global digital creativity research & workshops

Anglia Ruskin University are committed to encouraging participation to University and have a dedicated ‘Widening Participation’ team who work across the East Anglia region with schools and colleges to show students first hand what university life is like by engaging prospective students in real University situations.

Hal MacLean and myself have worked with the widening participation department for many years, and continue our work under the Cleveratom flag. Read about some of the past projects we’ve done together click here, here, here, here and here.

This year the two Summer School projects we worked together on took place over weeks and was titled ‘Broadcast Journalism’. The students were to be introduced to how media for journalism is created for broadcast.

Each week students (24 in week one and 21 in week two) were introduced to University life by Ian, his team, and current University students.Hal and myself also recalled our own studies at the University, before introducing them to what we had done around the world in this field, before inducting the students in film, animation, sound creation and broadcasting skills.

Once we had inducted the students to the technology we then mixed up the students into cross-school groups and challenged each group with a different activity:

• Group 1 - Make a 1 minute issue related story, for a news programme
• Group 2 - Interview the general public about Group 1’s news item piece (vox pops!) and make a 1 minute fair reflection of opinion
• Group 3 - Make a 30 second advert for a product
• Group 4 - Make a 30 second advert for a service
• Group 5 - Make the idents for the news programme, present live links between content, interview someone live on air about the issue created by groups 1 and 2, broadcast the show live on the internet

The students were then told that on day two of the programme all content would be broadcasted live as a news programme on the internet, by them, at 3pm and all studio based recordings had to be live (not pre-recorded!).

Using Live Channel running on the Apple platform for the broadcast, and iMovie, GarageBand, iStopMotion, iTunes and iPhoto to put together the material, the teams had to talk to each other. The students had little or no experience in the software used for the project.

It was great to see students from an unrelated previous Summer School Project we were involved in back in 2005 (at our previous employer) taking part in the event.

Week 1: Issue (created by groups) - Are we really British?

With a big challenge, and a strict deadline for broadcast students had to work together to form a broadcast production crew, delegate jobs and ensure the broadcast was no longer than five minutes. Students found natural roles, realised the urgency of deadlines and production needs and produced an excellent product.

Matthew Eaves, Malcolm Burnett, Nick Platts and Hal MacLean from Cleveratom Ltd were on hand as experts for the event. This is the final product.Here is the final completed piece of work for week 1, uploaded to Youtube:

Here are some photographs taken at the event by Matt, here are some taken by Malcolm and here is the link to the week 1 movie on youtube.

Week 2: Issue (created by groups) - Super Skinny

Like with week 1, the new students had a tough challenge, formed into groups, shared information, and worked together to hit the deadline.This weeks group decided to call the programme ‘Live at Three’. Yet again, another excellent piece of work.

Matthew Eaves and Hal MacLean were on site from Cleveratom for the duration of the project.

Here is the final completed piece of work for week 2, uploaded to Youtube:

Here are some photographs taken at the event and here is the link to the week 2 movie on youtube.

Hal MacLean and myself were delighted to be invited to UEA (University of East Anglia) in Norwich to deliver a Clay Animation and Music Session to a group of 24 students and staff. The applications we explored and worked with during the session were:

• iStopMotion
• GarageBand
• iMovie
• iTunes

It was the second week of the new UEA Multimedia Course, and the new students did really well.

Cleveratom continue to run digital creativity workshops and training sessions all over the globe, check our our track record in this field.

Here are the completed films produced in under three hours:

Every year our team work with Saffron Walden County High School to undertake a creative challenge which encourages students at the school and its partner primary schools to work together and engage with creative technologies. This year the challenge was as big as ever and involved all ‘groups’ taking part having to work together with each other to make ‘one big story’.

On the 11th of July Hal MacLean and myself headed down to the school to train the young people in four hours how to use the following pieces of software:

• Final Cut Pro (Video Editing)
• GarageBand (Sound Editing)
• iStopMotion (Animation)
• Comic Life (Comics)
• iMovie (for use with Reflecmedia kit to allow Chroma Key work)

This is the first year we have introduced Final Cut Pro to the 10 - 13 age range of pupils. We believe Apple’s iMovie is far too easy for young people who are now ‘tech savvy’ in comparison to the year 2000 (when we started this project). Young people now require high end tools as the desire to achieve high quality effects increases, Final Cut Pro has meant we’ve had to teach young people how to edit in the same software the BBC edit the news programme you will no doubt watch on TV this evening.

We’ve also introduced the young people to Reflecmedia kit, which allows them to ‘chroma key’ Harry Potter style! The material allows blue/green screening in any light conditions.

We look forward to returning to the school in October to review the finished products and celebrate success. When we return we’ll be training the 25 young people in Photoshop and DVD Studio Pro.

Click here to see what other projects Hal and I have been involved in with SWCHS.

Here are the first two podcasts which document the start of the project, in Day 2’s Podcast Elliott Williams talks about how Summer School projects have changed since 2001.

I’ve spent the past three days working on the BBC Blast Truck in Hatfield, delivering a Film and Camera Production workshop for young people delivering this workshop each day:

The Truck will stop this year in 30 places, Hatfield was the first location. Last year Hamish, Hal and myself travelled with the truck (under the Ultralab flag) working with the local facilitators to deliver the Blast experience, we ran workshops and supported other facilitators to run theirs.

When I arrived at the venue it was good to see a lot of young people crowded round a DJ from BBC Radio 1xtra, clearly enjoying the experience of learning ‘Radio Production’. My own Film Making workshop was attended by 21 young people, we used Sony Z1 video cameras, learned how to shoot, edit and create a film together. After practicing, each group made their first film ‘Surprise’ within the three hours and were then set the tougher challenge for the following two days.

I challenged the young people were then to make a 100 second film entitled ‘Confusion’. The film had to be exactly 100 seconds long, could only have three lines of dialogue and had to be shot is a way which was modern and not traditional.

The films the young people created were very good, considering none had prior experience in film making.

The youngest participant was nine years old, the oldest, seventeen. The abilities of the young people were so good in both iMovie and Final Cut Pro they finished their work in double quick time and were able to visit some of the other workshops taking place on the truck, filming and documenting what else was happening.

Both myself and the team at Cleveratom have lots of experience running film, animation, creative art and photography workshops and were delighted to be invited on to the truck to pass on our knowledge.

Cleveratom wish the BBC Blast team the very best of success in delivering the 2007 national Blast Truck tour to a further 29 locations.

For the sixth year it was nice to be invited back to be a part of ‘Create at BETT’, the creativity feature at the BETT Show held at London Olympia between the 10th and 13th of January. Create at BETT continues to be the only stand staffed by young people, not selling anything specific.

The feature stand exists to simply demonstrate creative use of technology within learning. Last year BETT attracted 27,000 visitors from all over the world to its two thousand stands.Students from King Harold School were on hand to help visitors make podcasts, using the latest chroma key technology from our friends at Reflecmedia.

Visitors were able to stand in front of a chroma wall with selected moving image being rendered live behind them straight into Apple’s iMovie software.

Click the right hand news article image to read what reporter Stephen Manning from the TES had to say about the young people working on the Create at BETT stand:

The young people working on the stand worked with the show visitors to film their ideas and then upload the newly created podcast file to the Digital Teacher Network (DTN). DTN remains as a free space for creative teachers to manage their projects online.

All the podcasts created on the ‘Create at BETT’ stand can be viewed on the ‘Create at BETT DTN Project‘.

All DTN project media files work with iTunes, and are therefore available to download as podcasts onto iPod technology.At the other end of the stand young people worked to demonstrate the brilliant iStopMotion animation software and the potential for using creative technology in the classroom. iStopMotion is so simple and easy to use, yet so powerful too. A wonderful piece of innovative software.

Cleveratom was represented on the stand working closely with the team from BBC Blast, Learning Central, Apple, eMap and the BCS. All these partners believe in creative use of new and emerging technology in learning and we’re proud to work along side them.

I’ve enjoyed the past six years on the stand, clicking here will take you back to the stand in 2002 where we explored web broadcasting technologies.

We’ve done something new and experimental on the stand every year since, it has always been staffed by young people. Here is last years article on BETT 2006.

Cleveratom’s Alex Blanc and Jamie Harris were on hand to support visitors wanting to learn more about the potential of enabling technologies. Alex built Digital Teacher Network from Open Source Software and spent a lot of time explaining to visitors how it worked and what they could do with it. Maureen Gurr was on hand to look after the young people, Fiona from Impact also did an amazing logistical job to make it all happen.

Cleveratom staff have also worked closely with David Baugh and BBC Blast to support the young people prior to coming to the show. The training session held before Christmas in the BBC’s 21CC (21st Century Classroom) were a huge success. Creativity and School Learning Space Design Consultant, Hal MacLean reflects on the performance of the young people:

As ever, King Harold School pupils were brilliant! Their enthusiasm, infectious energy and determination to succeed meant that the stand never had a dull moment. Many thanks to Malcolm Burnett for organising the group and being there with them.

Read more of what Hal has to say here.

View Hal’s Best Pictures from BETT 2007

View Matthew’s Pictures from BETT 2007

View even more of Hal’s Pictures from BETT 2007

Check out some of the podcasts below, also available on the Create at BETT DTN Project site:

Hal MacLean and myself spent this evening with the young people and their families from the Bromley Learning Alliance 2006 Summer School, in Bromley. We headed down to celebrate the animation work created by the young people over the summer months.

The challenge which was set back in July this year was to create a modern day comic book, in animation, photography, sound and film.  The ‘tough task’ was called ‘Twist of Fate’ and had ‘no right answer’, as ever.  The young people are giving an induction session to the technology and project, they then return to their collective schools over the summer to undertake the challenge.
We have been working with Merril Haeusler (Director) of the BLA since her days with SEEVEAZ (South East of England Virtual Education Action Zone). It was refreshing to see Merril at the event, and hearing her relate back to the early days back in 2000 when she first launched the project with us. If it had not been for the investment by Merril both financially, and more importantly her belief in what young people can do with creative technoloies I really do question where we would be today. As my last official presentation event for Ultralab it was nice to be in the company with Merrill, who was at my first ever Ultralab engagement back in 2000, at the Millennium Dome in London (Read about it here).

We’ve come a long way since that early project, travelled the world, impacted on broadcasters, governments, education establishments and policy makers. We still have a lot of work to do, together.

So here they are, the creative comics created under the banner of ‘Twist of Fate’ by the tallented young people of the Bromley area, enjoy:

Did you see us on BBC Blast this morning on BBC 2?

Hal MacLean and myself were interviewed for the programme, you’ll also see how we undertake our Summer School programme of activities.

Here is our section of the programme: