Research & On-line components Sue Davis

1. Research & On-line components Sue Davis

2. What & Why? • Digital technologies provide us with more tools and opportunities for creating and sharing drama • We need to explore the potentials and research the process and outcomes

3. My Research • Creative agents for creative futures: exploring engagement and creativity through pedagogy and practice • Focus still on drama – learning and creating drama in a digital age • What is drama in a digital age? • What do we/can we do to support young people’s creative practice?

4. Ethical clearance • Provisional clearance from QUT and Education Queensland (need to forward letters from Principals etc) • Concern over on-line components • Need to ensure only images go up of those participants whose parents have agreed to web-based publication • Concern over identification of individuals with specific school groups

5. Two lots of consent forms…… • Drama Queensland • Research • Keep track of who has done what (sheet provided) • Send all to Katrina – who will pass things on • Survey as well (you can complete this electronically if you choose)

6. Why use cyberspaces? • Encourage participation and collaboration • Build a community of creative practice • Create and build the drama • Talk about and reflect on the drama

7. My interest • Using ‘pervasive’ technologies • The ones most of us have access to • Using them in combination (e.g. website, wiki, email, sms texting etc) • Using them to supplement and stimulate ‘live’ interactions

8. Interesting research – Henry JenkinsParticipatory internet culture guru • The new literacies all involve social skills developed through collaboration and networking

9. Play Performance Simulation Appropriation Multitasking Distributed Cognition Collective intelligence Judgment Transmedia Navigation Networking Negotiation These skills include:

10. Which of these are relevant to drama? • Relevant to the XLD3 process?

11. Creativity models – Czikszentmihalyi Confluence/systems model This system is comprised of: • the individual, • the domain in which they work and the • field which recognises their work.

12. Creativity model I’m exploring

13. Therefore I’m looking at • How do we create the state of ‘creative enagagement’ so that individuals and groups are able to create and make? • What are the skills and knowledges that are required and how do young people acquire them? • What are the communities of practice that we create and can facilitate to support creative practice?

14. How it works • Website created as a ‘portal’ for this project and others www.cyberdrama.org • This can be easily edited and updated regularly • Links to wiki spaces – spaces especially suitable for collaborative work • These are protected spaces • Only members can edit pages or add material

15. Need to talk to school IT people about access…. • Or access and work on this material outside of school. Incidentally Jenkins believes this kind of blocking of Internet access and activities at schools serves to increase the digital divide – and that schools should be involved in teaching students how to work responsibly in these spaces and equipping them with strategies to deal with any ‘unwanted encounters’. He adds that the majority of people who are abused are abused by someone they know (not met on-line).

19. What people see when they reach the teacher’s site

20. We need to enroll each student • Collect their email addresses and forward them to sue • epraysue@bigpond.net.au • OR • You can invite them to join through Manage Spaces page (but still forward email addresses for other pre-text info to be sent)

21. How this can work? • Teachers have own space – can share and collaborate there – nobody else can see this or post to it • Each cluster has own space, own page within that. You can use this page like a home page itself. Create other pages and link them • You can create links to other blogs and wikis for those students who might like to create their own (you can have secure wikis and blogs that nobody else can post to, but others can see which are still free)

22. Getting the drama going • I’ve created a pre-text to help encourage responses and get the process started • Can continue this using emails, photos, video clips etc • Will weave in material that is emailed or posted on wikis • We can post selected team material to the website e.g. weekly

23. Character profiles Writing in role msn conversations in role Scripts Photos (best to resize in photo editing software first to size to be used before uploading) Flash animations Short video clips made in easily accessible software (movie maker, photo story 3) keep them short (1-3 mins) and save as smallish files (1-3 Mb) Documentation of workshops Description of creative processes Reflections on work being created and the process News and information – about when you’re meeting, what you’ve achieved etc Encouragement for each other! Whatever else you find helpful!!! You and your students can contribute