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Designing technologies to support creativity and collaboration
A handbook from Futurelab
By Keri Facer and Ben Williamson
 
       
open pdf version

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research intro

Futurelab handbooks
     



FOREWORD


One of Futurelab’s central aims is to better understand the role that emerging digital technologies might play in education. To do this, we bring together the education community (teachers, researchers and children) with the technology and creative industries, to build and evaluate prototypes of the sorts of digital resources that might be seen in schools in the future. It is our findings from clusters of related prototypes, along with our intelligence about other relevant projects and research, that we publish in these handbooks.

The main aims of these handbooks are:

• to provide useful and jargon-free insights into policy directions, research and projects developing in a particular area of education and technology

• to summarise the findings from the prototypes and processes Futurelab has developed in this area

• to provide useful pointers concerning the design and use of digital resources in this area.

While these handbooks are not intended as definitive statements, we hope you will find them a useful guide and introduction to areas of interest and emerging development. If you have any comments to make, or suggestions of other projects or research we should be aware of, please do let us know.


Keri Facer
Learning Research Director
research@futurelab.org.uk


Acknowledgements:

This report was produced as a result of prototype development work with colleagues Jo Morrison, Teresa Dillon, Martin Owen, Mary Ulicsak at Futurelab, and with our partners squidsoup (Virtual Puppeteers) and Immersive Education (MediaStage). Thanks to the children and teachers of Luckwell Primary School and Cotham Secondary School in Bristol for their support in the projects’ development.
 
contents
 
Executive summary


01_Introduction
Why the focus on ‘creative collaboration’?
Defining creativity and collaboration


02_Two Futurelab case studies:
Virtual Puppeteers and MediaStage

About the prototypes
Research trials
Research findings


03_Relevant related projects
promoting creative collaborations

Ghostwriter
Kahootz
KidStory
Vertex
Stop Press: The Movies/
Machinima/ plugincinema



04_Useful further reading and resources


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00_Recommendations inside front cover

Futurelab © 2004

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