The idea

Schoolchildren think up a story and then figure out how to tell that story in pictures/images. They produce these pictures (drawing/painting/photography, etc.) and publish them on a central internet site.

Other schoolchildren see these pictures and 'rewrite' the story in them in their own words. These story interpretations get published on the site as well, connected to the original images.

The primary aims:

to communicate with children far away without initial dependance on speaking eachother's language;

to learn about the relationships between language and images/to 'think in images';

to learn how culture affects the way we use and interpret images.

The secondary aim:

to make contact with children elsewhere in the world, learn about their culture and serve as a starting point for further communication/new projects and ideas.

The history

Credit for the original idea must go to primary school ‘De Caroussel’ in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands, which first organized a similar project in 2001 on a small scale. In the 2002-2003 schoolyear Ard Hesselink adapted the idea and, with the support of the Dutch division of IEARN (International Education and Resource Network), executed a trial project which ran from January to June 2003.

Many schools reacted favourably and 14 schools actually participated: from India (7), the Netherlands (4), Latvia (1), Ukraine (1) and USA (1). (See below) In all 31 stories were published, virtually all of which were rewritten by at least one but often three or four different schoolclasses. Originally the idea was that the schools would publish their images on their own school websites but it immediately became clear that a central website was needed. Ard Hesselink's homepage served as such for the duration of the pilot project. 

Pressing selection stories 2003 will give you an idea of the kind of results the trial project yielded. 

The Results

Evaluating the trial project afterwards Hesselink and IEARN realized two things:

1. the concept was very successful and appealed greatly to both teachers and students; 

2. in order to proceed with it on a long term basis a separate, interactive website would have to  be developed, which would allow schools to upload images and 'rewrites' themselves into a predetermined format. 

IEARN offered to host such a website, once it was designed. During the 2004-2005 schoolyear Hesselink worked with students from Hogeschool Utrecht, the Netherlands, college of Communication Systems to try and develop such a website. Unfortunately this yielded too few results. 

The future

At this moment Hesselink is investigating options to collect the funds necessary for having the site designed professionally.  Anybody interested in cooperating on this and/or with knowledge of possible subsidy sources, please, get in touch! 

contact Ard Hesselink

Schools participating in pilot project:

SRI AUROBINDO INT’L SCHOOL, VIDYA NEGAR, HYDERABAD, INDIA, BAI KABIBAI ENGLISH SCHOOL AND JUNIOR COLLEGE, MUMBAI, INDIA, BINODINI GIRLS HIGHSCHOOL, KOLKATA, WEST BENGAL, INDIA, GURU NANAK ENGLISH HIGHSCHOOL, NAVY NAGAR, MUMBAI,INDIA, OXFORD HIGHSCHOOL, MUMBAI, INDIA, MADHAVRAO BHAGWAT HIGHSCHOOL, INDIA, SHREE N.D. BHUTA HIGHSCHOOL, MUMBAI, MAHARASHTRA, INDIA, VAN REENENSCHOOL, BERGEN, THE NETHERLANDS, SLOTERMEERSCHOOL, AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS, DE MIJLPAAL, AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS, DE KRIJTMOLEN, AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS, ENGURE SECONDARY SCHOOL, ENGURE, LATVIA, SCHOOL 4, YUZHNOUKRAINSK, UKRAINE, COVENTRY VILLAGE SCHOOL, COVENTRY, VERMONT, USA