Mothership Visit

Today Lynn and I visited Lori Ramsay and the Mothership project at Lourdes Secondary School.  Lori showed us her classroom and recording studio.  The Mothership project is a secure website offering an educational resource to pupils attending a selection of primary and secondary schools in Glasgow.  Lori is working on expanding this across Glasgow and into Yorkhill hospital school sector.  The Mothership provides schools with an area to showcase pupil work including artwork, music recordings, short-films and a pupil led radio station as well as a revision area where they can access teacher resources.  Lori is developing the idea of teacher avatars to help with homework and exam revision.

I was interested in this project from an ICT and Enterprise perspective.  The pupils have embraced the project with enthusiasm and motivation, they have secured funding from advertisements on the radio broadcasts to cover the running costs of their site.  This is a ‘real life’ project where pupils use industry standard broadcasting equipment to produce high quality studio recordings.  Bands submit CDs and a playlist is decided upon by the pupils.   Many of Lori’s students move on to further study at local colleges and universities to pursue a career in the sound engineering and music industries, the pupils are well equipped with the knowledge and skills having studied to Higher and Advanced Higher levels.

I liked the cross-curricular examples of pupils using the Garageband to record stories and add sound effects and compose background music to emphasize the mood of the writing.  This had huge impact for pupils with additional support needs and gave them the opportunity to produce a piece of high quality work which otherwise may have been illegible.

The day highlighted to me the need for more ‘vocational’ courses and the need for an updated curriculum to be offered in schools.  Curriculum for Excellence is an oppportunity to revolutionise the Scottish education system, but I worry that as outcomes are being upacked across the country many teachers will opt to carry on doing the same old lessons albet under a different name.  CfE is challenging us to completely rethink the way in which teachers/departments at a Secondary level teach.  Is there a place for more use of industry experts and college lecturers in schools?  If so how does this impact the teaching profession? 

John @ Sandaig Primary has also visited Lori and there is a detailed write up on his blog.  Here is an interview with Lori.