Staff and students at RNIB College can occasionally be a little reluctant to take part in songs, films and performances. But not this year.
We had our Christmas show in December and all students took part in at least one performance. For the first time we had a lot of films and the students and staff enjoyed making their films. The Media Hub team were on hand to provide support, or to do the filming. The team identified that not all students and staff knew how to make a film, so we showed them how to film (see photo of student in Christmas hat). We also started making How To Guides (eg How to film using an iPad) for staff and students in order to improve the quality of films.
The team also finished making the Emergency Services and Autism film which was requested by the Leicestershire Police for their Autism Awareness event (see photo of a character from the Autism film). Students and staff learned how to make simple animations for this film.
In May we held our Eurovision event. Each Enterprise worked on their own project for their allocated country. The Media Hub created a short Travelogue film for Croatia and some of the other performances were films, including the Hardest Karaoke Song in the World from Iceland by the Speech and Language Therapy groups (see photo of two students dressed for Icelandic weather in front of a lovely Icelandic scene). It proved to be the catchiest tune of the day (and we are still singing it months later). The film was made using iPads against a greenscreen.
For the final term students and staff chose to do the Friends song and the Friends theme. This theme captured students’ imagination and we used a lot of media technology to make the finished product. We recorded the students and staff singing and took photos of the students and staff with their friends. The Friends background was then added in post-production using editing software (see photo showing staff at RNIB college in front of the Central Perk café).
During our Celebration Event parents and visitors with their families and the students were invited to have their own photos taken in front of the green screen. Photos were then edited instantly to create the Friends themed backgrounds and printed off for the parents as a souvenir of the day.
The new sound system in the Arts Centre worked perfectly for the Leavers’ presentation, and the parents and visitors were impressed with the amount of technology that had been used in College in the films, photo-stories and presentations throughout the year.
The use of technology has had an impact on students in College, and this is what some of the them said:
“I am going to miss media. I can make films on my iPad at home now and I learned how to edit my films.” (LC)
“I can lead the Media group and I know what to do.” (LS)
“My mum has bought me a tablet and I can use it to take photos and film things like my mum sneezing.” (ER)
I also asked a couple of staff members about what was the most challenging when working in Media Hub. The answer was unanimous – putting away the collapsible green screen was the most challenging piece of equipment.
We have already started planning for next year and have an awful lot of work to do – we have had a few film requests from external customers already, and our new Media Hub trainer started this month with a lot of knowledge and enthusiasm for all things Media and we are also moving to a bigger room. I am sure that our second year as a Karten Network Centre will be even better than the first.
Article meta data
Clicking on any of the links in this section will take you to other articles that have been tagged in the same category.
- This article was written by the Sense College Loughborough Karten Centre
- Featured in the Karten Summer 2019 Newsletter
- This article is listed in the following subject areas: Centre News