School name:  Kirby Moor SEN Secondary School in Brompton

Teacher: Marilyn Tinkler

Project Name: Not Such Crazy Talk

Twinned with: Romania

Pedagogical Innovation and Creativity

Our project uses current ICT technology and brings our curriculum into the 21st century. We have learned to move with the times, researching new and innovative ideas and looking at ways we can use them to make our curriculum more exciting and relevant to each student. Using the news from our schools, and sharing information personal to our schools and students has ensured that everyone has an interest in the project and is prepared to work together. It has helped us in basic communication skills and has given a strong sense of purpose to our teaching and learning.

Partner Collaboration

The activities are reciprocal and are usually exchanges equally shared. Sometimes it may be as simple as an e mail to make comments on a film or photograph; There are no set rules or restrictions on the quantity of exchanges. Teachers collaborate on ideas for activities, current topics and new tools. Students share ideas via their work and the production of news items and make comments on each others' activities.

Use of ICT

Crazytalk is a great tool for bringing photographs to life, either students own pictures, or pictures from the internet. Students love to create characters to tell their stories. music and video is something all our students are keen to learn more about and practise their skills in. smilebox is an amazing tool for sharing photographs and text in very simple, but very professional looking slideshows, albums and films. being able to add their own music and incorporate film clips has encouraged students to be more adventurous. Other simple, free software including moviemaker, voki's and photostory 3 are also excellent tools.

Results and Benefits

Our simple project has proven beneficial across the whole curriculum, literacy, language and communication and ICT skills, but in particular it has proved to be invaluable in raising the self esteem and motivation of previously disaffected students. It has opened up opportunities for our students (and our teachers) to learn about their peers from other parts of Europe without cost or travel. It has given students purpose for their studies and encouraged staff development in the form of seminars and workshops. It has helped Kirby Moor school to gain the intermediate international school award.