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DIGITAL CHILDHOODS, The Future of Learning for the Under-10s
Cathy Derrick
Transcript notes from presentation, 5 March 2003, Robinson College, Cambridge
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Children as Co-Designers
Input CBBC Presentation
Cathy Derrick
Producer
CBBC
My work recently has been about schemes for connecting with audiences - something CBBC is very keen on.
Your Input is our Output
- indeed the aim of the CBBC channel is "Your Input is Our Output".
Access system
For this channel, I produced an integrated system where children can get in touch with shows using text, web or one phone number. Its called the CBBC Access System and the aim is to encourage more participation from children ranging from voting to giving us their ideas and comment.
That is one level of children contributing as co-designers because their input can and does alter the course of a programme.
Children as authors
At another level, I have been producing a pilot project called Input CBBC, which is not only about children as co-designers but sole authors of content.
This was all about encouraging children who've never made a film to produce their own output - with minimal involvement from CBBC - to find out more about children as co-designers.
Give children a voice
Isn't that what CBBC has been doing for 40 years? Well, yes, for decades CBBC has been at the forefront of providing children with a voice on television.
Other projects
There are also and have been user generated projects such as Video Nation, now primarily a web experience. BBC Blast encouraged young people to get involved with the arts, giving support and advice.
CBBC transmitted As Seen on TV, children's stories, told by children, produced by CBBC between 1994 and 1998. And of course there are non- - BBC schemes like First Light filmmaking project currently in operation, run by Hi 8 us.
But where children are or have been involved in such projects, in the vast majority of cases, their hands have been guided in these processes by researchers and producers or their footage has been edited by professionals - to ensure the best quality end results.
Children control
Input CBBC was the first research pilot project attempting to give children control at every stage of the process - from idea through editing to screen. If interesting results were produced - and I am in the process of analysing them - it could lend itself to projects with bigger scale. In a mass filmmaking scheme for children, individual guidance is not viable, hence our desire for a hands-off approach in this pilot - which was a toe dipped in the water of user-generation.
Aims
So Input CBBC aimed to: |
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· test a potential way to get more voices on CBBC from more children all around the British Isles
· test a potential way to provide access to CBBC to children, with places their films can be shown.
· encourage new ways of thinking by programme makers in a more hands-off approach when working with children.
· test whether it would be viable for children to construct whole magazines for themselves on broadband, with some content produced by them, other content being professional items.
Why now?
Why now? We felt the time was ripe:
1. Because with new, simpler cameras and editing packages, technology is much more user-friendly, cheaper and widely available.
2. Contemporary children are more fluent with technologies such as computers than previous generations.
3. There is a growing emphasis on digital equipment amongst teachers and students.
Begun Oct 02
So we launched this research pilot last October - in collaboration with Ultralab, a research centre of Anglia Polytechnic University, who have a lot of experience in this sort of "loose touch" approach to film-making with children. We knew from the start our project would be a tall order - and we wanted to test our ideas harshly - to see if any child, with no special ability or ambition, could succeed at filmmaking with little guidance.
Locations
We chose locations first - Sheffield and Hull - Hull because of perhaps distant future possibilities of connecting with the BBC's broadband site on the Kingston Interactive service. In Sheffield we are interested in possible future links with the BBC Open Centre there. There is a growing network of BBC Open Centres for the public - in the future perhaps children could come, not just for online help, but possibly to a resource centre to help them get their ideas onto video.
Participants
Once the two locations had been decided on, we researched and approached established institutions - schools, community groups and City Learning Centres. We picked a mix of communities - ranging from multicultural inner city in Sheffield or the largest council estate in Europe in Hull - to rural and suburban.
Supporting adults
We asked the institutions we approached first to seek an interested (and police checked) adult who would act as the supporting adult for each group of children because a key feature of the project was the need for children always to have a responsible adult with them when they film, for health and safety purposes.
This was all part of the "arms length " approach of the trial for a long term where CBBC might be offering advice to children what to do if they want to make a film - and the first need is for an adult prepared to supervise such activities.
However these supporting adults were heavily briefed that their role was to organise film-making sessions, keep children safe, provide limited technological help if the children got stuck - but not to interfere in the creative process.
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