Numu, the safe, social networking site for young people passionate about music was a big supporter of the Music Manifesto's State of Play conference. Hundreds of delegates took part in workshops and many made the most of generous offers to sign up to the service for free.
Here, Cliff Manning from Numu, gives an update on the impact of the initiative since then:
The State Of Play Conference was an inspirational event for many teachers and practitioners and its impact will no doubt be long lasting. For those delegates who took advantage of the exclusive NUMU offer the event is already having a very positive impact on young peoples' learning right across the curriculum.
Developing literacy skills is not an obvious outcome when thinking about the average music lesson at key stage 3, however, literacy is very much the focus of an exciting new approach being developed at Kingswood Arts College in Hull.
After attending Sate of Play in January, Head of music Alexine Johnson was inspired to use music as a catalyst for learning across the curriculum. Together with her colleague Claire Petrov, the Cross Curriculum ICT Coordinator, they have developed a series of workshops using NUMU to deliver Music, ICT and Literacy for lower achieving year 7 and 8 pupils.
NUMU
NUMU is a safe, social networking site for young people to create web portfolios, share their music and write reviews. It has been developed through extensive Musical Futures action research and is now being used in schools across the UK.
With literacy standards high on the agenda at Kingswood, Alexine and Claire saw the potential of NUMU to deliver a wide range of learning opportunities with music at the centre.
"We decided we could use a bulk of time to enhance their skills in ICT and enhance their understanding of music theory as well."
Listening
In the first term each class is taken off timetable for a morning and introduced to the website. Students create their own usernames and log in to the site. One of the first tasks is simply listening. Students are asked to visit other NUMU members' pages and make a top ten of their favourite songs. Hearing music made by other young people their age from across the UK is not only engaging but helps to contextualise and motivate students for the other tasks in the workshop.
Comments and Profiles
An important part of NUMU is peer review and comments. Young people can leave comments on each other's pages to show support, review and connect with others.
"One of our concerns is always literacy which this really helps with, [students] are representing themselves through their writing. They love to have other people's comments on their work and they love commenting on others. I think it's important that they realise there's a wider world."
To develop their own online identity students are encouraged to write a profile about themselves and write entries in their blogs. This provides an opportunity for them to immediately reflect on the workshop activities and further develop their ICT and writing skills.
"A major part of their project is connectives… making sure they are using proper English when commenting on music. They are actually talking to each other in a lot of detail about why they do or don't like it and their language is improving."
Safety
Once students have added their profiles and blogs, NUMU allows Alexine and Claire to check all entries and provide individual feedback to students through private messages. Safety on the web is a very real concern for teachers and with NUMU they can be sure their students only have contact with other young people and that they can control what is put live to the public.
"The resources are there and it's user friendly - a lot of packages are too complex."
Engagement
One of the main challenges faced by Alexine and Claire was engaging students long enough to develop their ICT and Literacy skills. Presented in this new way, and with music at the heart of the learning on NUMU, the excitement and engagement amongst students is very strong.
"The response has been very good. Behaviour has been very good. If there's no behaviour issues they are obviously very interested in what they are doing."
For particularly difficult students the workshops have proved a real breakthrough not only in terms of behaviour but also in participation. The range of activities and skills being developed enables all students to benefit.
"One student was almost climbing into the computer screen because he wanted to share his opinions in a constructive way with his peers…if it engages those students who are normally more difficult to reach then it's been a great activity for them."
Alexine and Claire have ensured that even limited resources such as headphones can contribute to students' learning.
"We have limited headphones to use…the Every Child Matters SMSC is a huge push at the moment and this is making them aware they are working in a community"
ICT Skills
Each school on NUMU has their own online record label where they can showcase their school and celebrate the music being made. In the second half of the workshop there is a group discussion about branding, logos and how that applies to their NUMU label. Students start by sketching out logo ideas then move on to using graphics editing software such as Corel Draw to complete their designs.
"I've seen progress with their use of ICT…the way they are describing the music and the way they are using the site - you can see evidence of progress straight away"
By combining graphics software, web skills and design the NUMU workshop delivers ICT skills in a consistently broad way.
"We try and endorse cross applications of software - this morning they've used a graphics software alongside a music website which wouldn't normally happen. The opportunity to use more than one piece of software in cross applications without any behaviour issues or barriers to learning is great."
"This is a fantastic package for ICT and Music learning"
Support
The project based approach which Alexine and Claire are developing at Kingswood could prove challenging to other teachers. It requires a much more facilitative approach to support students in the tasks they want to achieve rather than teacher led lessons. It also requires good collaboration between the departments and a willingness to be flexible.
"If you do get it wrong it's not a problem because no project runs smoothly - as long as you're flexible."
Gaining the support of senior management is important and with positive results already Alexine and Claire are confident the project can continue and develop.
"There's growing support for interventions like this within school so we have quite good support from senior management because they can see the progress being made."
NUMU is also going to be used with KS4 students on the new BTEC Music course starting at Kingswood.
"The site will work with students of Music BTEC but also encourage other students at KS4 to become part of the music ethos of the school. For those who aren't doing music at KS4 it still gives them an outlet and access to music."
Next Steps
For the year 7 and 8 students the next term will see them composing their own music and publishing it on NUMU for others to listen to and review.
In the meantime students can access their pages any time they have internet access - whether at school or at home. The opportunity to develop beyond the classroom extends the reach of the initial workshop and also lets the students gain confidence. As a result a thriving Kingswood community is developing safely on NUMU.
At Kingswood State Of Play and NUMU are already making a difference in the way Music and ICT are being taught. For staff, music learning is now at the heart of cross curricular learning. And for the students? Well they are too busy listening, reviewing and creating music to see the change…
To start using NUMU in your school or for more information on training, support or onsultation contact info@numu.org.uk 0113 2469989
More links:
NUMU: www.numu.org.uk
Kingswood Arts College's record label: www.numu.org.uk/kingswood
Musical Futures: www.musicalfutures.org.uk
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