- Image via Wikipedia
This post has been prompted by Terry Freedman’s article on his website about wall displays and it starts with a comment I posted there.
Traditionally a teacher would festoon the classroom and other areas with displays of the pupils’ work, particularly artwork, written work and photographs of events. These might be used to reward pupils for producing exceptional work, to demonstrate work produced by the pupils, or they might be used to encourage and provide exemplars, above all, they would be used to support pupil learning.
Nowadays, pupils produce more and more work in digital formats and the question is raised as to what is the best way to display such work. Or are we to lose the benefit of wall displays simply because digital work cannot be easily displayed? Some of the work can be printed out and displayed in a traditional way but somehow, unless it’s a product designed to be printed, that would seem to almost defeat the object.
I have seen some schools use large monitor screens for display purposes, generally though they seem to be used to display promotional clips of the school and seem aimed at visitors. Rarely do they seem to be used to display pupils’ work and far more rarely do they seem to be used in pupil areas. The cost of such systems probably act against their widespread use in schools. Also, unlike simple display boards, such electronic display systems are rarely simple to use and are often outside the ‘domain’ of the class teacher.
Nevertheless, I do feel that flat panels could be a way (perhaps an expensive way) of displaying pupils’ digital creations.The technology should be becoming cheaper and many flat televisions can display images from a memory card. Even simple electronic photo frames could be used, some of these can display video too, though as the size still tends to be on the small size, they could hardly be considered classroom displays.
Not all digital creations are visual, though, and I’ve yet to think of a way of effectively displaying pupils’ audio creations; though I’d guess that IP radio systems might be a way of distributing pupils’ podcasts around a school.
I’d be interested to hear/see how schools have tried to tackle this issue.
But then, perhaps I’m falling into the trap of thinking about classrooms in the traditional sense? Maybe we can display pupils digital work in a digital environment such as a virtual classroom or a VLE. It may not have the same impact as a physical display in a classroom but it should be simple to add links to other pupils’ digital content for a learner to access, or maybe ‘advert’ like banners to encourage the learner to explore other pupils’ work or even simply to embed digital content within a pupil’s space.
Links to various Electronic Display suppliers
http://www.somethingabstract.co.uk
I’d be very interested to hear or see how schools have addressed this area.
Possibly Related Posts:
- Thoughts on Game Based Learning
- Using Interactive Whiteboards to Improve Achievement
- iPads in the Classroom
- Education Technology; Teaching Tool or Learning Tool?
- Let’s Take the Children out of E-Safety
