Each keyword below is appended with link to some Ultralab project findings or other supporting material, while the icon below each keyword links to an illustrative screen image or short QuickTime movie.
All our projects suggest that children and others
are hungry to contribute with
the full media spectrum that they enjoy as consumers.
This points very firmly to symmetrical systems with the
same bandwidth passing from as
to the consumer. Anything else
will be visual wallpaper unless it is absolutely
compelling. This is closer to a model of
communication than a model of
dissemination and it
is the future.
symmetry
plasticine daisy
animation
Follow links to: our Nortel sponsored
Learning in the New Millennium project's Phase
1 and Phase
2 conclusions (started 1993);
our policy
paper on ICT in Learning
commissioned for EU ministers;
A continuum passes from passive through
interactive, to participative. There is a place for all three but no place for
ignoring any. Participative requires
tools,
opportunity,
community. Thus, in the context of learning, consoles are
firmly Learning Tools not
Teaching Machines.
participation
learning community tools
in
use in Codename Scoop
Follow links to: about
past project Schools OnLine
(started 1995); our preliminary
report from phase 1 of our
on-line pilot of the University for Industry (with the IPPR -
1997); Stephen's
presentation slides to the
I.E.E. Unbundling in the UK conference; any bit of work
contributed (try searching just for all the "Sams" for example!)
from the children in any of the 16,000 schools in our
Tesco
SchoolNet 2000 project (the
URL is on every Tesco carrier bag).
wired sprite and text track layers
in our language learning for business web
material Multiple media add value in many ways: a text
track might add subtitles to a French film, a text track
might also carry additional information - sports
statistics for example, symbols and icons help add a
taxonomy, graphs add a visual representation, etc.
Broadcast media design should recognise that some
'layers' will be redundant to some users in some
contexts. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be
provided.
redundancy
Follow links to: (now dated but useful)
taxonomy
of multimedia developed by the
lab for the HEA;
screen dump of a "stickied" In our Internet projects users
annotate content - they use everything from "stickies" to
"postcards" (site is lovely, wish you were here). This
annotation offers users a role but also allows the
repurposing of content too - compare to local radio
maybe? With our DTI Schools Online project 50% of total
server content ended up being these annotations.
annotation
page from our Oracle
Millennium Project.
Follow links to: Schools
OnLine (started back in 1996,
closed in 1998, but the server still works - register and try for
yourselves).
Two pictures from the BBC Horizon
"TV is dead...etc" programme. The way we use radio has evolved. We listen whilst
we do other things; the 'narrative' of our day lies
somewhere between the linear delivery of the radio and
the fragmented experience of our lives.
capablities
Similarly our TV viewing evolves; indeed we all develop
new media capabilites (and lose others - can you still
sit around the radio with your family on a wet Sunday?),
and we ignore that evolution at our peril.
Follow links to: transcript
of "TV is Dead; Long Live TV" BBC
Horizon programme with
children at Ultralab watching four (4!) TV programmes at the same
time (they were highly 'literate' and skilled viewers); an
old
article for the TES ("Games
and Gains" 1993) about children's cognitive capabilities as
computer game players.
Victoria Road South, Chelmsford, Essex. CM1 1LL - by the railway station
phone +44 (0) 1245 252009 fax +44 (0) 1245 252047
e.mail for Ultranauts is: firstname@ultralab.anglia.ac.uk
or visit ULTRALAB's many World Wide Web servers and projects starting from: www.ultralab.anglia.ac.uk