workshop

I’ve had the pleasure of working with Head teachers, Principals and education officers in the West Bank this week as part of my work with Karen Ardley for UNRWA.

We talked about the relative strengths and weaknesses of the media available to us for the leadership development programme we’re putting together.  Some of the points are (inevitably) similar to my thoughts on multiplatform formats.

Achieving the right blend is important for a number of reasons:

• Fitness for purpose

Maximising the capabilities of media: Recognising that human experiences might be best communicated through video, while complex theoretical ideas lend themselves to print.

• Accommodating learning preferences

Understanding that our attitudes towards learning are different and that providing ‘something for everyone’ is more likely to engage our audience across the piece.

• Reinforcement

Offering multiple perspectives and varied experiences of the same point helps learners absorb, remember and contextualise information and ideas.

• Texture

The programme will take many hours to complete and the issues are complex and challenging, a varied blend helps to create ‘texture’ in the experience.  This texture helps maintain interest and motivation.

It was a fascinating discussion; I’ve summarised the ideas below.

We recognised that such an activity is fraught with ambiguity.  It is hard to disentangle the medium from the means.  Likewise some characteristics are dependent on use context.  Still, it provided a useful catalyst for the group as we considered the most effective way of distributing content across media.

What do you think?