Creative imagination and media-assisted learning: Shakespeare in performance

Abstract

This paper is a text version of a presentation given at the Oxford CTI conference on Media-assisted Learning in March 1997. It presents the aims of the OU/BBC Shakespeare Multimedia Project, which has been producing new technological teaching tools on Shakespeare in Performance since 1995, including a series of video and audio performances, television programmes, and a suite of interactive CD-ROMs in progress. The paper outlines a number of the key concerns which the team was formed to address, and explains the stages of development, the forms of feedback which we have taken on board (gathered by our colleagues in the Institute of Educational Technology, the research and development wing of the Office of new Technology, the academic course team, and the testing in the UK and North America), and the current status and output of the project. The paper begins with a statement of the central relationship that the Project Team sees between ideas, images, and words in performance formatted for distance teaching and research. In offering a number of alternatives through the CD-ROMs and Web site, the work produced to date makes possible a number of imaginative connections for students and teachers of different generations and levels of experience with technology, including those with limited sight and hearing. The paper should be of interest to those who are concerned to look at the potential benefits of using new technology for what it is best at, without buying in wholesale to the idea that CD-ROMs or the Web should be used in all instances, or should replace tutor interaction in ‘real’ space and time as well. © 1997 Oxford University Press.