Pilton State School Uses Iconnect to Learn from an Expert

Podcast transcript

Pilton State School uses iConnect to learn from an expert

Sharon Wilson, acting principal, Pilton State School: ‘My second teacher came back from America and wanted her friend who is an artist and teacher over there to teach her students some art, and work some literacy in with that.

‘She then asked me how we were going to make this happen. I then spoke to our Regional Technology Manager and a few people, and was advised to use iConnect which was a new technology for the department at the time.’

How did the project work? Sharon Wilson: ‘As part of the series of lessons, the students looked at the literacy around the book The Hungry Caterpillar.

‘The children started off studying the book, the illustrations and doing the literacy activities, and then the art flowed in throughout that as well. Each lesson focused on a different art skill with Melanie.

‘They then put all of those skills together to make the final collage. It took six weeks, or six lessons to do each art component and then another couple of weeks to construct the final product.’

Following the success of the 2009 project, a bigger and better one was developed in 2010 … Sharon Wilson: ‘We decided to extend it through to four other schools, so we had five cluster schools. We then chose Jeannie Baker’s book Where the forest meets the sea, and we studied the book, her writing and illustrations.

‘Because we are an Earth Smart Science school we felt that it followed through with the sustainability message as well.

‘So we recreated the front-cover of the book. As well as looking at colour, perspective and texture we also looked at things like using sustainable materials while also following that through with literacy and geography.’

Clayton, Year 4 student, Pilton State School: ‘We went on the whiteboard down there and our art teacher from America told us what to do and we followed her instructions. We had to make the blue sky.’

Lizzy, Year 4 student, Pilton State School: ‘And we also did the grass.’

Sharon Wilson: ‘The iConnect was just excellent because in a rural school we would not necessarily have access to an expert, an artist and such high quality lessons. ‘We feel that iConnect has given us the tools to engage the children, as well as engage expertise, keep it interesting and connect a whole lot of different learning in a variety of areas.’

How did the students respond to the projects? Sharon Wilson: ‘The children loved it. They were very engaged and they looked forward to it every week, both sharing with Melanie as well as listening to what she had to say and learning new skills.

‘They were very involved. They were amazed, as were the parents, about being taught across different time zones and the skills that they were learning.

‘I feel that the students in this school particularly, because they are exposed to a lot of ICT, are very confident in learning new technology and using technology as a tool.’