Way To Use Tech In The Woods

Today is International Youth Day and this year, it’s thinking about celebrating the digital contributions of young people as part of the drive to further inspire ‘innovation and collaboration towards achieving sustainable development.’ Young people are widely recognised as ‘digital natives’ and with their expertise and ambition, it is imagined that they will be a significant contributing factor to help design and create solutions that can help with sustainable development globally.

So in keeping with the day, we thought we’d look at a few ways that we use technology on our woodland sites at The Outdoors School to ensure that our learners are digitally competent and on a level playing field when it comes to technology with their peers who attend indoor settings.

Lights, Camera, Action!

We were lucky enough to have MED Theatre work with a group of eight learners from across sites over three sessions this term

The first session involved icebreakers, games which developed confidence in performing to new people. By the end of the session everyone was able to engage and found their voice. 

The next two sessions revolved around creating a film about deforestation filled with small clips. They created storylines for different scenes, improvised scripts on the spot for a news report, interviewed each other as animals, all whilst taking it in turns being the tech team. 

It was incredible to watch the creativity, real support and courage to try something new that our learners displayed as they learnt plenty of new skills and engaged with the film technology in the woods.

Time To Talk

Earlier this year, we produced a special episode of The Outdoors Group Podcast in which we visited 3 of our sites to interview our learners and find out what they thought about our educational provision. This was a fantastic opportunity for them to find out about how podcasts are made, to engage in conversations with our host and they were all really excited to know that they would be able to listen to themselves on Spotify or Apple Podcasts once it was published! Many of the learners were really interested in the process and had lots of questions to ask about how podcasts work.

Nature Photographer of the Year Incoming

Our learners regularly use cameras to record and identify things that we find in the woods. This could be anything from flora and fauna to documenting a new project or build that is taking place on their site. As well as being a fantastic way for them to express their creativity and artistic flair, this is also a really effective way for them to become confident with the technology surrounding cameras and picture editing. We’re looking to do more of this in the years to come and can’t wait to see the shots that they produce.

As well as these examples, technology finds its way into The Outdoors School on a daily basis from the woodland laptops that we utilise for design purposes and maths games to the stop animation projects that some of our learners love doing! We are looking to further grow and develop our use of technology, sympathetically with the woodland environment we inhabit and can’t wait to see how our learners take ownership and what they do with the tools and opportunities that they are provided with.

Time after time, we see the seed of a passion for a particular subject or topic be planted at school and then the learner runs with it, growing it further and further under their own steam. We hope that the combination of learning in an outdoor environment and understanding why and how to care for it with proficient use of technology might result in learners that are innovative and change makers when it comes to solving problems that they might be faced with as they leave our woods and head off to continue their learning journeys post 16.

Author: Hannah Durdin, Content Officer & Forest School Leader

Date: Monday 12th August 2024