Just a few minutes later, with the theme music blasting in the background, the presenters took their seats and after their preliminary run through of the freshly printed script, it became clear that there was going to be a problem with the chromakey. The background kept blasting through the presenter's dress, creating a weird shimmering effect. This might have been a problem at a major television station, but at Imagine Tomorrow, it's just another work session as a small group of seven and eight year old children meet to work with computers, video and synthesizers to create a broadcast reflecting their interests. The sessions are busy, sometimes rowdy affairs, with kids working assiduously at a computer, then drifting over to see what another member of the group is up to. Ghislaine Agostini, the 'teacher' in this environment, moves quietly from monitor to monitor, offering a word of advice here and a bit of encouragement there.
Children are very different from adults when they are working with computers.
I've had an adult sit in front of a frozen screen for an hour, too embarrassed to say anything. When something goes wrong, kids will cry out right away. Imagine Tomorrow is a franchise, monitored from headquarters in the USA, but it is the collaborative environment that creates the magic. There is a quite substantial selection of CD ROM based reference software and games supplementing the video camera, synthesizer and computer tools. It's still early in the first term at this school and it remains to be seen what happens when the kids get past their initial excitement over the equipment and begin to fully explore its possibilities.