Monday 31 January 2011

Architecture with 4o ESO TEC at the Southbank


Have you ever really taken the time to look up?!  We did!
All too often we make our journeys in the city without observing our surroundings, but on Thursday 27th January, 20 students of 4o ESO Tec spent a whole day doing just that!
We set off from IECB at approx. 9.30am armed with clipboards, maps and info and a 2B pencil (ideal for quick sketches).  After an easy tube ride to Waterloo, we began our Architecture trail...








Just in time, at the Design Museum we were all given a badge.  We had our lunch in the lovely cafe (not usually open to groups, but exceptions were made for our well behaved students).  A little piece of chocolate brownie each gave us some extra energy to begin the afternoon's adventures!  Coats and bags safely stowed away in a big plastic tub, we were ready to climb the stairs to John Pawson's 'Plain Space' exhibition.  First struck by a serene looking white space behind a wall of light fabric, the students quickly moved off to explore ...

Tuesday 25 January 2011

Web site critiques - 4o ESO INF

This term 4o ESO Informatica students have begun Unit 6 of the course: 'The Internet'.  Having established that the existence of the World Wide Web and the use of websites is extremely important to 21st century living, from Social networking to online shopping, students had a closer look at some of their most known and used sites...


Working in pairs a website was selected then it's true purpose was discussed.  The students then began to analyse the site's design, layout and format  - use of text, colour, images, video, need for advertising, links, navigation etc.  They then made a judgement of how popular the site is within its genre and amongst the target audience.  Finally personal opinions were formed and ideas for improvement noted.  Olivia Rodriguez and Adam Vigo had conflicting tastes in simplicity and detail, so decided to compare and contrast Olivia's Dad's company website with 'Disney'.

Alex Garcia stumbled across a very badly designed site created by his namesake, Alex Garcia - the purpose of this site is yet unknown and its contents very difficult to decipher! 
Having prepared notes on various areas (I supplied a proforma for clarity), the students presented their findings to the group.   Some giants of the internet business world were excellently scrutinised by Vanessa Gimenez and Abel Marques - 'Apple',  Jessica Walters and Luis Bercera - 'Amazon', Demir Sezer and Daniel Castillo - 'YouTube', among others.  Equally, some lesser-known but well-enjoyed sites were explored - Patricia Mbula, Nadir Robles and our new student, Irene Guiller shared information 'asco de vida' on which people can post funny stories and anecdotes.   Stefano Martinez and Sofie Martinez shared their thoughts on 'antenna3', Marcos Alexander and Particia Gallardo introduced us to 'iM1 music' and with Michael Hindle and Belinda Osma we learnt about an internet celebrity gamer on 'King of Hate' - scary!

Well done!

4o ESO Textile Toys

In the Winter Term students of 4o ESO Tecnologia studied Textiles Technology.
Their design brief was to design and make a Fabric Toy for a child of 4/5 years old that would be in some way educational.  After extensive research into existing products, fabric types and their properties, components (e.g. Build-a-sound recording devices), construction techniques and sewing machine function, some excellent ideas grew!


After a month of hard work, cutting patterns, selecting fabrics, printing, painting and sewing, a broad array of products were finally complete!  'Hospital bed' by Nadir Robles, with which children can discover the location of various body organs and 'Rag doll' by Selma Azzubair which has detachable labels for body parts in both Spanish and English and 'Card creature' with a pocket for learning flashcards by Natalia Porras, all encourage bilingual word recognition.  
Other students focussed their attentions on emotive response and memory - 'scary doll' by Marcos Alexander, 'red teddy bear' by Marcos Paez and 'brush your teeth pillow' by David Paez.  Many of the ideas were inspired by movement - Andres Cespedes' aeroplane and play balls produced by David Romero and Micahel Hindle.  Patricia Mbula chose literacy as a point of interest with an applique alphabet pillow.  


On Tues 18th and Fri 21st of Jan the students finally put their toys to the test by presenting their work to Primaria students of the 'Osos' and 'Leones'.  With the assistance of teachers Mercedes and Dori, we all had a lot of fun playing with the toys!  Primaria children questioned the ESO toy makers about the materials they used and how they sewed them together (David Romero, Michael Hindle, Anna Martinez and Nuria Cuesta gave excellent accounts).
The primaria toy testers are currently producing drawings and ideas for improving the toys.  Particular favourites were 'The market', a very detailed playmat made by Carla Ramirez that helps with numeracy, animal and food recognition, an expertly stitched 'purse doll' by Guillermo Satue and an innovative soft ipod by Alex Garcia, complete with picture of Johnny Depp and the 'Pirates of Caribbean' theme tune!


CONGRATULATIONS to all 4o ESO students involved in this project - your hard work and dedication really paid off!  
THANK YOU Osos and Leones for enjoying the toys with us and giving us all excellent feedback!

Photos by Patricia Mbula and Alex Garcia:






by Menna Buss