ICT AND EXTERNAL SPACES Designing for Schools By Chris Winn and Michelle Martin

ICT AND EXTERNAL SPACES Designing for Schools Who are We and What Do we Do? Grounds and Landscape Services are based in County Hall, Taunton and provide the following services: Landscape Design (Adventure Gardens, Wildlife and Sensory Gardens, Natural Play Areas, All weather play, Outdoor classrooms and play Equipment design and Installation) Play Equipment inspection, Grounds Maintenance Procurement, Sports pitch design procurement (Artificial turf pitches and Multi-Use-Games Areas) and Tree Management. 2 Landscape Architects, 1 Play Equipment Inspector, 1 Arboricultural Officer and 1 Principle Grounds and Landscape Officer

ICT AND EXTERNAL SPACES Designing for Schools Design Choices To Design for specific spaces and a specific design criteria: - Early Years Garden - Wildlife/Science Garden - Forest School - Sensory Garden - Play/Adventure Area

ICT AND EXTERNAL SPACES Designing for Schools Design Choices To create a Master Plan – a cohesive design strategy for the whole of a school’s grounds - To create an inclusive teaching and learning environment - Holistic approach to meeting the needs of the school’s curriculum - To be able to optimise the use of ICT within the external Environment

ICT AND EXTERNAL SPACES Designing for Schools Elements within a Landscape Design Brief To create a space which: - Develops communication and interaction - Encourages personal, social and emotional development - Create opportunities for problem solving and reasoning - Allow for exploration of natural environment and support science curriculum - Make provision for physical activity (lower and upper body strength and balance, coordination) - Make provision for creative activity (role play and artistic development) - Allow for micro/macro play (variety of scales)

ICT AND EXTERNAL SPACES Designing for Schools Why Introduce ICT into the External Environment Technologies with a visual dimension – digital video, photography, video conferencing – encourage pupils and provide a stimulus for collaborative working and discussion. Where pupils are in control of technology, it gives them a sense of ownership and control of the learning process The external landscape has endless resources and it gives a sense of freedom. Learning often doesn’t feel like learning when you are being hands-on and it feels like play

ICT AND EXTERNAL SPACES Designing for Schools Design Features - Change of levels and height (mounds, tunnels, boulders and bridges). (Digitally record journeys – camcorder or web cam) - Variety of texture and colour in materials (record noises, assess material composition record data onto spread sheets and netbook) - Performance spaces – can be fitted with Wifi connection and external speakers/sound system. Video link-up. - Diverse planting – native, sensory, ecological – digital camera, video, web research, on-line sharing of data, blogs - Area for water play (Digital recording/video water experiments) - Horticulture /growing areas (digitally record /photograph growth rates) - Multi-Purpose covered shelters – Wifi, netbooks

ICT AND EXTERNAL SPACES Designing for Schools Eat-a-Metre Project A curriculum rich project using the central premise of growing 1m2 of vegetables and other plants. By studying the plants growth the students use five main pieces of technology to discover learning: - Hand held data logger (netbook) - Information is fed into a data base - Digital cameras provide a record of the projects progress - Digital microscopes give detailed analysis of seeds, pests and disease - Computers and related software create reports and make presentations. Create a growing blog for the internet.

ICT AND EXTERNAL SPACES Designing for Schools Learning Through Landscapes Project GIS (Geographic Information System) in school grounds – a programme designed to encourage the use of ICT for learning outdoors. - Hand held digital computers enable mapping of the school - Survey physical features - Records environmental data - Uses satellite imagry or the demographics of an areas -Pilot Scheme – Contact LTL

ICT AND EXTERNAL SPACES Designing for Schools Small Scale ICT Tools Web cams in bird and bat boxes Netbooks Digital cameras/videos Wifi connection in outdoor spaces External projection screens Projectors Computer Aided Design (Record and design your eat-a-metre) Digital microscopes Data bases Internet blogs Computer conferencing to connect you to other schools Sound system/speakers Michelle Martin and Chris Winn /