- guardian.co.uk, Tuesday June 11 2002 18.48 BST
Ever thought about anonymity as a tool for learning? It is at the heart of edrama (online drama).
Helen Reeves, head of creative and performing arts at Queensbridge school, Birmingham, is convinced. "I think edrama is a remarkable tool. It uses anonymity and elements that young people understand such as chat, and texting."
Imagine a chat room with images of the people taking part. Instead of lines of text and aimless, trivial chat, there is written discussion that is sharply focused by a director. If you are a student you log on with your real name and go through to the edrama dressing room. Once there you find a book to see what situation the director, usually a teacher, has devised for you to improvise around.
In the room there are a number of avatars (drawn characters) that student can choose from. A portfolio tells the student all about their character's background. They can even dress their avatar appropriately.
Before moving to the next stage, the Green Room, the student has to answer some questions in the role of the new character. The typed responses are stored so that the director can see them. In the Green Room the student, now in role, meets other characters who have arrived through a similar process. Eventually a message appears on the screen from the director that tells them to go on stage and the improvisation begins.
One improvisation is a PSHE-type exercise based around the opening of the local Megabowl. The scenario has some moral dilemmas built in. There are four students who are underage and who want to get in to the opening. One has faked some IDs and one has stolen their mother's credit card to buy the tickets.
In a history scenario the teacher might decide that one person is George Stevenson, working with some scenarios based around the building of the Liverpool to Manchester railway and justifying the new technology to sceptics.
The program is adaptable, designed to be changed by teachers. Off-the-shelf modules are provided but teachers can equally write their own or students can create them. There is even room for an audience.
The director is all-seeing, can read everything, talk to everyone, prompt them and even muzzle people who are not working appropriately. Prompts go to individual characters and cannot be seen by anyone else. The director's role is to throw in triggers, suggestions, to create tensions, to cut the action, to move things, to steer the improvisation.
Jeremy Hepburn, head of history at Queensbridge school, created the railway scenario. "For the students it is much less boring than writing a report. They don't have to stand in front of anyone, they are not worried they will make a fool of themselves, it's just words on a screen and the only person who knows who is responding is the director.
"Even better, the kids don't have to fulfil the role that they normally have in the group. It takes away the peer pressure and the sense of audience that makes some people freeze. It gives everyone the freedom to explore ideas. Anyone could become the swot they used to be or always wanted to be. There are dominant kids in every class, it also takes the pressure off them to perform in their usual way."
"People are beginning to realise how valuable drama can be as a learning tool," argues Reeves. "It can be used in the school or across the world. It opens up other subjects. You can use scenarios from many subjects and the kids can be in role. The most successful thing about it is that it is anonymous. That is especially useful for children who fear performing.
"Whenever you use edrama, the kids are completely and utterly silent sitting at the keyboard, furiously typing away because nobody knows who is playing which character. It all happens so fast that they have to concentrate. Edrama is not about drama as an art form but about drama as a learning tool. The edrama does not replace drama, it recognises that there is within drama a mechanism that other subjects can use."
Developed at Hi8us Projects in Birmingham, edrama has been funded by Nesta (National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts). Kulwant Dhaliwal, the edrama coordinator at Hi8us, estimates that the project is still about a year from completion. There are many things that the developers find exciting.
"We keep hearing about boys falling behind - one reason often stated is peer pressure. What edrama does is take away the pressures so they can be as clever as they want to be. The anonymity has a whole set of benefits that are not necessarily associated with conventional drama. This is not just about doing drama but combining drama, ICT and the rest of the curriculum. Everything that the students write is saved and can be reviewed afterwards and reshaped."
The real developers are the children from Queensbridge. They have advised on the program's development and have also taught their teachers how to use it. What do they think? "You can be anyone that you want to be," says Tahirah Gani from year 9. "For shy people who don't like acting in front of other people it is good because they can express themselves without being face-to-face with anyone."
If the experience of Queensbridge school is any guide, edrama will make an impact. Queensbridge is also taking part in another online project on sex education. "We are in a multicultural school and there are other issue about kids' shyness," Reeves points out.
"The other edrama project we are involved with has blown me away with how honest kids will be when they are working on a project that has captured them."
Jonnie Turpie from Hi8us points out that "the anonymity of ICT and the web is a new element in education that puts kids in a more valuable and less pressurised situation. It works with gender and race. It is not just for the shy. Most discussions are dominated by two or three people even in university seminars. This way no one is afraid to express their ideas."
Hi8us: www.hi8us.co.uk/ tel: 0121-693 0242
Nesta: www.nesta.org.uk
