The school is trying to develop mainly in these areas: increasing the practical skills of the students, improving the health of the students, fighting the truancy by developing facultative interesting activities, increasing the cooperation with the parents, supporting the prevention of anti social phenomena, supporting the teaching of world languages and ICT, organizing social events not only for the school itself, but also for the whole village and region. In the last years the school has built sport facilities, computer lab, bought oven for ceramics bee and a football team was established. Besides that the school organizes various culture events in the town, football competition and participates in exchanges with twin towns abroad.

During our research we could only notice a small part of the activities that take place here in the field of implementing the ICT in the wider dimension of the life of the school. The main activity described here takes place mainly in the computer room, where the students meet during lessons as well as in their free time and have large space for communication among them and with the teacher in charge. It is the communication among the students (suggestions, ideas, cooperation on various sub-tasks) that makes the life of the film and video bee very interesting. The main person behind the project, the teacher that initiated it and lead it, has gradually become, due to the spontaneous activities of the students and their increasing skills, rather an advisor and an assistant, who cooperates with the students and corrects their activities, but who is not a dominant figure anymore. He is rather an ordinary participant. The most important fact is that the students organize everything by themselves (e.g. financial matters, etc.). They know what it is about and it leads them towards independent work. [T] Even during regular lessons that this teacher teaches, the students see his approach very different from other teachers. He supports more the individual work of students and group work. The students consider this style of work as more difficult, but much more interesting for them. Also cooperative and project based forms of instruction are implemented. The teacher claims he is trying to use the most adequate methods of evaluation of the students.

The position of the ICT coordinator officially does not exist at the school, as it is not officially recognized within the Czech school system. The only ICT coordinator here is the teacher of IT. It simply must work this way, as there is nobody else to do this work. [SP] The future State Information Policy Plan anticipates this position and, for the start, expects that one teacher teaching less lessons would take care of the coordinating work. But the teacher at this school does it as extra work. Due to the amount of work connected with the ICT coordinating this situation seems as not sustainable in the future. There are also other activities, besides the mere maintenance of the workstations, such as server maintenance, administration of the local computer network and students individual accounts, manipulation with all the film and video equipment and solving other additional requests. The IT teacher is also asked for assistance on other PC workstations outside the PC lab (e.g. the office, the Principals office, the staff room, the registrar, etc). The only possibility of reimbursement of this teacher for these extra activities is by paying him personal benefits. It can only work because of the enthusiasm of the teacher. We will definitely need an extra network administrator in the future [SP]

The original intention of the IT teacher was to share his enthusiasm for film and video with his students. Originally he established the film bee, where the students started to explore the art of motion picture from various aspects. I adopted the empirical method of experience. I abandoned teaching the theory of film. I leave the children to film what they want, and then we sit around and discuss the material and think what could be done better. They learn from their mistakes. [TC] They learnt to make animated pictures on the rotary drum, they scratched or painted their own short sequences directly on the film material. By supporting the natural creativity of the students other directions for development were discovered. These new directions led to the implementation of many new technologies (computer animation, working with the video camera, editing between the camera and the video recorder, adding sound, subtitles, post-productions). Also other means of presentation of the activities were developed (the magazine Otres was established, other extra activities that were originally to promote the magazine and later became independent). In the bee I mainly shoot scenes and then edit them. Last time I was recording the Miss competition. [S] During the years, mainly due to the development and wider availability of the video technology the bee has gradually transformed from the film to video. The work takes place in both lines (the analogue processing - editing, special effects, making subtitles and also mainly the computerized processing – digitalization of the sequences, digital editing and effects available in the program tools, outputs for web presentation, streaming formats, saving on the CD ROM, standard outputs such as screening on the big screen, etc) The students gain above standard knowledge about the film art, they will have the experience and will not be afraid of dealing with people (they will be more self confident – I have achieved something, made something, I have nothing to be ashamed of). Their attitudes to life are changing. [T]

Individual members of the bee achieved many prizes at various amateur and professional competitions, e.g.:

• Young Camera Unicov 1997 – 1st. prize and the Main Prize
• Regional competition Prague 1998 – 2nd place
• The Countrywide competition 1998 Hradec Kralove - Acknowledgement
• Strekov camera 1999 - Acknowledgement
• Juniorfilm Dvur Kralove nad Labem 1998 – 1st. prize (production)
• Juniorfilm Dvur Kralove nad Labem 1998 - 3rd. place
• Juniorfilm Dvur Kralove nad Labem 1998 - 1st. place (director)
• Juniorfilm Dvur Kralove nad Labem 1999 - 1st. place

The students recording the interview of head teacher

The video bee is realized as a voluntary facultative subject and takes place about three lessons a week. But the students use every minute of their free time (at the breaks, after lessons) to go to the computer lab. All the ICT services are free. The children have a free access. General public do not visit the school. The computers may be used even after lessons.“ [SP] The communication among students themselves and also with the teacher creates the base for new ideas, suggestions and tasks. The students have free access to the ICT, to the video cameras; ordinary cameras, graphics workstation and they have the chance to realize their actual ideas. In this case, there is not a significant influence on the curriculum. Actually, as it is only a bee and the cooperation with other teachers is not ideal, there cannot be any big influence on the teaching plans.

But the lessons of the IT teacher have many interesting points. The advantage is that most of this teacher’s lessons take place in the computer lab, so the students are used to the room and the facilities (math lesson, physics lessons, civics etc.). He is trying to implement the ICT and educational software, office software, and nowadays due to the dedicated line connection to the Internet even information services from the WWW. So the children get the notion of computers as tools for obtaining and processing information – not as a thing used for only one subject (IT). This link between Informatics and real life is the greatest benefit for their motivation. There should be more integration of the ICT to other subjects. I would like to see the subject Practical Activities also more ICT focused.

The teachers of the school see the IT teacher not only as an enthusiast for his own subjects, but also as a propagator of cooperative learning, group work on projects and attempts of more active engagement of all the pupils during lessons. I am still trying for better evaluation of the students. I am using the cooperative method (learning in groups) and project based learning. [T]. The IT teacher is also teaching us in other subjects (Physics, Civics) using different methods. He supports more the individual work and work in groups. It is more difficult, but more interesting. [S] Although some colleagues see his attempts positively, there are also other reactions reflecting the values of old traditional methods. The teacher stresses more individual work and group work in the lessons. I like these methods to make the lessons more lively from time to time, but I cannot imagine all the lessons to be like that. [SP] I like working in groups, we do not do it like that in other lessons. [S] Somebody is for it, somebody against it. There are teachers that are enthusiastic for these methods (the younger ones), the older ones do not approve of these activities. [OT] The conduct and respect are not derived from the officially superior position of the teacher, but from the interests of the children and the authority of the teacher that comes naturally, as a friend, bringing and presenting knowledge. Of course I develop closer relationship to the students I cooperate with, sometimes even friendship. [T] The teacher here is more a moderator or an agent. For the beginning it is important to find out if the students are really interested in the activity, not to push them. We should listen to the students more then to ourselves. [T] The free access to the equipment is also a great advantage. The students can even borrow the digital camera, video camera, voice recorder and other equipment home to collect and record the data they will then process in the computer lab. Everything is here and they can use it. There are no restrictions. They can come here. I am here. [TC] From the aspect of property protection and the possible damage, the teacher takes the sole responsibility for the conduct of the students. He is trying to make the access as simple as possible. The students appreciate this benevolent approach and respect the rules. So far, there have not been any serious problems. I like the fact that I can take the camera home when I need it. [S] Also here we can see that the trust returns in the stronger teacher- student relationship. The children develop friendly relationship in the bee, which improves the partner cooperation. [SP]

Although the main focus of this research is on the activities of the video bee as a voluntary facultative activity, we noticed in the discussions with other teachers, students and parents many interesting reactions to the teacher. The common opinion of the bee members was that they worked more independently and actively even in other lessons. I am pleased when I make a film and people enjoy it, discuss it and so on. [S]

The parents seem to be satisfied that their children do something sensible and have an interesting hobby, to which they dedicate their time. The activities around the film bee and the Otres magazine are seen positively because the parents see that their children learn something useful for practical life. [SP] It was interesting to observe the organization of the social event Miss competition. Besides the above-mentioned independence of the students (the teacher only supervised and was giving advice) it could be seen that the cooperation and responsibility of the individual members for their tasks were taken seriously (hosting, sound mastering, lighting, photographing, video recording, etc.). I am the host here and now I was given a role in a short movie. [S] My son was recording the last school social event Miss competition. [P]

A student editing the shots from the Miss competition

So we can see the activities from two main aspects – during their regular meetings in the lab, where they mainly plan their activities, prepare the equipment, divide the task, process the collected materials, and also “in the field”, where they operate video camera, organize and coordinate the activities of their team as well as other people involved. Sometimes the children take work home in order to be able to prepare it better (writing and drawing the sketches, etc.)

Nearly all the activities that involve the use of the ICT take place in the computer lab. There are 11 Pentium 300 MHz computers, specialized video workstation (video-card, fast HD 12GB, RW CDROM, video-recorders, two video-cameras, digital camera, scanner, color printer, connection to the Internet, relevant SW as Adobe Premiere), web and file servers, intranet connection. The lab is also used as a TV studio, where some recordings are made and the key frame effect is also possible.

The MS Windows NT Server 4.0, to which the local MS Windows 98 stations are connected, controls the network. For a long time the connection to the Internet was realized by the dial up, but due to the low reliability, high fees and slow speed of the data transfer it was replaced by the dedicated line of 64Kb/s, which can be used all the time with no limit of the data transferred. This situation suits the WWW and FTP servers (on the Linux platform), where all the information about the projects, work of the students, the school magazine, the video records of the bee members, Internet television, etc. are placed.

The second lab, which is technically and morally obsolete, is not much used for the work on the projects. It is used for the complementary activities in teaching various subjects, where the teachers have relevant educational software. Often the primary school pupils use it, some of the computers were taken to ordinary classrooms. The intention is that the computers would be put to all the classrooms of the primary school, so there is one computer per classroom and the children have unlimited access to it even during the breaks. It would be useful to have one computer per classroom connected to the local network. We would like to establish a new lab and a school information center. [T] So there is in fact only one specialized lab for all the higher grades students and their educational (IT subjects) and project based as well as other voluntary activities, which is definitely not a satisfactory situation.

Probably the most serious problems with the introduction of the project were of technical kind. The IT teacher, who had to fulfill the position of the technology coordinator as well, had to face many technical drawbacks, most often with the specialized video processing software, the installation of additional components to the computers (digital video and sound cards, effects interface, etc.). The problems the bee members had to solve all the time are often understood as a natural way of developing knowledge and skills. As the technological development in this branch is progressing forward very fast, it is also a motivating factor to overcome the difficulties as it opens new, formerly unimaginable, possibilities. For example there are debates on about the best formats of the stream signal and the parameters of the digitalized video packs so it would suit any Internet user the best.

This project itself is unlimited by time. So far it has been going on for five years. Since its beginning, when the film bee was established, it undergone various changes and has quite a variegated history. The school magazine was established, which has proven its place by its five years of successful publishing. A group of students have gathered around it, fresh blood comes from the lower grade classes and the last year students leave. It is financially independent without any need of support. A big problem is that the old hands leave and it takes time before the young lower grade students get trained. But I appreciate that even former students come to see us to help. The children help each other and the age is not a problem. There is a good group of people here. [T] I enjoy working with others. [S]

Also the video bee and the Internet broadcasting - TV Otres (TamTam magazine) have their results. About five documentaries were produced during the first year of their existence. The enthusiasm of the students involved and the interest of others as well as the already approved practices in dealing with the individual tasks promise good ground for successful continuation of the work. Those involved say they can foresee some unexploited possibilities so we can look forward to further development of the project mentioned. The video bee will go on, because I enjoy it as well as the students enjoy it. [T]

We see the problem of transferability in two parts. The project itself - as a facultative voluntary bee - can be used within any alternative school environment. The average equipment of schools would be sufficient for its implementation. I would certainly like to have better equipment here, but I found out that even with worse equipment excellent results can be achieved. [TC] There is no need for extra specialization of the teachers nor there are extra demands on the management.

The computer lab

It is a standard voluntary bee that, under suitable leadership, developed into an independent and growing body. It would also work without the ICT. But with the ICT it is better. It is a tool. We started with one video camera and one video recorder. [TC]

But the enthusiasm and commitment of the teacher remain not transferable. It is mainly the teacher that keeps the things going. If you would like to do similar activity, contact me and I will help you. [T] The activities would go on without him for some time, but at the first drawback, without his commitment to the project, there would be problems. This activity can take place at any school, but it is important to have someone like our IT teacher. [S] The human factor is probably the week place of our school system. It is a shame that so many talented people are leaving schools. If they still are at school, the management should do their best to keep them there. [TC] Within the State Information Policy and through various projects we are getting the means, but there is a risk that these will not be suitably used because of the situation of the teachers, Young and enthusiastic people are needed. They will find the means. [T] But the position of these people is not ideal in our school system. So even for this reason the project is admirable. This activity does not depend that much on money and the equipment, but it depends on the people (teachers, students). [T]

From our observations at the ZS Hluboka we have seen many activities, also outside of the school, connected to the video bee. From the posters advertising a school event, a school magazine, and interviews with the local people, to the opinions of the Mayor and the people from the Town Hall we have seen that the school is reflected as a respectable and useful institution. I know what is going on at the school. I also read the school magazine Otres, the school makes short films for us, sometimes I hand over the awards etc. [A] The bee also fulfills the role of an information channel between the school and the parents (the magazine and the Internet broadcasting) and the initiator of various social events. The activities also have a regional impact (cultural and sports events, the theatre, further development of the school). The children from the video bee are present at every event. They make the video documentation. [SP] The question is not why this school is exceptional, but why these activities are not natural for other schools as well. A school like this one may be considered as an envoy, bringing examples of what can be done, if there is a will.

In Prague   9.7.2001

Jiri Leipert Frantisek Vistein Department of Information Technology Charles University Faculty of Education Prague, Czech Republic