Education and Information Technologies 5:1 (2000): 63±65

# 2000 Kluwer Academic Publishers, Manufactured in The Netherlands

Young People, Creativity and New Technologies:The Challenge of Digital Arts

Publisher: London Routledge

Publication date: June 1999

Pages: 192 pp: illus. 40 b=w, 8 pp colour section

ISBN: Hb: 0-415-20312-0: Pb: 0-415-203139

JUSTIN DILLON

Director, International Education Unit, School of Education, King's College London, Franklin-Wilkins Building,

150 Stamford Street, London SE1 8WA, UK

justin.dillon@kcl.ac.uk

Just how does change in education happen? In this post-modern world, how can we make

sense of the in¯uences, discourses and in¯uences that move things on? The sheer variety

of hardware and software available throughout the education world has created myriad

sites of creativity, many of which go undocumented and unappreciated by the wider world.

This book sets out to catalogue cases displaying the creative potential of the new

technologies in sites of both formal and informal eduction.

The book, an edited collection of ten case studies of innovation in the use of the digital

arts, has arisen from a series of seminars funded by the UK Arts Council. The focus is on

young people's creative use of multimedia, on-line communications and the Internet, in

partnership with photographers, teachers, writers and researchers. Three additional chapters

provide an overview of issues such as multimedia literacy, resources and the curriculum.

Case-study collections can be a dull mix of `pious hope, self praise and disciplinary

chauvinism' ± to use Arthur Lucas' memorable chastisement of environmental education

researchers. Though there are elements of all three characteristics in this volume, they are

outweighed by a plethora of dynamic, creative and stimulating ideas and innovations.

Vivienne Reiss and Julian Sefton-Green set the scene and explain the context in which the

case studies arose. Their chapter on Multimedia literacies: developing the creative uses of

new technology with young people, also raises several key issues such as the role of new

technologies in challenging the established social and political order.

Vivi Lachs, one of a rare breed of advisory teachers, describes The moving picture

science show, explaining how 165 children worked with multimedia in the classroom in a

deprived area of inner London. Students worked on one of 16 projects, all chosen from the

existing National Curriculum, to produce a CD which has gone on to be used in several

countries as well as the UK. Rebecca Sinker, on the other hand, describes a media arts

project The Rosendale odyssey. The project, which involved all 320 students in a Victorian

era primary school celebrating its centenary, involved investigating the histories and

cultures of the school's diverse community. In A digital big breakfast: the Glebe school

project, Avril Loveless outlines how 9±10-year-olds used ICT to produce visually

stimulating posters designed to encourage people to eat a healthy breakfast.

So far, so good ± however the only voices that we have heard are those of adults and

they have tended to make unsubstantiated assertions with little evidence to support their

cases. None of the cases would be replicable because too little information has been

provided. Jo Booth takes a more critical line, using another primary project involving CD-

ROM production to raise challenging questions about the limitations of multimedia

publishing particularly with young children. A dilemma for Booth is the disparity between

the quality of the children's work and the expectations of wider audiences. If children are

motivated by producing material for other people ± then the ®nal product must be geared

to the needs of the audience.

Quality is an issue addressed by Irene Ordidge who worked for the British Educational

Communications and Technology Agency. Based on the belief that awards stimulate

creativity (has anyone ever proved this?), BECTAs illfated predecessor the almost

anonymous National Council for Educational Technology created a national award

scheme for multimedia. In The NEMA Experience, Ordidge provides a simple description

of the history of the scheme and looks at how disparate submissions were evaluated. Sue

Williams shows what can be achieved in `average' classrooms with limited resources. In

the Roath Village Web-Williams describes an attempt to map the `sense of community' in a

part of Cardiff, Wales. Williams raises issues of teacher con®dence, student competence

and the need for ICT to be at the centre of the curriculum.

The much more ambitious work achievable by talented sixth formers is the subject of the

chapter by Andrew Jones. Ten teenagers were able to work with professional multimedia

artists examining issues of identity, culture and race. In the end, only three students took a

full part and Jones examines their successes and why so many dropped out. The chapter is

well illustrated with screen shots and web-site plants. The chapter also contains the voices

of the students involved in the project. Roz Hall and Darren Newbury asked young people

at a Birmingham Internet cafe, What makes you switch on? And discovered the range of

motivations that young people have for their work with ICT. The chapter raises crucial

questions about the role of formal and informal education in a world where skills and

knowledge continue to grow in size and complexity.

Continuing the research theme, Chris Abbott, a former Director of the Inner London

Educational Computing Centre, uses his research to illuminate young people's views about

their own Web publishing. The chapter uses quotations from the students well and the

whole chapter has a well thought out feel to its structure and content. Abbott raises a key

question about the need for skills and knowledge ± although young people can now reach

new audiences on the Net it does not necessarily mean they have anything new to say.

Helen Cunningham and Miriam Rivett focus on media studies at an introductory under-

graduate level. A range of web-sites are shown all of which look rather glum and a point

made by the judges of the NEMA Awards about young children's projects showing more

creativity comes to mind. The challenge for university teachers is how to develop academic

rigour and encourage creativity.

64 BOOK REVIEW

After a standard technical chapter on hardware to software, the editor, Julian Sefton-

Green ®nishes the book by providing a framework for digital arts and the curriculum. He is

rather critical of some of the ideas of his contributing authors, for example, describing a set

of criteria for evaluating the digital arts as `rather vague and non-speci®c'. Other authors

are said to be `necessarily stumbling in the dark'. This is a refreshing and honest approach

to take in this rapidly changing ®eld. If there is one thing that we can be sure of in ICT in

education ± it is that we can be sure of nothing for any useable amount of time. Nothing

dates faster than yesterday's visions of the future.

The book will provide a good source of ideas for teachers, teachers±educators,

community artists and ICT curriculum developers. I recommend it ± there are many

interesting ideas, some good examples of the creative use if ICT in education and some

markers to which future writers should return.

BOOK REVIEWS 65