Learning in the New Millennium Phase Two: Findings

The emphasis in phase 2 on multimedia work has resulted in additional challenges but also produced some interesting findings.

Fears surrounding the Internet
LiNM computers have remained open and democratic at a time of increasing panic concerning the World Wide Web (www) demonstrating that by instituting a sensible policy, giving advice, and using commonsense practices it is possible to run an open, unfiltered system even with the youngest pupils. Common sense still works in cyberspace.

Answering issues of quality
The project has attempted to answer some issues of quality arising from multimedia work, for example what should an 8 year old pupils' multimedia 'production' look like? Most multimedia seen in everyday life is professionally produced: we often regard video produced by satellite companies as inferior because we are used to viewing quality BBC productions. Video taken by a 9 year old, of an 8 year old, using equipment affordable by most schools will often be out of focus, jumpy, unedited and divert from the point - but remember how their paintings and poems look at this stage. This is an issue for national staff development and inspection.

Infrastructure
It is clear from phase 2, where transferring large multimedia files has proved difficult, that bandwidth between schools needs to be two-way as well as broad. Any thought that we might disseminate high bandwidth to children and expect them only to respond with mouseclicks and simple choices ("Yes", "No", "Unsure") is seated in some reality other than the one we discovered in phase 2. Children want to contribute and this means symmetrical broad bandwidth and tools for contribution. Without this parity of contribution the National Grid for Learning would become the National Reservoir for Learning and, like Prestel and NERIS before it, will die for want of engagement.

ISDN2 as adequate?
The LiNM schools have been using ISDN2 with a single computer connected since 1997 and have found the bandwidth restrictions offered by ISDN2 hampering. ISDN2 is the very minimum bandwidth which allows pupils to participate in multimedia projects. Specification of ISDN2 as an adequate requirement will cause deep dissatisfaction for most schools working with multimedia.

Compression issues
Compression of large files is necessary and yet compression software is still both expensive and complex to use.

Creativity
Freeing pupils from the restrictions of text has unleashed their creativity. Initially using multimedia to create a narrative pupils have moved forward adapting to the limitations of tools and used multimedia in creative ways, for example video initially used to tell stories has become much more video wallpaper used for effects and ideas.

Using multimedia data
The pupils on this project have demonstrated in their work that multimedia productions can start from raw data and progress through several different 'versions' by additions from different groups of pupils working in physically remote locations. The diversity of 'productions' resulting from these activities and the discourse surrounding these 'productions' extends the debate concerning future working practice and childrens perceptions.

More details...

View some phase two pupils work...