Interviewer:
So Peter, let’s just talk about what Leith Academy are doing here and the value of these kind of projects.
Teacher:
Okay, Leith Academy here are using ProDesktop which is a solid modelling software which the pupils can get themselves. It comes to them cost-free so they can take that home, put it on their machines there at home if they have that. But the benefit that this does, again, it allows pupils who have difficulty with spatial awareness and visualising, it allows them to produce end elevations, elevations, orthographic views that will aid their interpretation of drawings. It also allows them to create engineering drawings that they can then go away and use to produce the artefact out of whatever material they need to for themselves. Not only does it do that, but it also allows them to render the object. They can apply lights and materials and allow that again as a presentation graphic. So it gives you another alternative from doing the hand marker-rendering where you’ve got the computer-generated object. So you’re using two media there which can complement one another to put over to your client.
Interviewer:
And the end product, of course, of that is the sheets saying what’s happening and, potentially, the final bill product?
Teacher:
Yeah, the final bill product there which you have. And they’ve obviously taken the components, which they’ve designed themselves, lifted off the sizes and then used that. So we’re looking at quite a number of processes there: you’ve got scale, you’ve got measurement, you’re having to draw the object full-size. They might have to print it out to a scale on a piece of paper, which, in itself, sounds easy but if you’re dealing here with an S2 year group, they may have not yet covered scale within their Maths context. So once again we see how the technical curriculum permeates throughout the course, and again they’re producing a folio which has benefits throughout the rest of their curriculum. You know, you have to produce folios for English, History. So it’s aiding their writing. But not only that, you have the technical language coming through. I think a lot of people forget that the technical language and a lot of words that we use are new to children and we have to explain to them what they mean; why we’re using them and where they come from. And, as teachers, that’s something that has to be borne in mind.