Latest News

SUMMERSCHOOL GOES TO BAFTA

TUESDAY 27 JANUARY 2004 ENGLAND: SummerSchool researchers from the 2003 SEEVEAZ SummerSchool project will be attending and demonstrating their achievements at 'Be Very Afraid', a celebration of children's creativity at BAFTA in Piccadilly, London. The exhibition will be made up of children from Katherine Semar Junior School and Greensward High School, the children were selected for their outstanding work in the 2003 SEEVEAZ SummerSchool project 'Points of View Squared'. Children from other Ultralab projects will also be participating. The event is hosted by BAFTA the DfES and Ultralab.
Matthew Eaves | matt @ ultralab . net

FIRST SUMMERSCHOOL OF 2004 HUGE SUCCESS

MONDAY 26 JANUARY 2004 NEW ZEALAND: On 22nd,23rd and 24th January students from three locations in New Zealand were invited to take part in our first Summer School in New Zealand.

Groups of children in Auckland, Rotorua, and Christchurch were invited to participate, approx 70 students in total.

The results were outstanding, with the final films tackling a wide range of themes. Running SummerSchool in three different locations across New Zealand simultaneously was a real strength. The students (and parents) from Rotorua were able to video link up with the Christchurch group based at Ultralab.

Mike Anderson ran the Christchurch days, Indira Neville facilitated Auckland and I ran the Rotorua shindig!

Interestingly even though we all used the theme of POV, same age kids at the same time, the style of the films were significantly different from the three locations (more on this later………..)
POV themes included Asperger's syndrome, a lion, a pair of teeth braces and Te Waipuketanga (Flood) to name just a few. There was enormous support from parents, teachers and care givers. 80 parents turned up at the lab on Saturday to watch the students present their films similar numbers came to the Rotorua and Auckland presentations.

The children also displayed great initiative in using all available technology, with one group in Auckland including flash animation in their film.
We are looking forward to seeing how the Scotland, Wales, Ireland and England Summer School events go and maybe link some of our NZ students with those in the UK.

Roll on next year!!
Lorraine Taylor | lorraine @ ultralab . net

WALES SUMMERSCHOOL IN PLANNING

THURSDAY 15 JANUARY 2004 WALES: Ultralab's Welsh outpost is currently in the process of sourcing funding to run the very first Ultralab new media SummerSchool in Wales this year.

Geraint and his team will build on the successes of Northern Ireland, England and New Zealand adding new vital research findings to the SummerSchool study.

Exciting times.
Geraint Lang | geraint @ ultralab . net

BELFAST SUMMERSCHOOL DVD ON WAY!

WEDNESDAY 14 JANUARY 2004 NORTHERN IRELAND: SummerSchool Belfast was one of the biggest successes of 2003. For 3 days Ultralab and some of the youth groups of Belfast (Catholic and Protestant) worked together on the 'Points of View Squared' project and produced some of the most outstanding movies which set the standard for Points of View projects to come.

However, as with all our SummerSchool project there is very limited funding, and we've sourced some money to give each child who took part in the project a DVD containing their work.

Some nice quotes from the event:

"As youth leaders from across the the community divide we knew each other but we had never worked together. Ultralab's summer school gave us that opportunity." Stuart (Youth Leader)

"The kids were together, focused on making films rather on what divides them" Kelly (Youth Leader)

Event pictures

Anthony Russell | anthony @ ultralab . net
Martin Doherty | martin @ ultralab . net

SummerSchool goes to BETT....again!

Each year eMap, organisers of the BETT exhibiton in London look to Apple, Ultralab and Film Education to run the 'BETT Goes to the Movies' feature stand, demonstrating the potential of digital technologies. No children are allowed in the education show, except the Ultrlab SummerSchool children. This is the third year in a row SummerSchool has been represented at BETT. 22,000 visitors visit the show each year.

Click for pictures

Richard Millwood | richard @ ultralab . net

V&A Celebration Event Goes International!

TUESDAY 13 DECEMBER 2003 ENGLAND: An audience of 300 attended the 4th annual SummerSchool creativity celebration at the Victoria & Albert museum in London. The event, which shows off the summer work of the children is projected in the V&A's prestigious lecture theatre, which they then defend from questions from the audience was an amazing experience, as ever, for all involved.

The event, run in conjunction with SEEVEAZ was broadcast internationally over the Internet. Neil Boughen, Techincal Director of the event and his team put on exceptional technical performance made perfect by the input, interaction and possitive comments from the audience.

Prior to the presentation, hosted by Professor Stephen Heppell was the work from around the world, including the project in conjunction with TVNZ (New Zealand), the Belfast peace project and a movie from our friends in Singapore was shown to the audience.

Once again Ultralab's SMS service accepted over 400 text messages from the audice, who were able to text a big screen during the event.

For the first time Notschool.net joined the project, producing three excellent movies.

Greg Childs, from Childrens BBC, guest speaker at the event commented on how the work the children were doing really did matter to the future of British Television.

Ultralab and SEEVEAZ would like to thank once again the team at the V&A for their support in the project, and to the Children for their once again exceptional, head turning, internationally renound creativity.

Each child when home with a certificate, DVD containing their work, a SummerSchool branded hoodie, and the memories. The Ultralab team enjoyed a Pizza Hut on the way home! :-)

View the pictures here
Matthew Eaves | matt @ ultralab . net Summer School