Can we Analyse our Design Work by Talking About it?

We had a great PD session after school today at Stonefields School. We were working together on iPad use in the classroom and I was part of a great group lead by +Michelle George. We were looking at using the Explain Everything app. Listening to Michele explain how she used the app in the classroom, giving us tips on the basics and how to share templates and activities with students using the Teacher Dashboard and the smart copy function. It was giving me some great ideas and one in particular that I want to try out quite soon on my Level 1 students.

I have set up a very simple template for analysis of design work. The students are designing posters at the moment to display the work of a famous architect, and they have to explain their design choices using design terms and elements.

I have put in a selection of questions for them to answer and a space for them to add a picture of the design they are analysing.

The plan is for them to find this template in their graphics folder, as I will have put it there via smart copy on the dashboard and they will download and open it in Explain Everything.
They can then put a copy of one of their design developments in place and record them selves talking about their design.

My big questions are :-

• Will this help the students who are not so hot at the writing of their design analysis?
• Can the students do a better analysis when they are talking about it instead of typing / writing?
• Can the students explain better when they are talking about it? 
• Can they give a more realistic opinion on a design when talking about it?

This work is internally assessed, so a verbal analysis will be fine, and the video file can be embedded on their Google sites as evidence.

Here is my example when I tried this out ....