Research into creative practice has highlighted how it can re-awaken teachers desire to teach. Empowering pupils with edujam can enable a whole school community to enjoy the outcomes of creative practice in ways that were never previously possible.

This change is cultural, powerful, very challenging and like any change, scary at the same time.

However, schools using edujam as highlighted in this guest column, see that it can energise their pupils, adding flexibility and extending learning. It can really enhance communication and relationships between pupils, teachers and parents across your school community to reap benefits such as :

* Pupil engagement right across the curriculum.
* Encouragement of creativity.
* Publication and sharing of a range of art forms.
* Independent, purposeful learning and peer assessment.
* Greater sense of ownership and achievement.
* Empowerment of teaching staff and assistants.
* Extension of learning with pupils taking their learning and achievements into their home.
* Empowerment of parents to take a much more supportive role.

However, as with anything in life, what you get out depends on what you put in. We know that pupils take to using edujam like ducks to water and so your role in giving purpose, encouragement and empowering pupils will soon become the biggest key to the benefits above.

Having worked with teachers using edujam for the last couple of years a few simple approaches seem to work really well. 

Start by planning something simple.

Any kind of literacy based work, fables, poetry, stories is a good place to start and it is a good idea to keep the ICT required very basic. Some pupils may prefer to do this kind of work on paper which they photograph or scan, keeping things really simple. Alternatively, work can be done on a simple wordprocessor, perhaps with an illustration behind it and an audio reading added as a good activity to start with. Some pupils will quickly endeavour to use more sophisticated media capture and presentation tools rich in audio, powerpoints, videos and animations as resources allow and their ICT confidence and skill grows. Of course it is not about the ICT, it is the learning, skills, creativity, enjoyment for all pupils regardless of age and ability, along with your enjoyment in planning, assessing and becoming confident with edujam that matters.

Get into the hand in via edujam habit with your pupils

You may find that as a teacher you are being encouraged by your pupils to add more opportunity for creativity into your lessons in order that they can have more work to put into their jam studios! This motivational aspect of edujam encourages pupils to feel a strong sense of ownership for their studio and to actively think more creatively about their work.  Once any activity based learning and access by pupils of their Jam Studios has started, make sure that you login daily so you are aware of work handed in to be assessed. Your pupils will be keen to receive feedback from their hard work so please try not to keep them waiting any longer than is necessary.

Share with your class, ideas to inspire from peers

There are now thousands of creative outputs from pupils as a result of core curriculum activities. Teachers can easily access and use pupils’ work as teaching tools alongside their own resources. This offers staff ideas, examples of creative practice, it is also a  fantastic way to promote good work and inspire your pupils as creative producers. Further details about how to access these creative outputs from pupils are shown here.

Don’t plan, encourage ownership, embracing their culture and interests 

More and more pupils are being encouraged to produce and share content about their own passions and personal interests. Encouraging pupils to enjoy using edujam in this way alongside core curriculum activities, seems to be hugely motivating for you as a teacher and pupils alike and can help to strengthen relationships between the two. Indeed this seems to make quite a difference in the extent to which pupils feel ownership and the subsequent educational benefits.

For example, Miriam Buchan, teacher at Shirenewton School, has been delighted with the stream of poems her class has kept producing since they completed a block of work on poetry back in the Spring Term of 2008. Indeed her class produced over 180 digital masterpieces over a term. Edujam has helped to give her pupils new purpose and a desire to continue to write poetry. Miriam has also enjoyed seeing the confidence and self esteem of pupils grow, especially if they were not always the first to put their hand up in the dynamic of a whole class situation. Use of edujam can offer every pupil a safe place to feel good about their talents regardless of age and ability or preference in subject and art form.

Your approach to planning initial,  ongoing activities to be handed in via edujam, as well as simply encouraging flexible use driven by the energy and interests of pupils themselves has shown to be the biggest key to sustainable success and the benefits above.

We hope you will enjoy being in receipt of pupil’s creativity as a part of your planned curriculum activities and your pupils own energies.

Meanwhile, if your school has been using edujam for a while and you are on th look out for new curriculum opportunities, activity based learning we have in edujam’s Headroom details of;

Exciting Curriculum Activities with recipes and books. 

Enthralling Active Drama Workshops.

Options to safely extend audience / creative community with other schools.

It seems that using examples of work created by other pupils can be very inspiring and pupils love it when teachers promote their good work!

Teachers registered to a school using edujam can search for examples of work. Popular search terms used by staff are:

Simply Login to assess work by entering your Jam ID and password in the boxes on the right, click on the Staff Room button and then select from the menu, Search existing Jams,

Select a Keystage, Subject if you wish or just enter a keyword such as the examples above if you are looking for a particular theme or topic.

Examples of pupils work, in a range of artforms including, literacy, pictures, readings, audio, powerpoint presentations, animations and video can be accessed to inspire the pupils in your class. 

Edujam cic was founded as a community interest company to ensure an appropriate and sustainable legal framework existed to encourage the safe sharing of creative outputs by members of staff registered to a school. We hope that your teaching staff will wish to add the enjoyment of sharing creative outputs from other pupils to their classroom activities and in this way promote examples of good work.