Play with Learning

News that defined us

Helping young people to critically “read” the news is crucial if we are to develop a society that can make sense of unfolding events.  Increasingly, children are disengaged from “reliable” mainstream news organisation and instead use partisan or unsubstantiated sources for their information about current affairs and the world around them.

The News that Defined Us, a website that I produced for Tyneside Cinema, unlocks the process of making the news and allows young people to interrogate the production behind the stories.  By providing first-hand access to the media ‘machine’, the project helps to re-engage young people in this crucial form of communication.

The strength of News that Defined Us is the personal and intimate experiences associated with news production.  The project brings together broadcast journalists, eyewitnesses and schoolchildren from Whickam School in plenary sessions where the young people can quiz the adults.  Taking recent stories as a starting point, the makers and subjects of the news talk to students about their experiences and implicitly reveal the effects of representation, censorship and bias.

Danny Savage speaking to students at Whickam School

The opportunity to question professionals is enormously valuable but difficult to scale.  The News that Defined Us project captures the experience of the school question-and-answer sessions and disaggregates them to create a rich interactive library.  The shared legacy is a website where guest sessions are organised according to curriculum subject and theme.  The site provides archived copies of related broadcast material and interactive questions to recreate the school events.  By organising the content into themes, it provides a lasting resource that powerfully illustrates the principles and issues in topics such as conflict, culture and human rights.

Renowned BBC broadcasters such as Kate Adie and Alistair Leithead spoke of their experiences in the UK, Washington, China and Afghanistan.  Their experiences were complemented by visitors such as Private Scott Cooper (a teenage soldier who lost his leg by stepping on an IED), PC David Rathband (a police officer blinded by the killer Raoul Moat) and Councillor Stephen Bridget (a local politician).

From twenty sessions, the project run by Tyneside Cinema created over 200 interactive questions to support thirty hours of broadcast news footage.  The site provides a unique resource both for teachers and students.  Its structure helps educators include this rich media into their lessons while the design encourages young people to explore issues more deeply.

Today the project is launched at the Houses of Parliament in the illustrious company of Tom Watson MP, the terrier-like politician who has pursued the immoral journalists and corrupt management of the British Press, his fellow committee member Damian Collins, Blaydon MP Dave Anderson and our Bridget Phillipson MP.  It is an auspicious start to website that I hope helps young people think more critically about the news that defines them.

Multiplatform & technology articles

Some of the recent articles I’ve seen about about multiplatform, transmedia and technology:

Multiplatform

Tools of attraction: creating multimedia content for games and TV shows. From the Guardian http://j.mp/ivcuIB #multiplatform

Ed Cotton: We Need Creative Hybrids – Why Transmedia Is Becoming Mandatory  http://j.mp/jHZLQv

Transmedia

Defining Transmedia http://j.mp/ljJ5by

Jeff Gomez – Storyworlds: The New Transmedia Business Paradigm http://j.mp/lJQqyK

How transmedia projects can help you make money http://bit.ly/jB4fdf

Technology

A Simple Way to Throw Applications Between Your Computer and Your Phone, While They’re Running | Popular Science http://j.mp/kOBgSS

British Library launch classic book reading app. From BBC News http://j.mp/kXcym3

Kinect, Wii U, 3D and the future of the living room: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13695160

Exclusive (and magical) review on #iOS5 on #ipad http://j.mp/j9rsxU

Disney Tactile Device Lets Games and Movies Literally Send Chills Down Your Spine | Popular Science http://j.mp/ilonmP

Multiplatform formats

multiple screens

I talk to people a lot about multiplatform productions and transmedia storytelling and one of the first points we discuss is the plethora of options available to producers.  All too often, multiplatform productions are a last minute addition to a TV show and are rarely more ambitious than a programme support website – merely offering more random detail about the production rather than extending and enriching the user’s experience.

I talk about the glue of interactive narrative elsewhere but I thought it might be worth sharing the list of platforms and their relative characteristics.  I know it’ll be incomplete so I’d really welcome your comments.

There are three broad categories of platform available to us:

• ‘Broadcast’
• ‘Online’
• ‘Live’

Broadcast

My use of the word ‘Broadcast’ in this instance covers media that is distributed after being produced by ‘professionals’ for mass consumption.   I include Internet and post transmission versions of linear media in the online section because of control user have over their use.

Controversially, I’d include Twitter and blogging in my broadcast formats because although they present themselves as intimate, they are actually the Internet equivalent of publishing for individual.  It’s still about authorship and mass distribution but access is more personal and the ability to feedback more immediate.

Online

By ‘Online’ I mean interactive digital platforms including computers, mobiles and consoles.

Real World

And finally, those things I class as Real World.

The crucial point about this exercise is the recognition that certain formats are better at certain tasks – film and books are great for long form storytelling, the web is unparalleled in offering access to information.  I’m sure there are many delivery methods that I’d missed, but one thing is clear – if you want to be truly multiplatform, there are lots of options and using the most appropriate will transform your product.

Learning with George Auckland

George Auckland is an inspirational figure from the BBC.  Last night, to celebrate 41 years at the Corporation, Manchester Metropolitan University hosted an evening to flag his achievements.

George retires as the head of the BBC’s Learning Innovation Unit having started his career as a trainee assistant film editor in September 1969.  In between, George has worked on various TV shows, most famously perhaps, Think of a Number and its successors with Johnny Ball.    But it is, arguably his embrace of computing and the Internet for which George is most renowned.

It was George and his team that gave the world Teletubbies Online.  Launched months before BBC News had a web presence, it was possibly the world’s first multiuser website (it was aimed at parents and their young children to use simultaneously).  The site transformed a misunderstood television programme for toddlers into a fabulously successful educational experience for the under 3s.  He did the same thing for adults with WebWise, unlocking the treasures of the Net for millions of us.

Much of George’s success comes from his insatiable curiosity and a personal desire to work from first principles: as a child in the 1950s himself built he a printing machine, later a television, in 1996 he taught himself HTML in 24 hours placing himself at the ‘bleeding edge’ of web development at the time.  ”Fortune favours the well prepared” he says.

The ongoing joy of discovery has enabled George to exploit technology for the sake of learning. He credits Disney’s Bambi and a story-based encyclopaedia as childhood inspirations that have obviously shaped his approach to education.  They vividly illustrated to him the value and effectiveness of beautifully crafted narratives that engage an audience on an emotional level.

Never let the facts get in the way of a good joke

This principle was reinforced to him by Johnny Ball who, on having had his script corrected by George about some scientific point, commented: ”Never let the facts get in the way of a good joke”

The lesson is timeless – engage the audience, captured their imagination, then unpick it with the delight of learning.

As remarkable as George’s technical achievements is the warmth in which he is held by all who have met him.  His self-effacing and generous personality is legendary.  I think there’s a lot we can learn from George.  I’ll leave you with a quote that resonates loudly for me:

“A lot of  life is not discovering new things but discovering things for yourself”

TV – the social media

broken television

In the last few years, some commentators have predicted the death of television, some even championed it, declaring that it was obsolete – superseded by interactive media that offer true user participation. They cite massive user figures for the likes of Facebook, World of Warcraft as evidence that traditional media is on it’s way out. Linked with data that charts a declining number of viewer hours, it is a compelling case. But assertions of the imminent demise of broadcast media may be premature.

Last weekend, 20 million people in the UK watched the final of X-factor. It followed a week of Coronation Street where more than 10 million viewers tuned in for every episode. Tonight millions are watching the finale of The Apprentice.  By anyone’s measure they are impressive numbers.

However, it isn’t the figures that make broadcast remarkable – it is the event it becomes.  All the criticisms of linear media – the lack of viewing control, the fixed presentation, the dictated sequencing – are precisely the aspects that continue to endear the format to the masses.  Sometimes, and particularly after a day at work/ school/ activity of any kind, we don’t want to ‘sing for our supper’, we just want to sit back and be entertained.  In these circumstances, we want to be spoon-fed high quality, low effort content.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean mindless, senseless, emotionless programming (although arguably even that has its place) rather we want to envelop ourselves in the creativity of media producers that are better than us.  It’s not just the luxury of revelling in expert craft that makes it valuable to us – it’s the knowledge that others are having the same experience (if not in the same place, at least at the same time).

Newer media lacks a defining moment. Although benefitting from the long tail which accumulates many users over time, each instance sits is a separate fragment of time.  It means that everyone has a uniquely individual experience.

Where television continues to dominate is as the basis for next-day conversation. It is the preeminent catalyst for workplace/ classroom discussion because it provides a shared reference.

There are tremendous opportunities for simultaneous narrative and two-screen experiences but for the time being, television remains the social media.