Hillary Ennett (Assistant Head Curriculum) and Neil Chandler (Science Coordinator) St Albans High School for Girls (Prep) – @STAHSPrep
Year 6 (age 11) classroom teachers in the UK will be all too familiar with the challenge of keeping their pupils engaged in that very last summer half term of their primary education before they move onto a new secondary school. Amidst the excitement of final school plays, leavers’ assemblies and the anticipation of what’s next on their educational journey, how do we keep them engaged, give them some stretch tasks but also make a final project collaborative and fun? In the summer term of 2021, STAHS Prep pupils, with the help of their teachers, experimented with a project involving a partnership with the Microsoft Soundscape team.
The project
Wheathampstead village in Hertfordshire UK, which is home to the school, has a long and rich history. In recent times, the local historical society have curated some excellent trails including a Village Centre Trail which provides directions for a walking tour in the village taking in a series of historic sites marked with green plaques. In collaboration with the Soundscape team at Microsoft Research, pupils researched the sites and had the chance to create a new experience of the trail using a recent addition to the Soundscape app – user-authored trail functionality – to create recreational experiences.
Over a six-week period, the pupils were fully engrossed in all things related to developing a great immersive visitor experience using 3D spatial audio. In a kick-off session, they learnt more about Soundscape and its origins in enabling people in the blind and low vision community get around towns and cities. Across the curriculum, aspects of the project were woven into lessons. For example, the pupils explored different forms of poetry in their English lessons, while in Humanities they researched the lives of those who lived in Wheathampstead House before it became home to the school. The pupils further stretched their Humanities skills by learning to plot points on an Ordnance Survey map and collaborated with the wider Open Street Map (OSM) community to update the site information for the village in science lessons.
On a sunny day in June, we took Year 6 on a field trip around the village so they could experience the 3D audio capabilities of Soundscape. They were thrilled when they realised that they could hear the callouts for the historic buildings having previously updated OSM data. They also had the chance to take photos and make sketches of the buildings, read out the ‘haikus’ they had written and take the GPS co-ordinates for the plaques; some final content gathering in preparation to plot the trail. Having spent much of their time in the village, all the pupils were amazed to discover the diverse range of history, from the now disused railway station to the site of an Iceni village and earthwork dyke. To reward their hard work, pupils, teachers and parent helpers enjoyed an ice-cream when they got back to the school!
Back in the classroom, using information gathered in the field trip, the pupils plotted the trail in the new authoring tool and the Soundscape team published it in the app, so the students and staff at the school would be able to access it directly from Soundscape. A smaller group of pupils then tested the trail after school in the following week, making notes of what worked and what didn’t and how the experience could be improved – this information being passed back to the Microsoft Soundscape team to debug the trail experience.
In a final presentation to Microsoft and Guide Dogs (a well-known charity in the UK), the pupils shared their work from the project. They were full of constructive feedback with plenty of suggestions and new ideas for the Soundscape team; they were certainly not shy about sharing them either!
Reflections on the project
In conclusion, it was a very worthwhile project – the range of activities across the curriculum ensured that all learners were engaged in a wide variety of ways. The excursion day, the trail test day and final presentation gave momentum to the project and created focal points to aim for at key stages of the timeline.
It piqued the students’ interest about their local area, technology, mapping and their innate curiosity. The project made them understand the difficulties some people face in their day to day lives. It gave them the space, opportunity and time to think beyond themselves and their lives by giving support to the local community in a positive and meaningful way.
The partnership between the school (pupils and teachers), the Microsoft Soundscape team and our parent helpers was invaluable, particularly considering the age of the pupils (11 year olds).
Takeaways
We were keen to show the pupils that great technology experiences need skills from all disciplines – truly a project that demonstrates the power of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Maths). It was obvious that some pupils enjoyed certain activities more than others and that’s OK – we need that diversity of interest and thinking.
We explored the fact that by the time these young girls are established in their careers, we will be in the 2050s and beyond! Exposing young minds to leading edge technology allows them to think about the possibilities and shape their own future. One parent commented that in these days of scepticism surrounding technology, it presented a very positive and encouraging future.
Most of all, we hope our students discovered that engaging with leading edge technology in the ‘Tech for Good’ agenda is not difficult at all… in fact, it’s child’s play!
Call to action
The school plans to repeat a similar project in summer term 2022. We know how much our students got from the experience, and we’d be happy to share our materials and collaborate if you would like to embark on a similar journey with your school. Contact the Soundscape team at soundscape@microsoft.com and they will liaise directly with us. So please get in touch – wherever you are in the world!
All the best,
The Soundscape team
Helpful tips
Searching for a place
If you know the name of the place you’re looking for, select the search bar on the Soundscape home screen and type in the name—a list of results will appear under the search box. Selecting the one you were looking for will open the ‘Location Details’ page, where you can save the place as a Marker, set an Audio Beacon on it, start Street Preview at it, share the location, or open it in another map app.
Using the recent callout history
To find a list of places that you’ve heard Soundscape call out recently, tap on the search bar on the home screen and scroll down to the ‘Recent Callouts’ section of the page. Here, your recent callouts will be displayed. This list will show the last 50 callouts for your current session. If you close the app then it will clear this list. From this list, you can tap on a callout to open the ‘Location Details’ page for it.