I had a go last term at using Scribble with a P7 class. This is their work here:
http://scribble.scran.ac.uk/user41427/weblog/
We used a program called Audacity to record their work and used Scribble to publish it. I wanted the children to write a jingle for the healthy tuck shop. I thought that recording and publishing their work would help the children take pride in their work and aim for better quality. I also thought that blogging each week or two would help break the task up into understandable chunks on which the children could reflect each time, and provide shorter term goals.
This block of work was an attempt at cross-curricular planning (music, ICT, enterprise) as recommended by a Curriculum for Excellence.
Things that were good:
- The children really liked the idea of publishing their work on the web and were delighted when strangers commented.
- They really enjoyed using the technology.
- Using an interactive whiteboard meant everyone could watch while people took turns to work the computer.
- Being able to see the soundwaves on screen with Audacity was interesting and helped the children understand structure. The visual drag and drop interface worked well for the children.
- Writing a piece of music takes a long time; recording and publishing each stage of the process made it manageable and split one long term goal into lots of short ones.
Problems we had (not caused by the technology):
- 30 children inventing music at once is extremely noisy and hectic. Some children struggled to stay focussed.
- The children needed a lot of time to practise and become confident enough to perform their work for recording.
- I saw the children for a 1 hour session each week. It wasn't enough time to do the musical work and then the publishing work and we didn't finish off as fully as I would have liked. 2 or more sessions a week would be better, with one session for creating and recording and the next for publishing and reflecting.
Problems we had with the technology:
- It was easiest to record in WAV format but this format wouldn't play in our blog. I'm not sure what the exact root of this problem is Scribble or West Lothian's security system.
- To record in MP3 format (which plays nicely) required us to download the LAME encoder - within a school computer system this is a lengthy and complex process.
- The file embedding tool did not work on West Lothian computers and embedding manually was too complex a process to teach to the children.
- The children found it difficult to use the form for uploading files because it was so lengthy.
- The copyright disclaimer in the upload form was confusing to the children and several times they didn't notice it, leading to a lot of frustration when the upload failed.
- When logging in, the "Remember me" boxed is automatically checked. This was really annoying when using shared computers and made it an effort to keep our password secure.
Conclusion
Blogging our work in progress was valuable. It helped to give focus to component parts of a larger task. Publishing the work was motivating.
Some aspects of the Scribble interface were difficult to use. Restrictions of the West Lothian system hindered our progress in places.
One hour-long session each week wasn't enough time for this project.
