Springboard Gives Norfolk TV Punch!

Posted on: 15 February 2012

Students at the College of West Anglia have been using SpringboardTV, an award-winning online community broadcasting resource. Course Director Anthony Barnett and some of his students outline the project’s development.

About the authors: Course Director Anthony Barnett compiled this article with second year ABC Journalism students Hannah Allen, Amy Eglan, Elizabeth Clarke, Hayley Johnston, Lauren Isebell, Rosie Brown, Shannon Wiles-Van Dyke and Victoria Langford

 

The start … from little acorns …
In 2008 Anthony Barnett, College of West Anglia’s Video Production Lecturer, was contacted by ‘possibly Norfolk’s greatest eccentric’, the octogenarian entrepreneur Eric St. John Foti, also known as ‘Mr. Norfolk Punch’ due to his discovery and development of a 700 year old herbal drink recipe now drunk world wide as ‘Norfolk Punch’. Eric proposed setting up a community television station with a view to it being run by young people from the college, to which Anthony responded by saying,

… It would provide just the vocational work experience students and lecturers would like, giving an opportunity to deliver more of an apprenticeship.

Eric’s entrepreneurial flair encouraged the college to pitch for, and win, £250,000 from the British Educational Communications Technology Agency (BECTA, which regrettably closes down in March 2011 due to cutbacks) and the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), two government bodies set up ‘to ensure every learner has access to technology in order to reach and exceed their potential’. Thanks to that substantial investment the College of West Anglia created Springboardtv.com, which has enabled students to access, and keep apace with, technology that as we all know changes by the minute. Confirmation that students are reaping the opportunities provided by this new resource were recently evidenced when the college won the coveted Association of Colleges (AoC) Beacon Award for Leadership of Innovation in Curriculum Development for the setting up and running of SpringboardTV.

The shopping list of requirements for the project included ten solid state Panasonic AG-HMC151 HD Cameras and twenty Final Cut & Adobe CS5 installed iMacs working off a dedicated Apple central server (never advisably to be connected to an institution’s network!). In addition facilities include radio microphones, shot gun microphones, dedo lights, pag lights, a tricaster for multicamera production with virtual studios, a Gib, Glidecam HD 4000 with smooth shooter, three autocue systems, reflecmedia chromakey curtains and one JVC 3-CCD solid state GY- HM 700 camera. These resources aim to provide students with a real head start into a competitive industry.

Students from the college’s Media department had a great deal of involvement in the development of their internet television station, not least when it came to naming it. Various suggestions were made, such as ‘Angles’, ‘The Wash’ and ‘KLTV’ (King’s Lynn TV), but eventually ‘Springboard TV’ won the students’ vote. Students saw their station as a way of getting their productions out there on the World Wide Web; thus acting as a springboard for their creations. In fact 88% of learners said that having their work published locally was a great benefit; they saw it as a stimulating tool and said that it made them more determined to pursue a career in the media industry because of their experience.

The Website
The initial springboardtv.com site was built internally over a relatively short period as the web presence was required to coincide with the beginning of the new academic year in September 2009. Whilst the logo and colour schemes were designed and chosen by the learners and achieved a look and feel that was quite organic, initially the site was not fully in line with project expectations. The main elements of the site lacked control and usability as it was administered by way of a primitive Content Management System (CMS), which was not user friendly and thus was not inclusive, and learners could not get involved in the upload of their work. Furthermore once content was put onto the site its arrangement was difficult to organise.

In order to achieve more flexibility, in particular the ability to add pages, pictures and banners, a redesign was required. The preferred set up for the site was an established off the shelf CMS. This had the advantage of keeping development costs down but more importantly the college was not tied to any agency for costly support. Following a period of research and consultation WordPress was identified as the preferred CMS: it is well established, well supported, fully customizable, robust and there are already some excellent sites powered by the WordPress CMS in the marketplace. An external company, NDJINNEERS, was appointed to undertake the redesign of the site. The redesigned site went live in late May 2010 having achieved greater functionality, better accessibility and a more stable platform. The site is now robust, easy to use, can be regularly updated and the latest web technologies can be integrated; these are essential for the project in terms of relevance and sustainability. Of particular interest are recent links made to sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.

The production cycle that has been established for the production companies should end with learners uploading completed material onto the website. The internal management of the first website proved to be too opaque for them to be able to upload their material. However the second generation website is much more user friendly and towards the end of the academic year learners were able to be involved in this process.

As well as professional cameras for teaching film making, ZOOM cameras have recently been purchased. These enable students to generate reasonable quality footage rapidly. It is envisaged that other curriculum areas will benefit as their students will be able to use this simple and accessible technology easily.

In addition to the curriculum development days a number of ‘Golden Hour’ sessions were set up to develop delivery staff expertise in the use of digital technologies and to establish an on-line assessment mechanism which will allow learners to submit written work electronically, receive their feedback in a similar format and track their progress.

The results of ongoing meetings between the Project Channel Manager Ben Jackson and other stakeholders have informed the basis of the ideas for sustainability.

This is a huge advantage for students, giving them an incentive to produce outstanding work which their peers can then comment on, day or night.

Content
Springboard has managed to produce a diverse range of video genres created by the vocational BTEC Television and film students. It is a valuable opportunity for them to display some of their work online and for followers to rate it and leave comments. This is a huge advantage for students, giving them an incentive to produce outstanding work which their peers can then comment on, day or night. In addition to providing a great platform for potential media entrepreneurs, it also gives learners who don’t study on the media course an opportunity to promote their coursework and be interactive. Importantly springboardtv.com doesn’t just show student video productions which focus solely on their own interests or videos that media students are required to make for their course, but it also creates documentaries around the college and in the community. Examples of these include a film, Hate Crime, made in association with professional film company gighousefilms.com; a multi-camera debate about immigration involving leading politicians on the panel; and uniquely an organ renovation film project developed to enhance the community. A commission from West Norfolk County Council lead to a hard hitting thirty-minute DVD called Think Twice about the misuse of drink and drugs on road, river and rail where students interview bereaved parents with dramatised reconstructions and interviews with paramedics and police; the finished product is salutary and harrowing. A college promo for its textile course, among many others being made for different department, gives West Anglia an advantage by being able to promote themselves against the ever increasing competition of sixth forms and other educational establishments, giving students valuable insights to its ‘training for industry’ ethos.

Course work has produced a diverse variety of productions, from an Eastern European stop motion poetry piece to a music video involving cardboard encased musicians. Five channels to date broadcast work under the headings of: poetry in motion, documentaries, community, films and music. More channels are planned to exhibit, among others, Art Department installation experimental films. Links have been developed between with the popular bi-weekly local paper Lynn News, giving springboardtv.com the chance to post videos on their website, opening up a whole new audience.

In the future, springboardtv.com are hoping to expand further into the local community and get more people involved. They have already started to work towards this goal by forming new links with www.felixstowetv.co.uk, Eric St.John Foti’s latest foray into internet television where he continues to progress his vision of live streaming from local communities throughout the UK. Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt’s recent announcements for local community TV are naturally welcomed by Eric, the College of West Anglia’s very own visionary pioneer.

Excitingly springboardtv.com has also recently started to garner links further into Europe, taking part in a foreign exchange with French and German students who filmed the whole trip, with them posting it online to encourage the exchange students and many other people to come and visit the website and see the vast range of projects already created. The films were all made with subtitles so that they were easy to follow for people across the world.

The future of springboardtv.com will depend on how successfully it builds on the new opportunities Hunt foresees for community TV. With this head start, the College of West Anglia hopes to be at the forefront.

Article compiled by course leader Anthony Barnett and second year ABC Journalism students Hannah Allen, Amy Eglan, Elizabeth Clarke, Hayley Johnston, Lauren Isebell, Rosie Brown, Shannon Wiles-Van Dyke, Victoria Langford
www.springboardtv.com/

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