Archive for the ‘The Play House’ Category

You might have noticed it’s gone a bit quiet recently here on the blog. That’s because we’re working feverishly behind the scenes to create a new improved online experience.

About four months ago I blogged about our success with some Arts Council Digitial Content Development funding (Digital Potentials). The result of that R&D was a new bid to completely change the way we offer resources. No more pdfs hidden behind passwords. All our projects will have their own mini-websites with activities, free to access and use. Interactive resources created for each project. Routes through for teachers, young people and other clients. The ability to comment on resources, and submit your own to make the sites a real collaboration.

We’re happy to report the Arts Council shared our enthusiasm for this project, and have provided the rest of the funding we needed. We’re working with web design company Substrakt and social media consultant Pete Ashton, so over the next few months our resources will be changing, becoming more interactive, responsive and free to use. We’ve been trying out some of these ideas over at our pilot site at http://theplayhouse.schools.officelive.com, where you can find out about the layers of the rainforest, explore the history of Sarehole Mill, or listen to podcasts created by participants in The Home Children.

The plan is that over the years more and more project ‘micro-sites’ will be created to accompany our tours and projects, creating a rich resource of free-to-use activities and information.  After the initial launch the next step will be bringing online activities developed especially for Promethean and SmartBoard Interactive White Boards. We’d really like many of the activities to be suggested or submitted by teachers or students taking part in our projects.

Watch this space!

Today we’ve received some great news. We’ve been funded by the Arts Council England, West Midlands Digital Content Development Programme to conduct some research and development into… well… digital content.

So what does that mean?

What it means for us is a chance to look at how we engage with schools, young people, clients and funders, and to consult about how we make things better. We’re anticipating overhauling our resources & evaluation, and for the first time making them every bit as participatory as our programmes. There’ll be new ways to extend the legacy of our programmes, support teachers, and involve children and young people.

Well, that’s the theory.

We’re getting excited by the potential, but we’re only part of the equation. It would be easy for us (and me in particular) to get carried away with what we can do with new technology and online resources. But we really need to know what’s going on already, what’s useful, what’s not. What do you need?

We’ll be talking to children, young people, teachers, funders and practitioners about what they’d like to see, but whoever you are out there reading this blog – young person, teacher, practitioner, educationalist – we’ll need your perspective too.

One of the best bits about this funding, particularly in the current climate, is that they encourage you to experiment, and even fail, because that’s how we’ll learn.

Not that we’re planning to fail of course, but this really is a chance for us throw everything up in the air and see where it lands. Which is very exciting, but a little bit daunting too.

Just as it should be…

As a tribute both to Gary Roskell’s powers of persuasion and to the determination of the new boy to impress, I am writing this ‘blog’. I am more than a little technophobic and pretty useless too when it comes to the natural, chatty, ‘personal’ style these things seem to require.

I have now been a core member at The Play House for half a term and I’m just starting to realise the profound consequences of my new employment. For example, I haven’t had a job which requires me to work in an office since I was a Law Clerk in the Crown Prosecution Service (and that’s so long ago that when I worked there you hand wrote the barrister’s briefs – not as intimate as it sounds- and sent them to a ‘typing pool’).

Now, obviously, The Play House is nothing like the CPS: you don’t leave the office to go to a place where individuals are to be condemned to years of incarceration in a Government Institution (unless your view of education is horribly cynical); but I am, nevertheless, once again, partly an office worker.

So, what’s changed? (apart from the loss of a typing pool). When I worked for the CPS I was late almost every day, (they gave me an alarm clock when I left after my 9 months there). Well, I am pleased to report that I am now an excellent timekeeper. My boss doesn’t show me pictures of gruesome crimes as a way of inspiring me to greater prosecuting ambition (although there is a picture of Malcolm made up as The Joker which took me back).

There isn’t a big board telling everybody where everybody else is supposed to be – oh actually there is – but I haven’t yet walked in and learned from it that I am supposed to be in Warwick Crown Court 2 prosecuting in the Queen vs Burglar Bill 10 miles away at that very moment. And until now, Deborah hasn’t had a call from a Head Teacher asking why the new teacher/actor is wearing brown shoes and a tie with a square end and when he proposes to start dressing appropriately (or if she has she’s kept it quiet). In fact, thinking about it, there are loads of differences, not the least of which is that The Play House has an office I look forward to going to.

John