Diamond thieves are motivating pupils in Birmingham to tap into their maths and literacy skills. Through the Athena Excellence in Cities Education Action Zone, Extended Maths Challenges are pulling disaffected students into education with the use of videoconferencing - and one challenge involves the precious gem.
A diamond is stolen from a mansion and students have to find out who took it using videoconferencing and a live Sherlock Holmes. "Videoconferencing is a great way to motivate kids to learn," says Geoff Turrell, director of Athena. "Pupils in years 5 to 7, at the age we target through Athena, tend to have great difficulty applying maths to real-life situations. We use Polycom videoconferencing technology for our challenges, where maths problems are posed live to children over four to six weeks as interactive stories. The problems also draw in their literacy, science and technology skills."
In the diamond theft challenge, one task is based on design and also draws on students' maths skills. The diamond is protected by a sophisticated but faulty alarm, so students have to find the faults and decide if they could design a better alarm using design and technology skills. And at the end of the investigation, literacy skills are also bought into play as the students have to write a newspaper report.
Another Birmingham-based videoconferencing initiative is Digischool, through Birmingham Learning and Culture. This is about educational activities with a strong slant on videoconferencing. Digischool came from Video Conferencing Two Weeks (VC2W), an intense two-week period of videoconferencing activity during the academic year that allowed students to watch news being made and talk to the reporters presenting the news on evening television. "We became concerned that outside these two weeks not much was being done with videoconferencing, so we created Digischool," says Turrell.
One aspect of Digischool that ran last year with great success was Rock Idol, an event similar to Pop Idol, but with more constructive feedback for participants. Schools enter a band that exists within the school. Each band performs on a videoconferencing network on the same day to a panel of judges, which then gives feedback and picks an overall winner.
While this year's participants have yet to perform (Rock Idol 2005 takes place at the end of October), last year's winners gained a lot from their experience. "We had five bands playing in the school last year," says Simon Palmer, head of music at King Edward VI Camp hill school for boys. "All were formed and organised by the pupils. In particular, we had one sixth-former, a drummer, who played classical and rock and we entered that band in Rock Idol. It was really valuable to the students. There's a perception that music other than classical isn't valued, but this event brought it into the mainstream."
The school set up a videoconferencing link and, at the designated time, the students performed as though on a TV show, Palmer says. They then watched other school's performances, watching any they had missed over the net, where the performances had been downloaded. "Videoconferencing allows all schools to participate. Once you've got the link there, it's quite easy to put on," he says.
In the capital, the London Grid for Learning has linked schools across across LEAs via London Live 2005. It's working with the Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea City learning centres to put on a day of videoconferences aimed at key stage 3. The theme of this year's event, on October 11, is Living in London. Schools can make a presentation of their choice within the theme and will also see presentations from other content providers, including the National Archives and the National Science Museum, plus the London Symphony Orchestra.
One London school looking further is Hounslow's Alexandra junior school. Pete Dunmall, deputy head, is overseeing the school's link with Madam Roland's senior school in Lille, northern France, in a foreign language project that began last year. Dunmall says the school wanted to introduce modern languages at key stage 2. Teachers from both schools made exploratory visits, with the French overwhelmed with the ICT used at Alexandra. The teachers decided to stay in touch and, at that opportune time, the LGFL introduced Click2Meet.
"I realised I could videoconference to stay in touch with our French colleagues," says Dunmall says. "It was free for us to use as a school, so all we had to purchase was cheap webcams and microphones - for less than £50. The French downloaded everything they needed from the Click2Meet website, and we were away."
Year 5 students began having fortnightly French lessons and used the webcams to meet French students face to face. They began by introducing themselves, and now a mix of both languages is spoken. Students have also been able to compare the differences and similarities between themselves.
Lesson in language
"The misconception of the French as garlic frog's-leg-eaters went overnight," says Dunmall. "They saw them as very multicultural straight away. We're now using interactive whiteboards in sessions, in which a French child describes an object and the English students have to work out which picture on the screen is being described. They're getting the hearing and speaking of the language, and also the visual and kinaesthetic side of moving objects around on screen. It's very inclusive and appealing to lots of ways of learning," Dunmall says.
Another London school, George Mitchell school in Leyton, is using videoconferencing to teach business studies, through a partnership with the London grid and Hitachi. "We have a very mixed racial intake here, so I thought it would be nice to be twinned with a school from somewhere the students don't know about," says Claire Kirwin, deputy head and business teacher.
"Our geography year 9 students are studying Japan, so I decided on that. Then an email came though from the learning grid asking about language partnerships for Japanese schools, following on from its Chinese project. I was looking at this from a geography curriculum point of view, but I decided to approach the grid anyway.
"I want to use this to get people in business to talk about kaizen, the Japanese working practice, and to let students interview business people. You can think of questions on the spot to ask, or you can ask them the next day you use the equipment. It's another fantastic use of technology - being able to see people will make it live for students, bringing textbook studies to life."