Abstract:

Education systems around the globe are increasingly embracing the qualities that creativity in all its forms bring to learning: collaboration, problem solving, questioning, kinaesthetic learning. However, screen-based technologies often have problematic relationships with these creative approaches, struggling to translate the virtual into physical task-based learning by underexploited notions of playfulness, fiction, role play and action, at least as they are framed by theatre practitioners and educators.

This presentation proposes and models a new paradigm of internet-based learning that merges the actual and the virtual into real-time collaborative kinaesthetic learning that deploy a range of playful, gamified strategies. Prospero is web-based learning software, created by the UK theatre and education company C&T. C&T are a National Portfolio Organisation of Arts Council England and in the arts and education sectors are regarded as leaders in the use of technology in cultural and creative education.

This presentation will:
First, set out the pedagogic framework that underpins the Prospero platform, identifying synergies between principles of Online Distance Learning (ODL), Serious Games and Dorothy Heathcote’s Drama methodology Mantle of the Expert, Augusto Boal’s Forum Theatre and John O’Toole’s Process of Drama. It will explore how notions of ‘iterative design’ are echoed in various Drama pedagogies (in particular Neelands conceptualisation of ‘scaffolding’) and how ideas of ‘gamification’ are synergistic with similar conceptualisation of theatre games as demonstrated in such practices as ‘Theatre Games of The Oppressed’ and Keith Johnstone’s improvisatory drama framework.

Secondly, it will demonstrate how such hybrid pedagogies underscore the Prospero web platform and its toolkit for building what are called ‘Smartscripts’: kinaesthetic learning experiences authored and shared at scale and distance. The presentation will explore how these 'Smartscripts' behaviours similar to those in Serious Games. This will include an exploration of the conceptualization of ‘theatre-as-user-interface’ and subsequent UI design based on this model. This demonstration will include Prospero’s browser interface and its capacity to control and co-ordinate multiple ‘Ariel Units’: smartphones and tablet computers. (Conference attendees will be invited to use their own smartphones to join in this demonstration in real-time). It will also illustrate the types of drama-based and kinaesthetic learning techniques Prospero can cascade digitally to participants in multiple locations simultaneously, thereby shaping collaborative learning.

Present three case studies of Prospero in action: A Teacher professional development project involving 400 New Zealand schools; a collaborative project exploring and deconstructing ‘Fake News,’ involving schools in New York City, UK and Korogocho, a slum district of Nairobi; and a project using technology-driven creative methods to educate children with a range of profound learning and physical disabilities, in Fort Royal School, Worcester UK.

Finally, the presentation will offer critical reflection on the Prospero platform’s development and potential future iterations.

Keywords:

Online Distance Learning, ODL, Drama, Theatre, Creativity, kinaesthetic, Web-based, collaboration.