This year, I teach a really lovely and motivated group of Year 9 students. I wanted to challenge them to create something a bit different this term, so I introduced them to the idea of competing in the MLTA NSW Linguafest competition. You have to create a 2 minute film on the theme of a journey that includes the number 9. I also added that they needed to incorporate our current sport topic too. They were very excited at the prospect of, if they are finalists, going on an excursion to NSW Parliament House to view the films, along with actually creating the movie of course!

As they are a small group of 16 students, they decided to work on one film as a big group. With a couple of strong leaders, they all soon got to work once we had decided who was doing what. One of the best aspects of the planning process has been their use of the tool Padlet. I used it to start with to encourage every member of the class to contribute to the initial brainstorm. Then they all continued to use it to post ideas and information as they worked together in the classroom. Padlet is a online noticeboard which allows anyone to put up a sticky note really easily. You can also group the posts to look like a blog or forum.

So, today we start filming which will be fun and hopefully it will bring all the ideas and planning together into a smooth running process! Once filming is complete, students can then start editing, adding music and subtitles and with any luck it will be finished before the 16 September when the films are due.