As we cannot paste all the very numerous emails we exchanged during this long and very enriching project, here is a summary of our conversations and exchanges.
We could not proceed as fast as we wanted to because of all the trainings periods in France and Italy + the holidays and exams. We had to take all those aspects into account.
We exchanged on different ideas, tools, productions.... unfortunately we didn't have time to experiment eveything.
Enjoy your reading !!!
Patrizia and Sandrine
Step 1 Break Ice activities ( deadline June 2016): all the padlets ,quizzes , videos and interactive books we created.
Step 2 Introducing the issue
We propose the watching of an introductory video : “ What’s fashion to you? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pEaRa2cVbs
Then let’s create a Tricider ( it’s better if we teachers create it with a log in account ). We enter the following question: “ What is fashion to you ? define it with a noun, adjective, verb, short definition. The most voted opinions among students will be summed up into key words to name different work groups.
We hesitate to use also Wordle.net where we could paste some words related to fashion. This app creates a word cloud with all the inserted words. Then the most voted words will get bigger, because they will have been chosen by the most part of our students. And so we could use these bigger words as denominations for our work groups. But it may have been problems with Windows 10 or other operative systems. Patrizia tried it and it didn’t work.
On the contrary with Tricider students have the chance to vote the opinions of their partners, giving their own point of views.
Step 3 Team Building
In this phase we could use the key words suggested by students to define Fashion, to name our different groups.( for example if on Tricider the definition of Fashion as Art, Comfort, Obsession, Temporary Trends, Feeling, Nature etc… then we will use these words to name our students’ work groups).
At this point we must be able to create very balanced groups…
Patrizia has 18 students , included two students with special needs. Among her students another one is transsexual, he is a very smart student and is English from his father’s side. He is not so willing to be shot but Patrizia is trying to convince him. He has his grandparents in London and is extraordinarily creative and excellent at fashion design. Patrizia thinks that all this is important to give an exact portray of her class.
Sandrine also has 18 students . One of her student is homosexual and very well accepted. Sandrine's students won’t be prejudiced against Patrizia's. We plan to create groups of 6 students altogether. so 3 on each side ( we need to mix students that have a good level and students with a low level)
So we can arrange the exact number of students for each group… for example 2 of Sandrine's students and 2 of Patrizia's,
Soon afterwards, each group creates its own Logo ( we have to define a proper app for this. We watched some tutorials on the web for Flockdraw or for Google doc ….. )
Step 4 Let’s debate world famous quotations on Fashion.
Sandrine can't afford to spend too long on this step as her students are going to have two long training periods in the year and their final exam.
Patrizia drew inspiration for this activity by watching a video on the web: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGIxb0eCbfU .
Each group would adopt a quotation and every member could express his/her agreement or disagreement about it. Students can record their point of view, editing simple camera shootings, that could be uploaded on Thinglink . We have to pay attention to those students who don’t want to be shot……. In this case, they could express their opinion as a voice- over commenting some background images. Then we upload these short videos on thinglink. We could also open a live session on the twinspace…. But before using it we have to try it, so avoiding a useless waste of time….. ……. here are some famous quotations, among the ones found in the video above:
“Fashions fade, Style is eternal “ Yves Saint Laurent
Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening” Coco Chanel
The difference between style and fashion is quality. Giorgio Armani
If you are not in fashion, you are nobody. Lord Chesterfield
Fashion condemns us to many follies; the greatest is to make ourselves its slave. Napoleon Bonaparte
I dress for the image, not for myself, not for the public, not for fashion, not for men. Marlene Dietrich
Patrizia says :
There are so many interesting quotations that I think, they will involve and motivate students to debate and express themselves. What do think of this?........
But if you don’t like it …….. I’ve another suggestion…. So, in this case, we could consider
Step 4 Bis Let’s debate on fashion and stereotypes
We could deal with this issue, considering the impact of fashion on stereotypes in a more general way. There shouldn't be so many different fashion stereotypes between French and Italian people, just on the basis of geographical or historical issues, or at least we were not able to find some noteworthy differences among us.
Saying that, we can assume fashion stereotypes are much more linked to age, racial, body shape and appearance issues.
We could propose an introductory video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdLr4J68oGs and then we could suggest some common assumed stereotypes to each group in order to make our students start a debate.
The tool to be used is the same as in Step 4.
Step 5 Team research
Introductory video on Fashion Designers : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtGzjGz3g3g
After watching the video, each group chooses a Designer and start researching, sharing their work and collaborating with Google Doc and the Forum on the Twinspace.
Afterwards, each group presents its own designer during Live Sessions. They could edit very simple videos on their own Designer with Animoto ( …. They could upload images, some written texts…. It’s really interesting. )
Step 6 Let’s start creating
Students in each group create and design their dress models, on the base of and inspired by the Designer they’ ve presented. Since the groups are mixed up ones with French and Italian students, each group could draw two dresses, one for Italy and another one for France, drawing inspiration from the padlets of the Step 1 Break ice activities, or each group could create one dress model, trying to combine Italy and France in it…… we have to decide…..but however in both cases the new model/s must follow the fashion guidelines of the Designer, who had been chosen by each group in the previous step 5.
At this point, it’s very important to find a digital and collaborative Tool for drawing…… Google doc has a drawing section in its side menu…. But we don't have a very clear idea on this aspect yet.
Of course everything, we are going to deal with in this project, will be part of our school curricular program. we could include other colleagues…. but we have so different working times and this could delay our project.
At last but not least, after step 6 we have to foresee some self-evaluation surveys or something of this kind in order to give a proper feedback to our project and I think it’s important to focus on the dissemination phase of the project too,….. perhaps each project must have it……. But before this, we have a lot of work ahead