Castle Vale Students bring amazing people to life in the classroom
December 2012
Christopher Columbus and Michelangelo visited and spoke to students at Castle Vale School recently. With the aid of modern technology, avatars of the great explorer and the world famous artist presented their life stories.
A group of year nine students from Castle Vale were able to see the world through a new pair of eyes and came face to face with some of the amazing people who changed our world.
Amazing People Worldwide had launched a demonstration version of their new educational multimedia platform ‘Amazing People Schools’. Students and teachers at Castle Vale were the first to trial this unique classroom resource.
Part interview, part biography, the stories enable teachers to bring inspiring people like Columbus, Michelangelo, Shakespeare and Curie direct to the classroom via the interactive whiteboard, laptop or iPad.
The life stories were developed by educational psychologist Dr Charles Margerison and the Amazing People Schools education team, to make the lives of amazing people more accessible. The amazing people shared their stories and gave the students insights into the obstacles they had to overcome to achieve success, in avatar, audio and text format. These inspirational stories can help raise aspirations and enable educators to counteract negative role models with positive ones, thus encouraging the development of good characteristics.
Castle Vale has really embedded amazing people into the school ethos this year. Every corridor and display board is bursting with inspirational quotes and advice from amazing people throughout history. It has helped students to see that amazing people also faced obstacles and that success is often hiding just round the corner.
But, what did the students make of the life stories and avatars? They were really keen to give their feedback to the Amazing People Schools team, and to help shape the classroom of the future. Lacey said, ‘the moving face features and accents helped make it more fun and improved my concentration.’ Another student, Kiera, said she had remembered more: ‘I learnt more because you get told by a first person perspective and you saw what Christopher Columbus’ lifestyle was like, I remembered more than reading a book.’ Kayleigh felt, ‘it was intriguing to watch and see images of what Columbus saw.’
Students at Castle Vale also displayed their own ambitions during the focus groups, Xerxes recommended ‘having our own Avatars and writing our own biographies on the site’ while Christopher had been inspired by Columbus’ attitude to life: ‘He’s made me believe in myself, he wanted to sail round the world and he did it, if you really want to do something, believe in yourself and you might be able to do it.’
Mabon Ruth Jones, who led a Geography lesson using the Amazing People content felt the stories had worked extremely well, students really engaged with the resource, it brought their learning to life more than a standard textbook.’
Penny Alexander, from the Amazing People Education Team said: ‘It was an exciting morning where the amazing people of the past came face to face with the amazing people of the future. The students really engaged, not just with the facts about Columbus and Michelangelo, but with their personalities, emotions and back stories. It is amazing to see how the school has used the legacies of amazing people to inspire learning.’
Dr Charles Margerison, founder of Amazing People Worldwide and Amazing People Schools, is a Psychologist. As well as working in educational organisations for many years, he has consulted widely for major corporates in the fields of organizational and educational psychology. He was previously Professor of Management at Cranfield University, UK, and the University of Queensland, Australia. He founded Amazing People Worldwide in 2006 and is supported by a dedicated global team. Dr Margerison is a member of the Royal Institution, Royal Society of Literature, Historical Association, and Association of Business Psychology. He previously co-founded Emerald Publishing Ltd, and Team Management Systems, a team-building tool, which is now used in 190 countries worldwide.