Apple software that applies a range of effects to the built in lap-top camera. It is a great deal of fun exploring the software but actually producing some original output relies heavily on the creativity and focus of the students. After playing with the software for a while the work begins in earnest. Students have to make use of angles and backdrops around the centre to compose photos and then to collaborate with partners to think of engaging and apt titles for their creations. As a finale, they present to the rest of the group the process they have undergone to both capture the photo and to agree on the title.

The Boddington team were splendid superb and sounded like professional art critics. They were totally confident in their work and in control of conveying their thoughts. They were the experts! One of the group said it was like writing by thinking. I couldn’t agree more!

The PfS introductory day season started yesterday with the visit of students from Culworth Primary. The students were exemplary and showed great touches of creativity throughout the day.

I particularly enjoyed hearing their powerful word choices to describe Silverstone’s fast cars exotic monsters that flow like a fierce river round the track. The ideas have been captured in a wiki library on the Enable Learning Platform for the students to review, reflect upon and develop in the future. In fact, all the output from the day was added to the platform ready to be shared and/or edited back at school and home. Judging by the 30+ discussion group messages on the school’s platform page, it is proving a hit.

Another memorable moment was when one very bright-spark asked whether the older single-seater racing cars were wider than the new ones in the workshop. As usual, I did not know the answer and looked on as group came up with three different ways of measuring and checking their ideas using a variety of non-standard units. The older cars were definitely wider. Judge for yourself! (Car number 12 is the newer version)