The Director’s Corner: Getting Creative with Recording Booths

There is a plethora of creative and innovative energy in my classroom (well, there is in every classroom) so as an enthusiastic educator in a 1:1 iPad environment I had to find ways to harness and make effective use of this energy.

Ever since I began my teaching journey I have wanted to create a diverse learning environment where students could have access to endless opportunities to create, make, collaborate and innovate to their hearts desires. I wanted a learning environment that made learning purposeful, meaningful and engaging. After attending professional development opportunities, conducting my own research and collaborating with other educators I came up with an idea to create a special section in my classroom where students could use their creativity and a specific set of skills to enhance learning. This section became “The S3B Director’s Corner.” The corner consists of:

• a green screen attached to one of our classroom walls. (purchased off eBay)
• a tripod with an iPad mount. (purchased off eBay)
• two classroom desks.
• four iPad recording booths. (made up of acoustic sound foam and fabric storage boxes)

Our corner is simply used to respond to everyday classroom tasks. I believe it helps cater to a wide variety of learning needs in my class, provides significant opportunities to develop 21st century learning skills and most importantly creates a buzz and excitement for learning. Once one student starts to green screen for a project or task, the rest follow and they all teach and collaborate with one another. I have include below some student work samples that have been created in The S3B Director’s Corner.

Click on the link to see a student’s Chatterpix recorded in the iPad recording booths from a maths lesson about probability.

Click on the link to see an Adobe Spark Video recorded in one of the iPad recording booths from a maths lesson about probability.

Click on the link to see a green screen about a sustainable product a student invented for a science project.

Click on the link to see a green screen about Ned Kelly that a student created for a history project.

We are still learning the ins and outs of the director’s corner and how to best support our learning with this wonderful resource. It has taken time and will continue to take time for students to learn how to utilise this efficiently and not as a gimmick. With quality teaching driving the learning the possibilities are endless.

I must make special mention to Blair Smith (@mrsmiths56class) as on his blog “blairsmithteaching” http://bit.ly/2oZyx6Y I found the amazing idea for the iPad recording booths. These are a fantastic innovative idea that significantly help reduce background classroom noise and help students create high quality audio recordings. They are also just really fun to use and give students a bit of peace, quiet and focus when creating and learning.

I believe that learning needs to be purposeful, relevant and engaging. The S3B director’s corner along with quality pedagogy help achieve those three things. I have seen and continue to see amazing things from my students. I believe this is due to a variety of reasons. One of these reasons is because my students have been provided with many opportunities (like having access to a green screen and iPad recording booths) to express themselves freely and creatively alongside quality teaching. I believe if you trust your students and give them unique tools and opportunities for learning you can almost guarantee that they will sort out the rest for you.

If you have any questions in regards to any of the things I have written about in this post or you would like to find out more about what goes on in my classroom, please feel free to contact me via twitter. Happy teaching!

Cain Holgate
Teaching and Learning Specialist
Children’s Yoga Instructor & Fitness Coach Stage 3 Educator
Kiama, NSW
Apple Teacher
Google Certified Educator
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