Digital Creativity for ALL Learners
Our new Digital Creativity course for Year 7 and 8 has made a massive impact on our students with disabilities at Corpus Christi College. The course is based on Apple’s Everyone Can Create curriculum and is designed to provide students with core digital skills in photography, video, audio and drawing.
Our new Digital Creativity course for Year 7 and 8 has made a massive impact on our students with disabilities at Corpus Christi College. The course is based on Apple’s Everyone Can Create curriculum and is designed to provide students with core digital skills in photography, video, audio and drawing.
Every week, students participate in two Digital Creativity lessons to help consolidate their learning. Students have loved showing off their newfound creative talents by teaching staff and older students with disabilities how to execute the perfect photo, draw a realistic self-portrait and map-out a detailed sketch-note of their favourite holiday destination.
“As Digital Creativity has given the students the opportunity to showcase their learning in different formats, we have seen their confidence and self-esteem sky-rocket. Students are able to engage and communicate in different ways which simply weren’t possible before.”- Frances Whiting (Educational Support Teacher)
As well as developing their fine-motor skills, creativity with iPad has also empowered the students in showing their understanding of a topic. For example, in Science they use Mark-up to annotate and draw on a photo to show how electricity works. In Life Skills class, they draw on photos in Keynote and insert audio to explain how to tell the time.
If you’d like to see more Digital Creativity, check out the hashtag, #CorpusCreates on Twitter for snap-shots of the course in action. You can download Apple’s Everyone Can Create project guides free from Apple Books.
Until next time.
Episode 14: Digital Creativity Adam Torrens
This week we were privileged to chat about creativity in the tech-classroom with Australian teacher Adam Torrens (@AdamTorrens84). Adam is an award-winning teacher, digital learning leader and Apple Distinguished Educator who teaches at Stamford American International School in Singapore. Adam speaks to us about Apple's 'Everyone Can Create' curriculum and his views on digital integration.
The Staffroom Show Notes
This week we were privileged to chat about creativity in the tech-classroom with Australian teacher Adam Torrens (@AdamTorrens84). Adam is an award-winning teacher, digital learning leader and Apple Distinguished Educator who works at Stamford American International Schoolin Singapore.
With the introduction of Apple’s ‘Everyone Can Create’ curriculum, we had lots to talk about and wanted to find out Adam’s thoughts and how he has utilised these resources. For us, video, photography, drawing and audio have an important role to plan in the modern classroom – Adam inspired us with innovative examples of the way technology is integrated at his school.
Here’s a break-down of our chat complete with time-stamps:
How did Adam’s background inspire his career as a teacher? (3:40)
How does Adam believe his school (Stamford American International School) balances progressive pedagogy with more traditional knowledge-based approaches? (5:18)
What good examples of tech-based projects does Adam explain are commonplace in his classroom? (7:55)
Why does Adam believe creation-based apps are important and have an impact on learning? (9:15)
What examples of powerful creation-based apps does Adam give? (10:25)
Why does Adam believe Project Based Learning is a powerful approach? Does Adam think it lends itself to creativity? (11:12)
What does Adam think about Apple’s new Everyone Can Create curriculum? How does it fit in with his school’s philosophy? (15:11)
How does Adam believe his school empowered teachers to feel confident with tech-tools? (16:42)
Which of the Everyone Can Create books does Adam thin is the most important? Why does Adam think video is so important in the classroom? (18:40)
Does Adam think it is possible to integrate all of the skills from the Everyone Can Create boos throughout the whole curriculum? (20:30)
Does Adam think that the Everyone Can Create initiative can complement STEM? (21:30)
How does Adam believe his role as an Apple Distinguished Educator has influenced technology at his school? (24:10)
Why does Adam think Keynote, Pages and other core Apple apps so powerful? (25:30)
We hope you enjoyed this episode of The Staffroom and found Adam’s ideas and philosophy as inspiring as we did. The idea of putting pedagogy first and technology second has always struck a chord with us and we loved Adam’s views on Apple’s new curriculum. We wish Adam all the best for the future and his journey with digital creativity.
Until next time!
Jamie, Michael and Tessa
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