Some years ago I established a forum just for students of Units 3 & 4 Drama and Theatre Studies. Each year, a small but dedicated number of students post messages on the forum about their developing performance exams.

Unit 4 Drama students find the forum particularly useful, because it is the only place they can discuss with students from other schools choices people are making with the performance examination characters. A great way to help others out and share ideas.

Unit 4 Theatre Studies students also use the forum to discuss decisions being made with their monologue performance exams.

Each year, I wipe the forum board clean. Currently there are “threads” (topics) set up on the message board for each of the performance exam characters in both Drama and Theatre Studies. While a number of students have registered for the forum in recent months, no one as yet has posted anything!

If you think any of your current Unit 4 students may be interested, please get them to follow the link below for free board registration and to post messages on the board.

If I don’t see any activity on the board in the next few weeks, sadly, I’ll just delete the board.

Please note, this forum is just for students. It is moderated by myself to ensure everything is nice and happy in forum-land…

VCE Drama and Theatre Studies Student Forum

I listened to how iPods and iPhones are being used in schools for projects, how Macbooks and various Apple applications are integrated into teaching programs for a wide variety of learning tasks in everything from Maths to Art, how iTunes U has added academic depth to video and audio resources for teachers and students and there was lots of talk about the growing number of schools in Australia going 1:1 (1 laptop per student).

But after I left the seminar it hit me.

With every Apple education officer in the room proudly displaying their new iPads, no one ever mentioned how new these devices are being used in classroom settings, if at all?

Has anyone got any stories they’d like to share about how they have used the iPad in the classroom with students? Better still, has anyone used an iPad in a drama/theatre classroom with students?

The culprit? Celtx scriptwriting software developed by a team of Canadian software developers and film people. Had I been living under a rock? Why had I never heard of this amazing software before now? Her script looked like a professionally typed industry standard stage play manuscript! This was a Year 8 Soap Opera script for Drama assessment, not a script for a new Broadway play. What was going on?

Celtx scriptwriting software is absolutely free. This is incredible and hard to fathom, because when one realises what an amazing, fully featured, advanced product they have in Celtx, you’ll be scratching your head as to how and why this product is free? In case at this point you’re suspicious of my motives here, no, I’m not being paid to plug this product. Celtx doesn’t need me to promote it, as this software is so good word of mouth should be marketing it all by itself.

Screenplay Example

With the ability to write screenplays, stage plays, A/V scripts, audio plays and comic books, Celtx has built-in templates for all of these formats. Focusing simply on writing for stage plays, the templates meet both US and International (default) standards. The text editor is rich and intuitive, with all the bells and whistles. Best of all, the template realises you’re about to move, for example, from a stage direction to character dialogue and the cursor hits the right spot on the template, accordingly. It is so easy to place either existing content or write from scratch in this editor.

There are also places in the stage play editor to put additional notes about scenes in the script, scene breakdown reports, notations and more. You can even dump images into a sidebar from your computer or the web, such as a costume note in a particular scene with an image of a costume item or prop. The advanced features really are fabulous.

I’m so excited about this product, I’ll be using it for all Drama scriptwriting activities at school from now on. The software is easy enough for students at most levels to understand and yet advanced enough to accommodate professional demands as well.

Celtx is a wonderful product for scriptwriting in Drama/Theatre classes in education and a great way to get students to enjoy using technology with a meaningful purpose. Celtx is a free download catering for Windows, Mac and Linux in more than 30 languages and just in case you need support, there’s online video tutorials, FAQs, a wiki manual and community support forum as well.

Celtx Website

Celtx Download

“The Marketing of Broadway” has a panel of industry guests discussing what is involved in marketing, publicising and advertising a Broadway show; how they work one-on-one with producers and creative teams; the marketing obstacles they face; who their target audience is; how they handle a show that isn’t a hit, or that they don’t like; the Internet’s influence on sales; whether or not a known title helps sell a show; how to sustain the buzz after a show opens; and whether “Broadway” can be sold as a brand.

I’ve watched it and I can highly recommend this podcast. Very educational.

The Marketing of Broadway (190 MB – June 2009)

After a very successful trial, I have a mutually beneficial agreement with the Visual Communication and Design teacher at my school, where Year 10 and 11 students design posters for events in the Drama department on the school calendar. For the students, I provide the poster copy (text) and along with their teacher, they may do a bit of research on whatever the topic is, before designing posters. I effectively become their client for the project and the resulting work becomes part of their assessment in their subject.

It’s win-win for both parties and the Drama department ends up with excellent student-designed posters. I choose the best posters from the class project for display around the school. This may be as little as three, or up to six or seven posters from a bunch of 15-20. I have ensured the students each place their name and subject on the posters, so it also becomes worthy publicity for the students whose posters were chosen for display and the teacher and subject also, for the wonderful work produced. My experience last year was that lots of students and teachers were commenting on the beautiful student posters. After gaining significant attention around the school, the hope is more students will attend the drama event.

I have a Year 12 Drama showcase coming up on the topic of the 1986 Challenger and 2003 Columbia Space Shuttle Disasters and below are four posters recently chosen by myself for display around the school. I seriously recommend this type of partnership in your own school.

Click on the thumbnails for a larger image.

My favourite poster of the four is probably the one showcasing the astronaut’s helmet because of its sophistication in design and reflection in the helmet and background of the the American flag. It is clear the student really picked up on the text “See how NASA failed the American people”.

I love the grey poster largely because the Space Shuttle on the launchpad was hand drawn by the student designer, plus the different colors used in the text, highlighting and differentiating various important words for the reader who quickly views the poster at a glance.

The poster with the astronaut walking appears to be on the moon (but of course, may not be). While research indicates Space Shuttle launches don’t land anywhere in space, but simply come back to Earth again after conducting multiple experiments, the student designer nevertheless got the explosion in the background right. Space in general terms will be swiftly detected by the viewer and considering both Challenger and Columbia exploded (technically, they disintegrated), the flames in the background of the poster indicated this.

I found the final poster interesting because of the fractured nature of the pieces that make up the Shuttle, itself. Although quite literal in its interpretation, I was nevertheless not after artistic posters, and the deisgn of this poster clearly focuses on the disintegration in flight of both Space Shuttles. A minor error is the omission of a “s” after “disaster”, but we have to remember, these are students in the first term of Year 11 learning their craft in graphic design.

The worskhop was based on playbuilding, adhering to the conference theme Turning The Tides, and threw in a bit of recent technology (blogging) for good measure. Conference sub-themes included

• Precious water – drama as essential learning
• Into the sea of discovery – new ideas and landscapes
• Reflections on practice… tales of lifesavers, adventurers and drought busters
• Against the tide – changing patterns, currents and practices through drama
• Surfing the imagination in digital seas – drama and immersion
• Safe harbours – strengthening communities through dramatic processes

The workshop involved participants creating a ship using the technique of silent negotiation. Then some of the challenges the ship and its crew faced were brainstormed. Still images of these challenges (eg. storm, mutiny) were then created by group members using the technique overheard conversations. A vocal collage of various characters’ experiences on the ship were then created (with background music). Finally, scenes were developed and then performed together at the end of the workshop:

Departure (in the style of a documentary)
Voyage (using movement and sound)
End of journey (surreal/dream-like)

While all this was happening, at 20 minute intervals during the first hour, one-third of the group was taken out of the workshop room at a time and introduced to the value of blogging performance-making experiences in the Drama classroom on the Vineblogs website. Blogs on the web can be a fantastic reflective tool in Drama and in many cases can replace the traditional classroom journal in this subject.

The workshop structure can be found on this blog and is a worthwhile activity to undertake with your own Drama students. Check out the Vineblogs website while your there by perusing some of the other performance-making blogs. The site is only in its infancy and is already a friendly drama community of teachers and students at al levels of eduction, mostly from around Melbourne, Australia. We’d love some more teachers and their Drama/Theatre students to join the site with new blogs from other parts of Australia and the world. It’s all free, easy to use and you can be blogging in only a couple of minutes! Blog on and tell us where you’re from!

Public Lecture
Thursday 27th July

Last Thursday I attended a free public lecture by visiting American professor Nicholas Burbules, from the University of Illinois.

Burbules argues as educators, we are misunderstanding technology as a tool. We should think less of technology as a delivery system (of online lesson content) in education and more as a place for our students to learn; a social classroom where relationships are built and nurtured.

He also challenges our traditional notion of a ‘virtual classroom’. Of course, ‘virtual’ , means ‘being something in effect, even if not in reality’ and we tend to associate the virtual classroom with Internet technologies. But Burbules argues the virtual is NOT dependant on the technology and being in a virtual classroom does NOT always mean being online.

Burbules says the ‘virtual’ IS real (not almost real) if the circumstances are right. He offers the example of online gamers who often play multi-user games on the Internet deep into the night with hundreds of players from across the globe. To some of these participants who play many hours each day, their ‘virtual’ gaming world is real. It is a world that is most important and means something to them. Their virtual experiences online are real experiences.

Therefore, what is important about the technology is being immersed in the experience as if it were real. In the (recent) past, I have been an avid PlayStation 2 gamer. Over the years, there have been many times after several hours of playing in a virtual world, the experience seems so real it is scary and often it takes some time to ‘adjust’ back to your ‘actual’ world because the gaming experience was so ‘real’.

Burbules illustrates examples of virtual experiences that are not connected to technology. For instance, the image in our head of a character’s face when reading a novel or the audience at a film that leans to the left to follow the onscreen character peering over another’s shoulder. It reminds me of a night at the theatre some years ago. At a Melbourne Theatre Company production of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House there was a scene where Nora’s footsteps are heard by the onstage characters, as she dances the Tarantella upstairs.

Well, ‘upstairs’ didn’t exist of course. It was a virtual place. But to an audience completely immersed in the drama, ‘upstairs’ was very real. I glanced sideways in the darkness of the theatre only to see many in the audience tilt their head skyward to ‘see’ Nora dancing ‘upstairs’ as the onstage characters were making references to her being there. These people were actually looking at a row of lighting bars and stage lanterns, but to them, the experience of seeing Nora was real. They were engaged.

So what makes virtual experiences virtual?

• interest
• involvement
• imagination
• interaction

In summary, the experience has to be interesting for us, involve us in some way, allow us to use our imagination and offer us an opportunity to interact with it, and others around us as well.

Surely these four factors (the 4 I’s) are the underlying ingredients behind the continuing success of the computer gaming industry. For the sceptics out there who think computer games have no place in our society, the people think otherwise. There is now enough statisitical data to prove the worldwide computer gaming industry is bigger than the film industry, in terms of annual revenue.

And so, Burbules argues that interest, involvement, imagination and interaction should also be our design principles in education. As teachers, we should be asking ourselves ‘how can I make this learning experience meet these needs for my students?’. We should be exploiting these principles for the purposes of education.

No arguments here. The first thing I say to all my student teachers on their first day with me is that if they can’t engage the students in the classroom, then they may as well pack their bags and go home now. Students are engaged through making the learning experience interesting, being allowed to use their imagination and interacting with the learning matter itself and others in the classroom.

Burbules says we should find a learning model in our classrooms where immersion takes place and uses exploration, problem solving and choice more often. He went back to the web for examples. Ever put a simple search query into Google and 45 minutes later found yourself on the dark side of the web, completely lost? The web is called the web for a reason! The web, Burbules reminds us, is a complex environment. When navigating the web, we follow links, move around, make connections and go on a journey. When all goes well, we are making patterns of meaningful connections. But the first few times you navigated the web, it was a little scary, yes?

And so it is with education. Our students often find navigating their way around complex learning environments, daunting. They need a road map to assist them. But not any old road map. They need the RIGHT road map. Unfortunately, too often the teacher thinks this road map is the their road map. Wrong! Burbules argues we need to consider that the best road map for our students is often the student’s road map, not the teacher’s.

Our teaching design of a virtual place in the standard classroom should carefully consider

• mobility
• social interation
• public vs private
• intrusion vs exclusion

As a metaphor for our educational design, Burbules offered examples of public buildings and spaces, often very formal and rigid. Alternatively, there is the design of your lounge room furniture at home; no doubt more private and informal than the furniture in a city museum complex.

Burbules says we must intentionally create a learning environment where movement can take place; an environment that caters for mobility and choice amongst our students. Where possible, as educators we should anticipate how our participants will use that space. But at the same time, we should also leave open the element of surprise and be flexible enough to allow our students to sometimes navigate their own way through this learning environment. While this may be very different to the path the teacher may take, the student ‘road map’ is at least a method of navigation that is engaging for the students, because they are the ones creating it.

Burbules says this notion of mobility is at the very heart of learning. Our students need to find their way around complex subject matter and be able to do things in education that are important to them. It is here that Burbules indicates the importance of social learning and the concept that our students must be a part of a social network.

Being a high school Drama teacher, I could safely say I am well versed in the advantages of students belonging to a social framework in the classroom. As one of the most ‘social’ subjects on any school curriculum, Drama encourages and reinforces the benefits in education of collaborative problem solving and teamwork in both simple and complex learning spaces. This social dimension is crucial in creating interaction and engagement amongst our students.

Out of the standard classroom and into the traditional virtual classroom, I have always encouraged a social, collaborative nature in my ‘room’ when wor
king with Drama students using Internet technologies. E-learning platforms such as Moodle cater for this wonderfully. But everyday forums and blogs also encourage collegiality and interaction that actively immerse and engage students in the learning process.

As teachers, Burbules says we must rethink the ‘virtual’ as an educational concept, and whether online or in the regular classroom, design a learning model that caters for student interest, involvement, imagination and interaction. Only then will our students have the best possible opportunity of being fully engaged in their learning.

I have created this for use with my current Year 10 Drama students, as part of my Master of Education project at the University of Melbourne. I am examining whether various new and emerging online technologies can benefit our Drama students? So here it is to share.

This podcast covers:

• how to create a solo performance
• various construction techniques used to aid character development
• are multiple characters acceptable in a solo performance?
• to whom do I perform to?
• what are imagined characters?
• the necessary ingredients of a solo performance plot
• the open ended solo performance
• the historical solo performance
• the structured solo performance

Now be easy on me! It’s just a start. I’ve gottta crawl with this podcasting thing before I can run with it. I do hope it will benefit you and your students. I’d love to hear your feedback. Post a comment below.

Solo Performance Podcast

Vineblogs was the idea of Jo Raphael (lectuer in drama education at Deakin University, Melbourne) and Helen Sandercoe and is otherwise known as The Vine Project. With the gracious assistance of James Farmer (edublog specialist) and the support of both Drama Australia and Drama Victoria, this new and exciting blog site has only been active for about ten days now, but already we have many Drama students and teachers happily blogging away!

The original idea of the project was to restrict the blogging to students creating drama performances using the theme of the 2007 World Drama Congress: planting ideas … with our thoughts, we make the world. And so a few schools agreed to be involved, namely Avila College (my school), Mount Waverley Secondary College and Yarra Valley Grammar (all from Melbourne). These schools have created ensemble performance structures for their current Year 12 students based on this theme and currently have students blogging about their projects. But now Vineblogs has expanded it’s brief to include anyone who wishes to blog about their drama experiences.

On Vineblogs you will see individual teacher blogs and group student blogs (where members post on the one blog). Blogging is a wonderful way to integrate technology in drama studies and allow students to journal their process of performance online. In the past week or so, I have watched my students get a thrill out of publishing their thoughts on the web and at the same time enjoy seeing others comment on their posts. Teachers should not be exempt from this process and are also encouraged to join their students and chronicle a performance project from an educator’s perspective.

Of course, there are some differences popping a drama journal online in the form of a blog. It’s public! So students have to be wary of their audience and not reveal personal information or ‘sledge’ other people in their class etc. Teachers should also be wary of one of the benefits of blogging, which is publishing images instantly to the blog. These could be of students in rehearsal etc, but be mindful of various permissions which may be required before publishing images of students online.

Well, Vineblogs is completely free and easy, too. If you’re not too comfortable with technology, there are great tutorials on the Vineblogs homepage. I moderate this particular blog site because I am a firm believer in the benefits of blogging for Drama/Theatre sutdents. So, if you’re interested, why not check out the site and email me if you need help or have any questions about the project and how to get involved.

You can publish a blog on Vineblogs instantly via email verification. You can be involved with your drama/theatre students at any level doing any performance project worth blogging (solo, ensemble or scripted play). Come on, join us! It’s fun, educational and your students will love it! Although based in Melbourne, Australia, we’d especially love to see drama students and teachers from interstate or overseas in other countries blog with us on the site, too!