NESTA believes that wealth creation and our quality of life in the UK depend on a vibrant and thriving educational system - one that cultivates and celebrates excellence and creativity. Our education work concentrates on piloting innovative ways to develop creative talent and sharing those lessons as widely as possible, so that teachers and educators can adopt, or adapt, these approaches.
Our mission is:
- to support innovative and pioneering education projects which provide models for others to follow and develop
- to increase public understanding of individual creativity in science, technology and the arts.
We seek out projects which explore imaginative ways of communicating, act as a catalyst for experimentation or create shining exemplars for the future. It isn't surprising then that in our first three years of operation we have supported a number of new media-based approaches to learning. While interactivity has been at the core of what we are funding, inevitably the projects split into those which use new media as a more effective communication tool, and those which really exploit its potential for learning in groundbreaking ways.
CURRENT PROJECTS
Motivate
Working with maths communicators and professors from Cambridge University, we are pioneering new approaches to learning using video conferencing, by linking schools together to work on challenging and lively interactive maths problems. During the current year, 65 schools have been involved and the project now involves more than 20 clusters of schools across the UK. Most of the schools are secondary, but we have this year piloted some work in the primary sector. We have learned much about the potential, and the constraints, of video conferencing and are aware of the technological challenges schools face in accessing this resource.
www.motivate.maths.org
E-Drama
NESTA support for Hi8us in Birmingham is driving forward the development of interactive web-based drama, or e-drama. This new medium is targeted at disaffected teenagers in youth organisations and young people in schools in the Telford area. Fictional scenarios will enable young people to explore a range of curricular areas as well as issues of citizenship, personal and social development.
www.hi8us.co.uk
Game On
This is a partnership with National Museums of Scotland and the Barbican Centre to explore the educational potential of using one of the most popular forms of today's youth culture - the computer game - as a classroom teaching aid. Often dismissed as an anti-social distraction for many youngsters, this initiative will exploit the computer game medium as a positive way of enhancing the learning experience.
School Works interactive website
NESTA is funding the interactive 3D element of the School Works website, to engage young people in design issues and the challenge of creating new learning environments. The project builds on the DfES funding for the innovative school design project at Kingsdale School in Southwark.
www.school-works.org
Whiteboards - the blackboards of the future
Working with the University of Hull's Institute of Learning and BETT prize winner Promethean Ltd, NESTA will identify and promote best practice in the use of interactive whiteboards and increase the use of this new technology in the classroom. Despite a huge interest from schools wanting to adopt the 'interactive whiteboard' approach to teaching, little pedagogical research is available and training provision is at an early stage of development.
VJ - A celebration of 21st century video art
This day-long event at Ocean in Hackney on 26 May 2002, promoted the fast-expanding new artform of VJing, a skill that manipulates video in much the same way that DJs mix records. This is a relatively new hybrid of visual arts, music and technology that is tipped to be as important an aspect of youth culture as DJing. Many young people are designing software for manipulating images, and this provided an opportunity to share ideas and discuss the future of VJing.
www.vjs.net
Random Dance
In working with the Random Dance Company, NESTA will create an opportunity for students and teachers to participate in choreography workshops via the internet. The project will take the form of a series of webcast-based, educational choreography lessons, providing teaching to multiple locations supported by a specifically developed interactive website. Random will follow up this online work by visiting venues working with the schools to host live workshops with the participating schools, culminating in a showcase performance.
Northern Ireland Digital Film Archive
The project will create and trial a redesigned and repackaged Digital Film Archive for the teaching of three curriculum subjects - citizenship, moving image arts and history. The project seeks to develop new models of learning that synthesise different areas of the curriculum and to demonstrate how digital technology can promote an integrated approach. The partners intend to provide demonstrable evidence that moving images, and their creative use within the curriculum, can considerably enhance students' learning experience.
Online Jemma
NESTA has commissioned XPT Ltd, pioneers of interactive digital entertainment, to create an online drama aimed at challenging the 'white lab coat' image of science and attract teenage girls (aged 11-16) to the subject. 'Online Jemma' will be sharing her experiences as a physics undergraduate embarking on a life of scientific study and combining this with the social aspects of being a student and the campus lifestyle. Research has shown that many young girls have an interest in science in their early years of secondary school, however the percentage of young women who continue their scientific studies on to university drops dramatically. Through audience involvement and a plotline that tackles science-related issues that are of topical interest, NESTA hopes to spark a keener interest in science in general, and encourage more young women to think more positively about pursuing a science-related career. The drama is to be launched in January 2003 at www.planetjemma.com.
Antarctic Waves
This CD-Rom and website takes Sir Peter Maxwell Davies' new Antarctic Symphony as its inspiration to produce a new media resource for GCSE and 'A' level music students. It is a fusion of science and music in partnership with the British Antarctic Survey and the Philharmonia Orchestra, and adopts the latest visualisation and modelling technology with sounds and video footage.
Muzantiks
This is a collaboration with the world renowned chamber group, Sinfonia 21, to produce a web-based music composition tool for primary age pupils. It uses innovative navigation and technology to involve and engage children in a fun resource which supports a number of areas of the music curriculum.
Science Line
NESTA funding has enabled Science Line to vastly increase its capacity to deal with both web and phone-based enquiries about science. The service is vital in providing a strong support service for Science Year. The website is now receiving over 200,000 hits per week.
www.sciencenet.org.uk
Science Worlds
NESTA has commissioned a website which allows schools to search the growing number of science centres, zoos, environmental centres and museums which have interactive science activities within them. The site has a full education user search facility and provides a signposting and portal service to the centres' own sites.
www.scienceworlds.co.uk
Gareth Binns, Education Director, NESTA
www.nesta.org.uk
Related articles:
Planet Jemma: a new world for science
How clubland multimedia came to disabled kids
Game On: learning about and learning from video games
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