BSF is a Government funded scheme to rebuild or remodel every state secondary school in the UK. Knottingley is just beginning the development of its BSF plans and wanted to inspire everyone at the school to think differently about what a school could be.
Apollo provided three themed areas for the day. I gave short introductions to each area and explained how they might be used to inspire learning. Everyone was able to explore the areas and ask questions later in the day. A separate session was also provided for all the teachers and support staff at the school.
The Theatre
Seen in the background of the image below, this was a simple theatre stage where sensors were used by performers to control the lighting, sounds and effects. The stage was setup for performing an exert from Macbeth, complete with smoking cauldron, eerie lighting and thunder crashes.
The chill-out zone
Designed for informal learning and to help relax students, this incorporated bubble tubes and soft play elements.
Interactive corridor
This was what we call a 'proof of concept' demo using Apollo Ensemble technology. Designed to address the issue of lots of lcd screens appearing around schools with very little relevance to students, the Apollo version identifies and responds to individual students. Using ID cards the monitor can tell which student is stood infront of it and repsonds by displaying useful information - the students photo and timetable, excerpts of recently handed-in work, audio prompts for the next lessons in the day, reminders of deadlines and so on.
The demo used some of the students pre-prepared data, but in the future would pull all this information directly from the schools computers. It also helps solve the problem of how work generated digitally can be displayed to parents and visitors.
Our thanks to:
- Camel Event Production for the lighting and effects rigging
- Futurelab for additional literature and background resources for the day
