A few months ago, I was discussing digital imaging equipment with Hilary Norton from Tower Hamlets for an upcoming school connection programme she would be running in Bangladesh. Hilary has very kindly used the cameras, microphones and tripods purchased as part of this project to record some excellent footage of the equipment being used and even found time for a live debate - eat your heart out Brown, Clegg & Cameron!!
Connecting schools in Tower Hamlets with 5 high schools in Sunamganj, Sylhet, Bangladesh..
The trip to Bangladesh was successful, the cameras were brilliant. I was SO pleased with them. I wasn’t sure what hardware and software they would have and when I checked out the Jubilee High School ICT suite (the only one in Sunamganj) I found that they had about 15 computers (some not working L) and a projector. We were very lucky to have a computer suite (VERY rare in B'desh) with a computer attached to a projector BUT the intermittent power cuts (one every hour or so) made it exciting :-/ The computer had Windows XP and Movie Maker etc loaded phew. I took Microsoft Photostory 3 with me and Audacity and was able to load them onto the computer too. ( I also took a pack of codecs, file converters etc just in case!!)
I wasn't sure how much experience the teachers there would have had with digital cameras so had to be prepared for anything. As it turned out very few of them had used digital cameras so the Fuji cameras were perfect since they were simple to use (separate buttons for still photography and video photography and playback)
I downloaded the manual onto my computer so that I could display the diagram of the camera as I demonstrated that buttons to use. We spent some time practicing taking pictures: being careful of the light, focusing on our subject ; and taking videos: moving the camera smoothly and slowly, checking sound and light.
I had to teach how to take pictures/videos from the cameras and put them onto the computers, then we used Movie Maker to make short films to support citizenship teaching. (voxpop, debates, interviews etc) I was working with colleagues who were teaching citizenship so we taught our Bangladeshi colleagues how to make voxpop films and how to conduct and film debates and how to give interviews.
We worked with students (year 9) too and they picked up Movie Maker really quickly, and some of them used Audacity to edit sound files...
We left a camera and easispeak MP3 player with each of the 5 (secondary) schools in Sunamganj when we left and hope to continue to share films and resources.
Thank you so much for the cameras! :-)
