More than 300 children attended the conference that culminated months of research and investigation into the world's greatest unsolved mysteries, including the lost city of Atlantis and the Bermuda Triangle. To showcase their findings, pupils were tasked to create imaginative and engaging presentations that demonstrated their depth of learning and encouraged audience involvement.
Cambusbarron Primary School was just one of the schools that incorporated the Activote learner response system into their exploration of the Mary Celeste mystery. On stage, the pupils recreated a courtroom drama to present evidence and five established theories surrounding the mystery. The children then posed several multiple choice questions to the audience, such as ‘what was the most compelling piece of evidence?' Acting as a jury, the audience used their individual Activote keypad to select their response from a list of options labelled A to F.
David Brown, teacher at Cambusbarron Primary, explained: "The children chose to use Activote as it enabled the audience to feel part of the presentation and share in the learning experience. At the same time, Activote allowed the pupils to take ownership of the learning task, which was a key aim of the conference. Importantly, by using Activote, the pupils were able to view each audience member's response instantly, and easily convert the information into a graph or chart. This meant the children could evaluate the audience's opinions immediately and present the results of their investigation there and then."
Activote is just one of a range of learner response systems available from collaborative learning solutions provider, Promethean. A multiple choice wireless response system, Activote can be used to support a range of activities from formal assessment to sequential learning tasks. Integrated into Activprimary software for children aged 3-11, or Activstudio software for students over 11, the learner response system can be used with pre-prepared questions or ad-hoc for impromptu questioning at any point in a lesson and over any program.
The ‘Mysteries Incorporated - Celebrations of Success Conference' was held as part of Stirling Council's Curriculum for Excellence programme, a Scotland-wide initiative that aims to inspire children, young people and their teachers to develop skills, knowledge and understanding within a motivational context.
