When I was in the classroom it was officially ‘Communication’, although it was probably actually more about Content Creation, these days the focus seems to be on Coding. Coding is important, it helps learners to understand a little (maybe a lot) more about why the technology around us behaves the way it does. (It might even help me understand why predictive text comes up with some of the most bizarre suggestions!) BUT it shouldn’t replace the Content Creation, Communication or Collaboration ‘C’s.
WE ARE ALL CONTENT CREATORS
Most of our learners won’t necessarily grow up to be the next programmers, game developers etc, however they probably will all be content creators at some point in their lives. The ability for all of us to be content creators and publishers has changed significantly over the last few years, writing blogs, tweeting snippets of content or thoughts, facebook, LinkedIn posts, YouTube, Vimeo etc. It is perhaps therefore even more important to help our learners understand how to be effective and discerning content creators and publishers. How many of us have sat in meetings/conferences and used the term “Death by PowerPoint”? Creating and presenting an engaging presentation is a skill, it’s a 21st Century skill.
Powerpoint has become increasingly clever over the years, the latest update can even suggest a theme or look and feel based on the content you add. I can think of a number of presentations I’ve sat through (and if I’m honest, created) that could have done with a little help in that area. How many of us have actually created a collaborative PowerPoint as team work – it’s a skill, it’s a 21st Century skill, to not only be a good content creator but also to be a collaborative content creator.
A growing number of teachers and students are turning to Sway as a new way of creating content and presentations. Take a look at Sway and Sway for Education – Sway in the Classroom.
WHAT ABOUT VIDEO?
What about video? Again when I was teaching I had to borrow video cameras from my local City Learning Centre, shoot the footage and then have trips to the specialist editing suite to create our content and then publishing them was to DVD, followed by some very long nights burning 30 copies of the DVD ready for Leavers Assembly! Wind the clock forward a few years and now students can shoot perfectly decent footage on small devices, edit it online and share via class channels in Office 365 Video, the new safe and secure way to create school video channels.
At the weekend I took my 3 year old to the brilliant Bristol Science Centre, but as the home to Wallace and Gromit it has a great animation section.
In less than 20 minutes we’d created an animation, published it online and shared it with various family members.
Young people are becoming content creators at an ever younger age. So don’t just think about coding, think about enabling learners to be collaborative content creators. We’d love to help you add collaborative content creation to your curriculum, talk to us about how.
