Summer 2004

Talking Maths

New Ways to Apply Learning

A hit TV series co-produced by the Australian Children’s Television Foundation (ACTF) and the British Broadcasting Commission (BBC), opens up the ICT world for children by dramatising chat rooms and cyber sites. LEE BURTON reports on the educational successes of Noah and Saskia.

Multiliteracies is the term coined by a group of academics calling themselves the New London Group. They argue that the multiplicity of communications channels and increasing cultural and linguistic diversity in the world today call for a much broader view of literacy than portrayed by traditional language-based approaches. The term ‘multi’ refers to the modalities of literacy—linguistic, visual, audio, gestural and spatial—which create meaning. Television, film and Internet communication can all be multimodal. Multiliteracies provides an accessible way of exploring the many levels of communication in information and communication technology (ICT). However, finding ways to engage students in discussing online issues and rapidly changing modes of communication and to help them develop multiliteracy skills can be challenging.

The Australian Children’s Television Foundation’s 13-part comedy/drama series Noah & Saskia uses a rich blend of live action and animation, and is accompanied by extensive educational resources for use in ICT, English, Media Studies and SOSE. The series was immediately popular with young people aged from 10 to 16, and has since been in great demand from schools. Response from students and teachers indicates there has never been a television series that speaks so directly to today’s young people about the technologies which are changing the way we communicate.

The series and its accompanying educational resources provide innovative opportunities to engage with current pedagogy, based on theories of multiliteracy and visual literacy learning, and to explore ICTs.

The story

This contemporary story follows the development of an online relationship between the alter egos of two teenagers who live on opposite sides of the globe. Melbourne-based Saskia, a budding musician, writes a piece of music which she posts on the Internet, hoping to receive feedback.

In London, Noah, by day the geeky younger brother of the school football star, is transformed each night into ‘Max Hammer’, the main character in an online comic that Noah has created.

The cyber-marauding Noah (in the guise of Max) discovers Saskia’s music and uses it in his comic strip, ‘The Very Real and Excellent Adventures of Max Hammer’. Saskia discovers this and goes online into webweave in search of the thieving Max Hammer to take her revenge. She quickly realises that she is no match for the super confident, highly respected cyberhero, Max. So she invents Indy—a mysterious, smoother, sexier version of herself.

When Max invites Indy to be cocreator of the comic strip— composing the music and advising on the story development—Noah & Saskia become the best of friends via the ideal selves they project in the virtual world. They feel like they know what’s going on in each other’s heads; that they can tell each other things they can’t tell anyone else. Except that neither of them is who they are claiming to be, and both are convinced that the friendship would end in an instant if their cool cyber friend discovered their true identity.

The extensive free lessons in the ACTF’s online Learning Centre (www.actf.com.au) that accompany Noah & Saskia, focus on young people’s fascination with the Internet. The online and DVD/CDROM resources were developed by the ACTF in partnership with teachers and professional Literacy and English teaching associations. Noah & Saskia presents opportunities to teach visual literacy and to explore the interrelated themes of character development and identity construction; relationship development and sustainability; the construction and de-construction of various texts; and the impact of ever-emerging ICTs.

The importance of this resource is that it provides learning and exploration of the technical, creative and ethical issues surrounding teenagers’ use of the Internet, chat rooms and unique online media such as online comics and books. The online lessons and worksheets provide detailed information for teachers about ICTs and discussion points and activities for students.

Topics in Unit One include Using the Internet responsibly; Identity; Virtual and ‘real’ relationships; Online personas/avatars; Production of the digital effects and animation in the series; and Constructing an online chat room.

These topics help students to explore the concepts of different personas, reality, honesty and being true to oneself. The activities help students to consider the effects of interactions between family, friends and others, and the perceptions of others on the development of identity.

The lesson plans and worksheets incorporate experiences that reflect a balance of multiliteracies pedagogies—experiential, conceptual, analytical and application knowledge processes. Students work with what is known or familiar to them; they learn new conceptual understandings/ terminology; they ‘stand back’ and participate in critical comment; and they apply their learning in new ways.

Reports from the trialling of this resource in schools across Australia reveal its versatility. It has been used to introduce ICT issues to year 6 students, as a multimodal text for secondary English classes, as a study in digital effects and animation, and in discussing values and ethics for using the Internet. There are plans to include additional units for primary literacy, secondary English teachers and SOSE middle years as an online resource in early 2005.

For more information about multiliteracies pedagogy, visit www.alea.edu.au/multilit.htm

Lee Burton is the education manager for the Australian Children’s Television Foundation.

The author owns the copyright in this article. For information related to the reuse of this work in any form please contact the publisher denise.quinn@curriculum.edu.au