Tutorial

Yesterday, I had a tutorial with my Lecturer and I gave him an initial proposal. I also completed all my tasks that I had aimed to do before yesterday, so I am on track.

We spoke about my research and developments and he suggested some helpful points, which have changed my idea from doing a three dimensional, practical art based scheme to doing an interactive based scheme which allows the teacher to conduct the class by going through say an electronic class. There could be a series of six classes in a module? 

Another idea was rather than just base the scheme on Art, why not establish key skills and relate these to a Disney character? For example, Mickey could be related to helping with maths, Minnie may help with spellings, Goofy helping with science... therefore, the children will develop recognition of a character to helping them with a particular subject. I really like this idea but the main idea of creating this scheme would be to fill the gaps which teachers recognise as weaknesses, therefore aiming to help the children understand hard topic areas which the teachers are finding difficult to address to the children.

I mentioned that Disney already have an existing educational program in the USA named Disney Educational Productions. This targets aged 4 - 11 year old children and associates presenters of television programmes aired on the Disney Channel, to a specific subject or issue. All of the work modules are priced at around $29.99 per DVD/workbook and integrate the National Curriculum for States or the USA as a whole into each class of work. 

For example, Bill Nye presents a science related television programme on the Disney Channel, therefore, Disney Educational Productions have their science related classes (DVDs and workbooks) all presented by Bill Nye. 

An idea would be to bring the Educational Productions into the UK with the same work, but make it more British. I liked this idea at first, but making the USA based projects match with the UK National Curriculum with American presenters and such is not likely to work too well, I feel it may over complicate how I am going to create the work modules and promote them. Why would teachers want an American television presenter from Disney Channel showing a science theme to a class in a disadvantaged area of the UK?

So the idea needs some ironing out, but I think I am going to keep to my target audience of primary school children and their teachers. The main developments will come from my primary research as I will find out what the teachers and children want respectively and will create my work modules based on their needs and the current National Curriculum, how children learn, which Disney characters they like or would repsond to the most, how interactivity within the classes could benefit or not....

Next aims:

• Contact local primary schools for permission to conduct my primary research. I want to video/audio record my research so I can use as inspiration very often.
• Adapt my proposal in accordance with the new plans described above and email to my Lecturer.
• Read through and take notes from lots of books that I got yesterday at the University Library.
• Define my questions of what I need to ask the teachers and children when I go to the schools.