| Who?
HyperAction
(cultural technicians) was the bright idea of English teacher,
Sue Williams. . . . |
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| "I had my first accidental encounter with the World Wide Web in 1995. Like any teacher, chancing upon the Internet for the first time, I was instantly struck by its potential as an educational resource, but how could I, with a full teaching timetable, help realise that potential? Like every one else in my staffroom, I was much more familiar with the concept of hypertension than hypertext and the last thing I wanted to do was to try and juggle another 'new initiative' while keeping all the other balls in the air! |
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| "So I decided to stop
teaching for a while and to concentrate full time
on exploring ways of using new technology in
creative ways in the classroom. HyperAction grew out of that initial
decision. "I had always made IT central to my English teaching and the publication of children's work , either on the wall or in anthologies or magazines, is an essential way of showing that you value their work, ideas, even their culture. So first and foremost, I wanted to give young people the opportunity to actively participate in this new publishing phenomenon by helping them create web pages to reflect their ideas, experiences and perhaps even personal expectations about their own futures. "Multimedia technology offers a hugely exciting and versatile new way of expressing thoughts and ideas and I want to ensure that young people have the skills and opportunity to explore it. "Do youngsters have natural and instinctive talents in how to use and apply IT? Of course, it's all much more part of their culture than it was their teachers' or their parents' but babies still aren't born clicking mouse buttons despite the popular view. How do these young, confident, computer aware youngsters get to develop web authoring skills, learn to create and manipulate images, experiment with the medium, if they aren't given opportunity to access and explore new technology for themselves? And if they aren't stretched by teachers who can see the value of ICT beyond its technical genius. That's why it's so important to make multimedia experiences a central part of the learning experience. These are IT skills for the future and these of course are skills on which jobs will depend. "Information Technology is much less to do with technology and much more to do with communication than it has ever been before. The connectivity afforded by Internet technology is truly unique in the history of communication. For the teacher or student, the opportunity to access such a huge bank of information resources is - yes, I know - mind-boggling. So how do we ensure that our new society is not only the best informed but also the most thoughtful?Here, for the first time, is the opportunity to bring together people with vastly different cultural experiences in a dialogue that can be inter-continental or inter-generational, a chance to reflect on how we live our lives, what gives us our sense of identity and place and to share these feelings with others on a global platform. Suddenly we can think locally and act globally! "HyperAction has no model on which to base its activity. It is hard to predict what we will be doing in 6 months or 12 months; we are all learning a huge amount each day. Our aim, however, is to continue to find ways of exploring new technologies in creative ways. We are cultural technicians and . . .
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If you are interested in following our
progress more closely
or think you can help with money, ideas or resources . .
!
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Meanwhile, here's how we work 