global digital creativity research & workshops

I have been spending the last three days working from the TVNZ buildings during my tour of New Zealand to explore creativity. At TVNZ I am working with Liz Donnelly on a proposal which would see television content created by young people for broadcast on the ‘TV2′ channel.

The work we are doing builds on the experimental work with the BBC in the UK on the ‘Input CBBC’ project and also the pilot project recently run in Christchurch with a group of young people.

Hopefully, all being well the proposal will be successful and Ultralab South (New Zealand) will begin work on the project. Nick Billowes from our New Zealand team spent the third day working on the proposal too.

View some images from TVNZ.

I spent most of the day with one of the most creative schools I have ever seen in the world. St. James’s School in Christchurch New Zealand is based in a part of Christchurch with high levels of unemployment and career opportunity. For this reason, the school has been classified with a low rating status. Despite this the school has an amazing track record for results and creativity within the curriculum, driven forward by an incredibly creative staffing team who enhance the use of technology in their teaching and learning.

St James pupils excel in information technology use, with most pupils on wireless internet connections using Apple computers to use the internet to research and collaborate together. The school has a homebound programme ensuring members of the surrounding community can use the equipment and resources themselves. The school has won many creative use of technology awards though its work, mainly in the form of winning national creativity challenges.

Two weeks before I arrived at the school, at the recommendation of Chris Chua (my new friend from Ultralab South) the school had been broken into and all the equipment and technology had been stolen. Two days later the school was broken into a second time and all the equipment had been returned. The surrounding community was so outraged that their community school had been compromised that the equipment was quickly returned. Lesson learned: If you involve the community in your objectives, you’ll do better.

I’ve never seen a school anywhere in the world where child centred personalised learning is so well delivered and effective. I walked away buzzing. Well done St. James, I’ve learned from you.

View some of the pictures from my time at the school.

I have spent the past two days working in Christchurch New Zealand with colleagues from our Sister Ultralab to roll out the labs Summer School model as part of potential pilot with TVNZ’s TV2 channel.

The project was to find out what children’s television made by children could be like, using some of the research findings from previous Summer School’s and the Input CBBC pilot from 2002/3. The pilot was also to show Ultralab South how the Summer School model works ready for the big Summer School event right across New Zealand in January 2004.

Some excellent movies were created by the pilot, all ‘Points of View Squared’ and will be included on the 2003 DVD production.

Click to see the pictures taken over the two day period: Day 1, Day 2.