People used to say to us that presenting a 7 year-old with a hunk of unadulterated blank verse would scare them to death. We used to reply that it was all about context. Set things up right, make people feel they're involved and you'd be surprised what you can get away with.

I feel much the same about interactivity. Almost by definition, interactivity is about finding things out. It's about making choices and seeing what happens. It's about discovering things you didn't know, or having experiences which are (or feel), in some way, unique to you.

And I feel much the same about learning. And I use the word carefully. I'm not talking about 'education' - which is a term which speaks volumes about how 'interactive' the process is likely to be - it says, to me at least, "I know this, you I'm going to make sure you learn it too".

Now, I'm being a purist here and overstretching to make the point. I can see massive value and total necessity in having structured curriculum requirements. I'm just not sure it's the job of truly interactive material to deliver them. The curriculum doesn't leave much room for manoeuvre of itself - that's kind of the point. For me, interactivity is all about room for manoeuvre.

That said, there's an acknowledged paradox at the heart of much educational policy - the need to engage and involve as well as to educate.

And this seems to me to be the ideal place for interactivity. Not, I would like to stress, in the delivery of huge hunks of bare information. This could be equally well achieved (maybe better) by books - or some educational websites many of which basically take the same approach as books.

A truly interactive experience has unparalleled potential to light the spark, to engage the person - as the best museum curators, theatre professionals and other storytellers already know. If we can engender approaches to learning which bring together the best of the linear world, the best of the limited range of interactive technology we have today and the propensity of people to get together in groups to help each other out, I'm hugely optimistic for the future of interactive learning. Much less so for interactive education. To me, that seems a bit of a contradiction in terms.

For me, Futurelab has an opportunity, uniquely in the UK, to be in the vanguard of thinking in this area. If 90 per cent of what we learn comes through play, as is often said, then, presumably it's logical that we should play more? Futurelab can help us to understand the swings and roundabouts that should be placed in the playground. It can help the industry understand how to create contexts which might trigger involvement - and therefore learning and which might ignite the spark of interest. That's because interest is what it's all about; interest and involvement. Technology of itself is probably irrelevant - but technology is increasingly critical in helping us to create inspiring material.

The trite response to this is to produce lots of websites filled with little games and to assume that we've cracked it. But how well do the games hang together? What is the learning context which they form? Is the material in them actually interactive, or is it books in disguise? (Nothing wrong with books by the way, I have hundreds of them).

How confident are we to let users have their say, make their own materials and learn amongst themselves? Can we create communities of interest around our interactive material which bring the users in and back? Once upon a time, we all thought light was a wave, or was it a particle? Then we learned it might be both or neither and that, worryingly, having a look to find out actually changed the result. They call it quantum physics. Users do that to interactive content - they mess it up; or maybe they help it evolve. If we can learn to create the playgrounds, I have a feeling that some of the most interesting games will use the swings for purposes that the manufacturers never intended. Then we might have ignited the spark.


By Anthony Lilley, Managing Director, Magic Lantern