Shared Spaces. Institute of Education Seminar. Tuesday 25th February 2003 (0001)

Shared Spaces: Informal Learning and Digital Cultures
As schools and families increasingly equip themselves with digital technology, the ways children play, learn and are taught are bound to change. In contrast with the formal space of schools, many children’s experiences of the digital world take place in informal settings such as libraries, homes, or community centres. This project looks at a range of learning situations involving digital technology and asks how educators can engage with children’s informal knowledge and learning of digital cultures

The Project
This project aims to develop innovative curriculum strategies, based on the new knowledge and experiences digital culture can offer young people. By investigating a range of learning situations, the project suggests how the informal styles of learning that characterise young people’s out-of-school experiences with technology can be drawn upon and developed in schools. The project involves piloting, documenting and evaluating new approaches to creative teaching and learning, using digital media.

The core of the project is three curriculum initiatives, which have taken place in the informal, out-of-school setting of WAC Performing Arts and Media College, a well-established centre for lifelong learning in the arts and media in North London.
The three projects included a cyber-cafe for 3-13 year olds as well as parents/carers in the WAC community; a course for 9-13 year olds making computer games; and a chatroom project for 10 – 15 year old girls.

Our key questions were as follows:
• How do young people learn and develop their creative abilities in relation to new media?
• What does ‘informal learning’ look like in practice?
• How do young people move from being ‘consumers’ to being ‘producers’ of media?
• How can their passive knowledge be ‘activated’ through creative production?
• What is the specific potential of this kind of creative work for socially disadvantaged groups?
• What is the ‘added value’ here?
• How can new technologies build bridges between home and school, or leisure and learning?

The Shared Spaces project is running from October 2001 to December 2002. In the final phase of the project, we will be holding two invited seminars and a teacher training event (click here to go to EVENTS page). The project is based at the Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media at the Institute of Education, University of London and is funded by the Esmee Fairbairn Charitable Trust.

Research
The project covers numerous areas of research, and we anticipate our findings to be shared with various communities. One of our aims is to develop a model of practice to present to both teachers and policy-making bodies. We will be holding seminars and a teacher training day to disseminate information to these communities. Further research into topics such as informal learning, computer games and education, media production, and new literacies will be shared with appropriate communities (academics, research bodies, educators) through conference talks and journal publications.

Computer play: Children as game producers, Rebekah Willett
This paper describes the activities which took place in the Computer Games class. The paper situates the project within the field of ‘computer games in education’ and outlines some of the possibilities and limitations for producing games with young people.
Teaching, playing and learning: Kids in Chatrooms, Rebekah Willett
This paper looks at the learning experiences taking place as 4 girls, age 10– 13, engage in a chatroom (Habbohotel.com). The paper shows how the girls are playfully taking risks, experimenting and negotiating meaning as they engage with discourses around pre-teenage girls.

Resources
The following list of resources includes contacts and materials which we have found helpful in our research. This list is not meant to be a comprehensive study of the field, and we welcome additions that you recommend. We’d also like to know what you think of our projects.
Are they practical for use in the classroom?
What experiences do you have that can help our research?
Is there anything we can help you with?
Please send comments to r.willett@ioe.ac.uk.

Organisations
Research on computer games in education:
BECTa (British Educational Communication and Technology agency)
ELSPA (European Leisure Software Publishers Association):
TEEM (Teachers Evaluating Educational Multimedia)
Teacher Training Centres:
Highwire City Learning Centre
English and Media Centre
Centre for Language in Primary Education
General interest in creative use of ICT in education:
British Film Institute
Ultralab
Media and Communication Studies Site
TAG Learning

Reading
This reading list contains books and articles which we have found useful. It is not meant to be a comprehensive bibliography of work on the subject.
Software
We have looked at the following packages as a comparison to the software used on our projects:
Stagecast
Hyperstudio (Vivendi Universal Interactive Publishing UK Ltd)
MediaBlender (Tech4Learning Inc)
ImageBlender (Tech4Learning Inc)
Kid Pix Studio Deluxe (The Learning Company (UK) Ltd)

Events
Our strategic aim is to take what we learn from these three projects and offer them as models of practice both to practitioners (particularly teachers in schools) and to policy-making bodies. We will be sharing our findings at two seminars, as well as publishing a report in 2003. Please contact Rebekah Willett if you are interested in attending either of these seminars.

SHARED SPACES: INFORMAL LEARNING AND DIGITAL CULTURES
10 December 2002
5:00 - 6:30pm
Televisions Studio, Institute of Education
20 Bedford Way, London WC1H OAL
Presenter: Rebekah Willett
FREE

PROGRESSING THE DIGITAL DEBATE
25 February 2003
10:00 - 2:00
Nunn Hall
Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H OAL
Presenters: David Buckingham, Julian Sefton-Green and Rebekah Willett
FREE (including lunch)
Contacts
Director of Shared Spaces
Dr. David Buckingham is Professor in Education in the Culture, Communication and Societies Group at the Institute of Education, London University, England, and Director of the Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media.
Director of Shared Spaces
Dr. Julian Sefton-Green is Head of Media Arts and Education at
WAC Performing Arts and Media College (InterChange Trust).
Research Officer
Dr. Rebekah Willett is a part-time primary school teacher, and she recently completed her PhD in the field of literacy, identity and popular culture.
Online Consultant – Steve O’Hear
Course Tutor – Sue Underwood
d.buckingham@ioe.ac.uk
julian@wac.co.uk
r.willett@ioe.ac.uk
http://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/