By John Galloway
"It is an opportunity to change the way we teach, to give children a variety of learning experiences," explains Katherine Douglas, director of Kingwood City Learning Centre in Fulham. "Interactive whiteboards didn't change the way we teach within a space; that is still teaching in a traditional mode with access to tools that support the teacher. If you have a room without furniture, with projection on to the floor you instantly get a completely different dynamic."
She is talking about Kingwood’s i-Space room, an approach to creating learning spaces that challenges much of our current understanding of just what a classroom should be.
"It is a space where you could get that sense of being freer and more experimental," she continues. "Less is more." The room we are in is a large, irregular quadrilateral, with one curved wall. It is all painted white. White blinds keep out the daylight, and the nearest thing to furniture are two long benches built into opposite walls, that serve as both seats and storage.
'A great big technology sand pit'
Although stripped of the recognisable qualities of a classroom, it is a place loaded with some of the very latest in new technologies, all unobtrusive, discretely placed and designed to enhance the learning, not distract from it. There are ‘colour wash’ lights; co-ordinated projection systems that can fill an entire wall; surround-sound audio; devices that respond to movement to create music; and others working with CCTV cameras to take the user into the centre of the virtual experience. It prompted one headteacher to describe it as "a great big technology sandpit".
"In a way you can do anything you want in here," says Katherine, who has hosted lessons with pupils of all ages and abilities across many curriculum areas. With an IT Diploma group they based a project on a real-life scenario – creating an advertising game for a bookshop using Omi-Vista, a system that projects images on to the floor. Players interact with them, their movements picked up by an integral TV camera.
Students were briefed to build an activity for a bookshop for that would entertain young children while their parents shopped. Participants had to gather suitable content, then create something that would simultaneously engage the target audience, and work as promotional material.
"Getting kids to understand audience and purpose is one of the most challenging things for us in our teaching," Katherine continues. She believes that using this system is particularly effective for developing the necessary empathy. "Omi technologies are good at creating scenarios that immediately show how it impacts. You are kind of inside the technology and can see it as a user, not as an observer."
Shifting perceptions is one of the underpinning purposes of the room: "If you want teachers to change practice you have to put them in touch with what that technology does. Take them into that space and see it as kids do." And that’s exactly how Lizann O'Conor, a senior teaching and learning adviser for Hammersmith and Fulham, and her colleague Jenny Crellin, primary ICT curriculum lead, approach a teacher training session on ICT in English, part of which is spent in the i-Space.
The day’s activities are focused on developing creativity. Jenny shows the scene from Mary Poppins where the lead characters jump into a chalk drawing on the pavement and enter another world. "There is a unit set in imaginary worlds – some of the students really struggle with that," she explains as the participating teachers gather around the floor projection.
'The savannah appears, and people sweep their feet over it, revealing animals beneath'
"You could do this with posters on the floor, but I think this would be much more effective." There is general agreement as an image of the savannah appears, and people sweep their feet over it, revealing animals beneath. The image changes to one of penguins swimming under ice, where each footstep on the projected image causes cracks to appear. As a crisp image of the moon reflected in a pond appears there is a "Wow" from someone, before those around the edge begin to dip their toes to cause ripples across the surface. "Yes," everyone agrees when Jenny asks, "Beautiful isn't it?"
Elsewhere in the room, the group experiment with Reflex, another system from Omi combining projection and control through a pair of cameras. Here a participant's image is combined with another graphic and thrown up on to the wall. A simple adjustment can give the impression of her hanging from the ceiling, or her actions may wipe away one image to show another – an entry into another world perhaps.
They also try out Omi-Beam, where beams are projected from above on to the floor to create coloured dots which can trigger a response when either broken or reflected back. This can range from a straightforward sound, such as a drum being hit, to a user-created, sampled loop, all combined with images and film projected on to the wall. In this way users can collaborate to play the drums or improvise music with a unique background video.
To help alleviate any anxiety that some teachers may have about teaching in such a space, Katherine connects the resources to current practice. "We use Omi-Vista as a way of showing that it is not so far away from a more traditional approach,” she explains. In a chalk-based classroom you may be growing a narrative or poem from an impetus. Using the moon image with the ripples you can take children out and give them that experience. Walk on the ice and it cracks. No one in their right mind would do that for real. We use virtual experiences that will broaden their thinking."
She can see plenty of potential for learning right across the curriculum. There are plans for students to interact with their own self-portraits, or dancers creating responsive scenery, and those studying languages physically making connections between words and concepts. She believes that using such technologies provides something that can prove elusive: "It is the awe and wonder piece you are constantly trying to get hold of."
It is an experience that is appreciated by many of the students. Mohamed, in Year 10 at a local school. reflected after his visit: "It was like we was in another world, and I loved that." And it opened up his thinking to wider use: "I think my mum can have a go as well; it's not just for kids, it's for everyone."
Changing school lives – Charlton School
Rebound Therapy is one of the many exciting and novel ways in which staff at Charlton School in South East London use a new and innovative technology. "It helps with balance and strengthens the core muscles," explains Emily Garwood, an instructor working with pupils with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD).
She is talking about the regime of exercises and positions performed on a trampoline by students with a range of complex special needs. Because it is part of the school's after-school offerings it also has an element of fun. "It's playing, but it's exercise too," says Kay Bailey, a learning support assistant who also works in the school's boarding unit.
An added dimension is a white mat which is placed on the bed of the trampoline. This is a screen for the projected interactive animations which respond to the pupils movements. Among the most popular are photos of the school's headteacher and other senior managers that explode when trodden on.
This Omi-Vista interactive system is installed in the centre of one of the school's halls. Simply projecting it on to a surface can have astonishing effects – by using a white umbrella, or even a parachute, students can see it from the underside, being submerged in waves, for instance. However, an integral TV camera picks up users’ movements and adds interactivity.
On Monday afternoons Year 7 and 8 students go on a sensory journey. The routine is the same each week. A soundtrack of music from around the world plays while props are handed out, and the projection on the floor mat changes to reflect the destination.
As a globe starts spinning "Leaving on a Jet Plane" plays and everyone, adults and children alike, stretch out their arms to fly off to Ireland., the USA and Mexico. "Shakalaka Baby" begins as they touch down in India and lengths of shimmering fabric are passed out to brush and enfold the students.
On the floor a rock pool shimmers and ripples, fish dart and crabs scuttle as Adam, a profoundly disabled child who has great difficulty moving independently, stretches out to touch them. The lengths of cloth blend in with the image and it is difficult to separate the real and the virtual as if waves are lapping over him. Although Adam's support assistant sits beside him, he needs very little help to move such is the motivation to reach a ball, a lifebelt or a rubber duck as they drift past.
"It was craziness when we first started using it,” Emily recalls. “They were all over it." She had been using it with a key stage 3 group, all of whom are on the autistic spectrum. "Then they had to learn turn-taking, and language too. They had to learn to say which activity they chose and who to go on with. They are all very lively – really buzzing and bouncing – but with this they will sit on the mats and wait for their turn because they want it so much."
Alongside the floor projection system, Rachel Bevan, head of expressive and performing arts, has also used Omi-Beam, a series of beams, made visible with coloured lights, that trigger musical and visual responses when broken, or reflected. She has used the system with music they have composed: "We put audio clips on beams that are then played over the top of a background tape. It is actually very good when we have done performances. When you break the beam it triggers a sound and you get a picture."
Events using the Omi systems have included outside groups, too, such as Trinity College School of Music. Rachel explains: "The music students composed music starting from different shapes, each of which were projected on to the floor for the Charlton students to interact with." While there are many activities that come with the projection system, templates are provided for users to make their own, a simple enough job once the resources are gathered together.
These innovative, interactive tools have quickly made an impact on the life of the school, becoming an established part of its work across the timetable, in the after school clubs, and as extra-curricular activities. As Kathryn Stowell, head of ICT points out, "It seems like we've had it a long time, but we've had it less than year."
All photos from Kingwood CLC, Fulham
www.kingwoodclc.net
www.charltonschool.com
www.om-interactive.com
OM Interactive videos
John Galloway works as advisory teacher for ICT/SEN and inclusion in Tower Hamlets, London, and as a freelance writer and consultant. He is the author of Harnessing Technology for Every Child Matters and Personalised Learning.
