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Writing for the future
By Ben Williamson, Learning Researcher, Futurelab |
While many e-learning programs have come and gone over the last few years, one initiative aimed at supporting new and innovative writing for both adults and children has enjoyed steadily growing recognition.
Writers for the Future was initiated by the trAce online writing school at Nottingham Trent University in 1996, and is currently being supported by NESTA. It enjoys millions of hits a year from all over the world. With a range of activities already underway and a number of new initiatives planned, it is a project with large ambitions - for both children's education and to support adult's writing.
Sue Thomas, founder and artistic director of trAce, says, "Writers for the Future is not just for teachers and children. It's designed to explore innovative digital literature using the internet, and to provide criteria for best practice in the emerging genre of new media writing."
Having appointed a digital writer-in-residence, Writers for the Future has recently begun running a series of TEXTLABs, workshops for supporting new media writers with online support and a week-long residential course.
A roadshow is also scheduled for March-July 2004, during which the project's writer-in-residence and other guest writers will tour the UK demonstrating the best new media writing and supporting others in getting started.
Besides these activities, Writers for the Future is also responsible for the Kids on the Net website which has been designed to support and promote children's writing and literacy development.
Kids on the Net editor Helen Whitehead says, "It offers opportunities to children and young people all over the world to publish stories, poems and other writing, submit writing to collaborative projects, and develop writing specifically for digital media."
The site features a range of writing submitted by children. Much of it has been written particularly with web publication in mind. One story by Year 5 pupils in Porchester, for instance, uses hypertext to allow readers to make decisions about the story's narrative. Different 'chapters' have been written and illustrated by different pupils, who are individually credited.
All submissions to Kids on the Net are carefully moderated and approved by its editors before being added.
As well as publishing opportunities for children, Kids on the Net also hosts the newly-redesigned eTeacher's Portal, which is directed mainly at Key Stage 2 teachers.
"It provides information and resources for teachers about new forms of writing using computers and the internet," say Helen Whitehead. "Teachers can download resources and teaching materials to apply these new forms of writing to the English and literacy curricula."
Kids on the Net has also recently employed a full-time teacher-in-residence, whose job is to design and pilot new initiatives. The first of these projects, Helen Whitehead says, is Dragonsville, which has been developed with a specific focus on the KS2 literacy curriculum.
"It's a literacy-based project that will develop both teachers' skills in using and applying digital resources in their teaching, as well as improving children's literacy and ICT skills. The project includes collaborative story writing, biographical writing, discussion skills, letter writing and research skills."
The next project will be Adventure Island, aiming to produce hypertextual adventure stories by providing teachers with templates and tools that they can use, without any prior web-building experience, to generate stories as interactive adventures on the web.
Once the projects have been piloted, Kids on the Net then makes them available online as safe sites for young people to take part in at home, at school, or in the community. On top of this, KotN plans to begin improving its provision for secondary school teachers of English, and is seeking schools interested in piloting Key Stage 3 materials.
The Writers for the Future project has also just launched a national new media article writing competition in 2005/6, including a separate prize for children. Sue Thomas sees it as an opportunity to establish a 'Booker Prize' of digital writing to demonstrate the artistic, creative and innovative value of writing.
It is also something of a forum for digital writers to define their craft. The competition organisers are inviting articles that discuss what 'writing' means when it includes sound and images alongside text, and what the 'author' is when writing is produced communally.
"Why are writers who move their practice into new media spaces shedding conventional narrative strategies and devices?" the organisers ask. "And how does this 'literary disconnect' relate to the rival tradition in literature?"
With the closing date for the 2004 prize being 30 April, followed in July by the trAce Incubation3 symposium dedicated to writing and the internet, writing for the future is suddenly looking like it might be writing for the present too.
Links
Writers for the Future: www.writersforthefuture.com
Kids on the Net: kotn.ntu.ac.uk/
trAce Online Writing School: www.tracewritingschool.com/
New Media article competition: trace.ntu.ac.uk/Process/index.cfm?article=90
Incubation3 conference, 12-14 July, Nottingham Trent University: trace.ntu.ac.uk/incubation/
February 2004
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