Education 2015

You can view the product of the conference, originally published as a website on a CD-ROM.

Here is the draft of the briefing we offered to participants and a later specification, developed at the conference is below:

15th June 1994

Briefing for CD-ROM

Publishing a CD-ROM representing the conference, prepared within the time scale of the conference is one of the crazy goals we have set ourselves.  Luckily, Stephen Heppell and Richard Millwood have some experience of just this kind of madness and this paper is to help explain the project.
The aim of the conference is to articulate the debate about the future of learning with information technology as seen by the assembled delegates.  Ideally, engaging in that debate is more important than wrestling with the publishing medium, but pragmatically we all need to know what we are working with in order to understand its constraints and opportunities.  We have designed a format for the published outcome and we hope you find it acceptable and that it can accommodate your ideas.
The audience we are communicating to includes trainee teachers, in-service teachers, teacher-educators and interested parents confronting issues of learning with IT in a range of contexts and locations.  A typical use of the CD-ROM might include the following stages, although not necessarily in strict order:

1    a choice is made between several key areas of debate;
2    the chosen area is characterised by a short, provocative mini-drama set in the future designed to stimulate debate;
3    a neutral explanation (sub-text) of the drama and what issues are involved in this area of debate is offered;
4    a choice can be made from a range of “talking heads” which offer a subjective view on the issues;
5    related activities and bibliographic references can be reviewed and  saved/printed for later use;
6    a guide on how to use all of the above to support workshop, seminar and individual use is available;

To make this kind of interaction possible, the conference must include these activities:

1    Agree the key areas - based on those proposed already, no doubt.
2    (a) In groups, brainstorm these areas and invent an appropriate mini-drama;
(b) script the mini-drama;
(c) act out and video the mini-drama;
(d) digitise the video for the computer if time permits.
3    Write the explanatory text which indicates the issues for debate in this area.
4    (a) Debate the issues;
(b) reflect on the debate and come up with some “positions” and protagonists amongst the delegates;
(c) each protagonist script their point of view;
(d) speak the point of view to camera as a “talking head”
(e) digitise the video for the computer if time permits.
5    Bring & collect references to other sources & related activities and identify relevant pages/sections etc where possible.
6    Brainstorm effective ways of using the resource and write them up as a guide.

The technical production work will not be completed within the time scale of the conference but facilities to capture text, scan graphics, digitise sound and video will be available if time or need arises.  The overriding requirement is to complete all the content.  Further technical production and CD-ROM development will be completed by ULTRALAB. It is intended to produce a CD-ROM which will work for Windows and Apple Macintosh.

An approximate timetable for all this might be as follows:

Tuesday
Demonstration of framework / production process
Discuss scope / brainstorm key areas of debate and mini-drama ideas

Wednesday
Discuss areas in groups, debate points of view, script & develop dramas
Act out and video dramas
Review dramas / write neutral commentary
Discuss issues and script protagonist’s views
Video talking heads

Friday
Write guidance material for using resource
Review progress - discuss what’s left

20th July 1994

Suggested specifications for the Education 2015 CD-ROM

We’re hardening up the metaphor for the material:  a ripple in the space-time continuum causes your wastebasket from 2015 to appear.  In it are some newspapers of 2015.  Leafing through, some cartoons and headlines catch your eye...

... the cartoons provoke debate and the headlines are a key the issues within those debates.

Back to now ...

There are four levels at which you need to generate materials: the debate (a title with a provocative cartoon), the issues in that debate (four, five or six specific areas within that debate, keyed with a headline), the points (talking heads with opinions about the issues) and see alsos (references and suggestions for further research, participation and activity around each issue).

Debate
For this all you need is a title, preferably snappy, and an idea for a cartoon, imagined to have been found in a future newpaper.  Tom will draw the cartoons to make a consistent and coherent look-and-feel to the product.

Issues
These are the main areas for discussion in the debate.  It may take some time to decide exactly what they are, they may overlap and may be difficult to pin down.  Imagine a headline.  Locate the headline in 2015, to report in an attention-grabbing way some hypothetical change or event which has taken place.

Points
These are those sound (video) bites (aka talking heads), designed to explain, support, pass opinion on, criticise or justify the matter mentioned in the issue headline.  They are located in the present (1994) and may differ from the view of the future by calling into question the validity of the “wastebasket”.  There should be several of these for each issue.  They should last on average ten seconds, but an absolute maximum of twenty seconds might be goomd.  They should stand alone as far as possible so that the user could select them in any order and hear them not as dialogue or narrative but as a collection of ideas to be  actively selected, considered and evaluated.

See alsos
A collection of these for each issue.  Book, software,  video references and suggestions about what to do to make more sense of the issue.

None of this needs to be done in this order!  It may be easier to generate a lot of points first and then consider how they fit into issues.  Deciding the debate title and cartoon may arise from the rest of the work rather than be thought of first.