Creation and use of SBS’s The Boat; principles for the co-creation of online interactive learning environments for innovative digital pedagogy

ABSTRACT

Teachers and students rely more on online-learning environments than ever before, including open, trusted and high-quality online learning resources produced by public broadcasters. For educators, this represents both an inspiration and challenge in the wake of new techologies and online learning environments. This article is a case study of one such online learning environment created by Australia’s multicultural broadcaster, the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), an adaptation of Nam Le’s award-winning short story, “The Boat” (2008). SBS’s The Boat (2015) is an immersive online experience that explores a refugee perspective and is accompanied by SBSLearn online learning materials. The Boat (2015) connects informal and formal learning though the delivery of both SBS Charter-driven content and Australian teachers’ pedagogical perspectives to local and global audiences including students and teachers. This article, co-written by the media producer of SBS’s The Boat (2015), and the educator who wrote the accompanying formal learning resources, shares principles for creating innovative and connected learning environments from different perspectives, including broadcaster editorial, technological innovation and educational design, with an intention to create a pedagogy for seamless access to engaging, immersive environments and principles for broadcaster and educator collaboration. Interviews and observations of broadcaster and teacher practice inform this analysis.

KEYWORDS:

• Broadcasters
• connected learning
• online learning
• co-design
• formal and informal learning
• media education

Introduction

This article investigates an innovative online learning environment that combines informal, open access stories with digital pedagogies. The qualitative case study focuses on the collaborative design processes involved in creating Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service (SBS)’s online, interactive adaptation of Nam Le’s (2008) award winning short story, “The Boat” and the accompanying broadcaster formal learning resources. (See Figure 1). The result of this collaboration is an innovative learning environment for teachers and young people, providing relevant online learning for engaging digital pedagogy. Like the interactive learning resource, this article is a collaboration between the educator and the media producer to identify the design principles to inform future online learning collaborations for pedagogical innovation.

Figure 1. SBS’s The Boat’s opening image.

Figure 3. The Boat (2015) Huynh’s work-in-progress ink character sketches.

Figure 4. The Boat (2015) a chapter 5 user perspective image.

Figure 5. The Boat (2015) an SBSLearn creative activities education resources image.

Figure 6. The Boat (2015) a classroom learning experience image.

Engaging and easily accessible online learning occurs across both formal and informal learning contexts, yet informal online environments have distinctive elements. They include story based online environments to promote both engagement and learning (Paulus et al., 2006). Effective online learning environments also provide opportunity for learner agency for example through interactive elements in web-based learning platforms (Lindgren & McDaniel, 2012). Key studies (Gee, 2004; Jenkins et al., 2009; Sefton-Green, 2006, 2011, 2014; Sefton-Green & Erstad, 2020; Vadeboncoeur, 2006) have reported on how learning in out-of-school online settings positions the young learner as possessing choice and agency, and enables active participation that might not be available in other settings. While these studies provide important insights into young people as learners in a digitally converged landscape, none focus on broadcaster online education environments that afford free and high-quality online learning environments for community collaboration and shared digital pedagogy. This article specifically addresses this gap.

Additionally, this article argues for the multiple benefits of co-designed learning opportunities. As Penuel (2019) argues, a co-design approach is suited to innovation as it “involves the creation of tools for the improvement of practice and for theory development and knowledge building” (p. 660). The analysis draws on Ito et al. (2013) connected learning theory where in new digital mediums young people can “connect” through digital pedagogy that enables curation, sharing and making through creative practice, personal interests and peer to peer learning. By analysing the process of co-design in this case study five principles are identified that provide a critical design process framework for co-design of interactive online education digital resources:

Principle 1:

Intimate translation

Principle 2:

Strategic collaborations

Principle 3:

Technological and editorial innovation through interactive elements

Principle 4:

Co-creating online environments for, and with teachers

Principle 5:

Checking for seamless connections to formal classroom learning and curriculum

The context of public broadcasters as online education environments is introduced before the case study of The Boat is introduced. The research methods and research questions are outlined before the findings are presented in two sections: the features for connected learning opportunities and the principles of broadcaster and educator design collaboration for connected learning and diverse storytelling.

Public broadcasters as online education environments

Teachers often seek meaningful and engaging social justice related digital works for connected and formal learning experiences for their students. Media resources can contribute to young people’s literacy and pedagogy through critical viewing and reading, creative production, reflection, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and cultural and historical analysis (Buckingham, 2003; Masterman, 1990). Public broadcasters offer open access and high-quality digital resources for the community. In recent years for example, the British Broadcasting Commission (B.B.C.), Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) America, the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) and SBS have provided curriculum aligned online resources for students and teachers. In the SBS context, SBSLearn is the home of online learning environments that seek to amplify and extend priority commissioned cross platform content.

Recent digital works used in classrooms nationally and internationally include SBS commissioned, Blackfella Films created Australian television series’ The Australian Wars (2022), First Contact (2014–2016) and First Australians (2008). Each of these works contribute to important national conversations about Aborginal and Torres Strait Islander voices. SBSLearn most recently co-created formal education resources to support teacher and student understanding of The Australian Wars. Other multiplatform works include social justice digital video games such as Escape from Oliver (2004), a powerful, activist video game about young people in detention and Pax Warrior (2001) by Canadian interdisicipinary team “23 YYZee” about genocide in Rwanda. The game positions the user as a UN Commander and is embedded in curriculum across Canada, Britain and the United States. While such digital gaming offers important informal learning into refugee perspectives, it does not have associate online education resources for direct links to formal learning as are explored in this case study. The combination of innovative media and educational resource can reflect principles of connected learning.

The theory of connected learning considers how young people build their interests and identities as they learn over time (Ito et al., 2013, 2020). Connected learning describes how meaningful learning opportunities can be designed by basing learning on youth interests, and providing opportunities linked to real-world issues and communities. A connected learning approach also accounts for how new media and digital technologies mediate and shape how learning happens, recognizing the value of social networks, access to information, and affordances of new tools for learning. Interactivity opportunities within the new media, and also with the media platform are possibilities envisaged by Peppler et al. (2022, p. 4) as “future opportunities by building relationships and networks, both within the arts organization and extended to the broader community”. Connected learning is the theoretical framework used to explain why co-designed education resources and new media and digital technologies of SBS’s The Boat show such potential for student learning.

Methods

A case study approach was chosen because, as Yin (2014) explains, it is relevant to questions that “require an in-depth description of some social phenomenon” (p. 4). This case study provides complex evidence, data exploration, and description of co-design process of how the resources were co-designed to “retain the holistic and meaningful characteristics of real life events” (2002, p. 2). The authors were part of this co-design process. Author Two worked at SBS in the content and television division and Author One worked closely with SBS to co-design educational resources around SBS programs. It was a process of practice-led research, which is defined as research “through” practice: “to use the actions and sites of practice as a means of discovering something to be useful in articulating the intentions and outcomes of a practitioner-researcher’s inquiry” Vaughan (2017), p. 10) Practice-led research highlights that “the making and the products of making are viewed as an essential part of research” (Mäkelä, 2007). As participant observers, we used field notes and researcher journals for practice-led case study research and the data is reported using illustrations and descriptions of practices and processes.

For this article, the authors looked back over their field notes through several reflexive conversations to identify key turning points and principles in the co-design process. To inform and validate the principles, additional data involved the analysis of interviews with seven teachers who engaged with The Boat with their classes, and what the teachers identified as highly effective elements for student learning and interviews with three broadcasters who discussed the making of The Boat and the associated online education resources. The broadcasters were based at SBS television and combined with Author two’s field notes of working directly with The Boat creative team. The teachers came from mix of secondary school contexts across urban and regional locations in different Australian states who had participated in the Cunningham et al. (2016) Australian Screen Content project. The teacher participants worked with SBS content across the subject areas of Visual Art, Communication Design, Study of Society, Film and Television, Media Arts, English, Geography, History, Humanities, and Legal Studies. Each of these teachers used SBS content across a range of senior curriculum areas in a range of Australian schools. Three teachers work in urban schools with a diverse multicultural population, two work in a regional school with a mainly Anglo Celtic student population, and two work in a regional school with a high Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student population. Interviews were coded using a constant comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1999) to identify themes about their use of screen content, student engagement and authentic learning and student productions, and how teachers used the online resource in innovative learning experiences through their planning, curriculum links, the flipped classroom, and curating screen content. These themes contribute to an understanding of what elements are valued in connected student learning experiences.

The research questions addressed in this article are:

1. What visual and pedagogical opportunities for connected learning are evident in The Boat (2015) informal and formal online learning environment?, and

2. What principles of collaboration in content creation privilege opportunities for connected learning about diversity?

Practice informed research is based around the artefact that always needs interpretation and theorizing (Mäkelä, 2007).

The case study: “The Boat”

The SBS’s adaptation of The Boat (2015) is an immersive online graphic novel that tells the story of one family’s escape from Vietnam following the fall of Saigon in 1975. (See Figure 3).

An internal SBS TV and Online Content production, The Boat was ideated and produced by Author Two of this article, for SBS. It was designed and programmed by SBS creative developer Matt Smith and visually adapted by independent artist, Matt Huynh. (See Figures 1 and 2). This first-person refugee experience was produced the SBS Online Network as were the associated SBSLearn online learning resources that are used in schools in Australian and internationally. Together, they comprise an innovative and connected learning environment as they include opportunities for learners for “active engagement, reflection and, ultimately, the learning of new skills” (Paulus et al., 2006, p. 367). The online education resources were developed in collaboration with Author One embedded as an on-site education specialist as part of an action research process from 2014 to 2016.

Figure 2. The Boat (2015). Early ink sketch of Truong character.

SBS has historically played a role in informal and formal education in Australia, with its educative remit is written into its Charter. Ang et al. (2008) propose its most significant role is broadcasting cultural diversity achieved by developing an original and innovative range of programming strategies including connected learning opportunities where audiences can “log in and explore and watch programs curated for them in the language of their choice” (Special Broadcasting Service SBS, 2020). As The Boat has been the network’s most successful online learning project to date, this article analyses the processes of co-creation. By tracing how the project was developed, planned and disseminated, key principles are proposed to inform future collaborative pedagogical and broadcaster or content creator processes.

The Boat incorporates many visual and pedagogical features for connected learning. These were identified from anlysis and interviews, and are summarized are outlined in Table 1 for educators and content creators who wish to create similar learning material.

Table 1. Features for connected learning opportunities inspired by The Boat (2015).

Features for connected learning opportunities	An ease of viewing on personal devices
	(b) A culturally diverse story
	(c) A powerful audiovisual style with elements such as ink character drawings, text on screen, sound effects and music
	(d) A story that is told in the first person
	(e) An atmosphere that is emotional and engaging
	(f) Opportunities to understand the creative process and creators to create own visual texts
	(g) Flexible and adaptable components

These features of The Boat enable the viewer to authentically experience what it was like coming to Australia on a refugee boat; (b) a culturally diverse story with e) atmosphere created by c) sound effects and visual elements Halsall explains The Boat from a youth user’s perspective:

Matt Huynh’s adaptation of Le’s short story is immersive, drawing a young reader immediately into its harrowing tale of migration, as a boat carrying human cargo travels from Vietnam to Australia on the South China Sea. With the click of a mouse, a reader is immediately plunged into the middle of a turbulent ocean, thunder, howling wind, and driving rain seeming to drive out of the computer screen to strike (Halsall, 2021)

The interactive visual and immersive sounds of The Boat are one of its’ most unique elements. Readers are able to steer their own way through the text with g) flexible and adaptable components, with regard not only to reading and viewing speed, but also the path taken. They follow the main plot line by scrolling down, but can at four points in the story leave the main path to explore a side story (See Figure 4). The user’s reading experience is complemented by an auto scroll feature, which adapts to the density of content on screen at any time. SBS describes The Boat’s online user experience:

The viewer scrolls down in SBS’s iteration of The Boat, consuming the story at his or her own pace – although there is also an auto scroll option – hence the “interactive” description. He or she will probably pause, take a side trip, perhaps scroll back up too. The text and images sway and jolt in unison with the boat in the story and the wind howls. Arguably, it’s the movement and sound that makes The Boat so unbook-like and gives it such urgency. (SBS, 2014)

While the story is a fiction, designed to immerse the user into a bespoke story-world, Author Two chose to integrate photographic and video news archive as well as non-fiction textual context at the end of the project to respectfully interpolate audiences who may have experienced elements of the narrative in their own lives.

Importantly in connected learning, students are able to replicate some of these features in their own creative works (f). This teacher explains the relevance of young people directing their own learning:

… its got to be interactive and not just smart board interactive, it has got to be choose your own adventure stuff going on so that they can direct their own learning. Once they start directing their own learning they start to really engage but if they are told they have to learn something they are less likely. (Miles, 2017)

The associated SBSLearn education resources encouraged students to create their own works (See Figure 5):

Media - Digital Storytelling: This is a genre of storytelling that is short, personal and emotive. Each story consists of images, voice-over narrative and simple sound effects. The narrative is typically no longer than 250 words with the story itself being no more than two minutes long. Task: Create a digital story that tells Truong’s perspective of his journey on the boat. Share your digital story #sbslearn #sbstheboat (SBS 2020)

This approach prefaces Ito et al’s connected learning. These resources encourage young people to immerse themselves in multicultural viewpoints and create their own digital stories connected to their own interests using new technologies. Peppler et al. (2022) point to the relevance of supporting “learner-centered and equity-oriented creative educational experiences”. The Boat connected digital learning opportunities also include authentic opportunities for young people to collaborate directly with the broadcaster online. For example, one activity focused on responding to the artist.

• - Art: Matt Huynh tells how he felt most like a storyteller when he was drawing the original thumbnails for The Boat.

• - Task: Create a four-frame comic panel that captures the emotion of a character. You should vary the perspective and focus of this person, by using a range of shot types. For example, you might have two close-up shots (one of an eye, and one of a hand), one long shot (showing their whole body) and one mid-shot (focusing on the facial features). Emotions to choose from could be: despair, elation, frustration, sympathy, shock, curiosity. Share your comic panel #sbslearn #sbstheboat (SBS 2015)

Author One’s observations of teacher digital pedagogy and teacher interviews indicated that these online resources were flexible, adaptable and valued by teachers as part of a seamless connection between online resources and digital pedagogy in the classroom.

So I used The Boat as a vehicle, instead of getting them to read articles and things like that, it was really nice for them to either work in pairs or individually to read through a graphic novel in their own time and then there was also a resource that was paired with this that had really good questions and I previewed it and thought maybe I might change some things but I didn’t feel that this [adapting it] was necessary so the students worked on this over a lesson and a half and then we had a discussion about the work and they got to keep the worksheets and they became attached to this. (Miles, 2017)

Many secondary teachers use The Boat for digital pedagogy together with a range of screen content, other online resources and authentic learning experiences to learn about media representations:

… they found that story very engaging and talked a lot about the visual representations and the symbolism and metaphors in the work were really clear … in one way you can read about it but because of the soundtrack and the visuals it made it feel real. (Senior Teacher B, 2015)

A secondary, senior Legal Studies teacher used The Boat as the basis of a Year 12 Legal Studies lesson to understand and experience the difference between previous Australian government immigration policies and current policies. (See Figure 6). Previously, the students had studied Australian legal policies, and facts surrounding immigration, refugees, and asylum seekers. The teacher chose to use The Boat as a classroom digital pedagogy resource, as he valued the interactive online format:

… I like the concept of being able to be individually in and have the opportunity to physically move the tablet from side to side and actually experience the novel that way with headphones on … and then to engage in a unit for people who don’t normally meet refugees to really have them experience of what it must be like to be a refugee person. I think that The Boat is such a great way to go about that, the experience I think is an important one. It also then gives me the opportunity to raise a case study about our first boat people and the nature in the way in which they were treated. The 1970’s was a particularly humane way of treating people. (Miles, 2017)

The teacher reported that the students’ initial commentary was very positive as it was fun and they had not done anything like it before. As each student completed their viewing, the teacher discussed their perspectives of The Boat. Students responded to the interactive work in two contrasting ways. Some thought The Boat work was powerful and thought-provoking, while others said they did not like being presented with content that they felt was trying to be emotive. The teacher explained that his focus was on trying to show them a range of perspectives to help their understandings of the Legal Studies’ unit concepts.

Results - principles of broadcaster and educator design collaboration for connected learning and diverse storytelling

A collaborative process of creation is essential to a connected online learning environment. For Penuel (2019) a critical design process in collaboration with educators, is a sustainable approach to teaching and learning. These five co-design principles have been inductively identified to provide structure for broadcasters and educators to sustainably create innovative digital works in informal and formal teaching and learning contexts. The first three principles draw on broadcaster data while the last two principles draw on teacher data.

Principle 1: intimate translation

Bringing multicultural stories to life across multiple media forms requires a type of representation as informed by lived-experience or “intimacy”. Spivak argues that it is this surrender and intimacy that is integral to multicultural documentary translation (Spivak, 2004). Through her work as a Producer at SBS, academic and as a creative on other digital works, Author Two had an established methodology for intimate translation through collaboration between members of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) and First Nations communities with the multicultural broadcaster (Boltin, 2009). For the translation of The Boat, which was a complex and relevant “community” narrative for the Australian-Vietnamese diaspora about the fall of Saigon, in 1975, the collaboration was with storyteller Nam Le and illustrator Matt Huynh.

As a member of the Vietnamese diaspora who himself was born in Vietnam, Le possessed the intimacy required to produce a work that resonated with the broadcaster’s multicultural audiences, in particular it’s Vietnamese audiences who were interpolated into Le’s story through this intimacy of knowledge. Yet having an “insider” storyteller was not enough. As Trinh (1991 p. 69) writes, “an insider can speak with authority about his/her own culture, and s/he is referred to as a source of authority in this matter – not as a filmmaker necessarily, but as an insider, merely.” An illustrator who was fluent in both the Vietnamese community narrative and also the production narrative of comics was commissioned. Vietnamese-Australian artist, Matt Huynh became a key collaborator. Huynh’s previous works, including Ma (Huynh, 2013) and his ongoing body of work, including his most recent autobiographical comic, Cabramatta (Huynh, 2020) speak to his fluency in both Vietnamese cultural identity (the “community” narrative) and in the production of the artwork itself (the “production” narrative). Huynh reflected:

The Boat is the most urgent and immediate comic I’ve ever made - a work of a kind I’ve never quite seen before and a unique chance to engage an issue so entangled with my own life. It’s a work that deals not in metaphor or analogy, not exclusively fiction or history and impossible to segment artist from subject. This resulting work is proof of my life, luck, of a country’s compassion for people in the most vulnerable of circumstances over 40 years ago and our urgent, unavoidable connection to today’s asylum seekers and refugees. (SBS 2015)

Huynh’s intimacy with both the community and production narratives, together with the author’s and Smith’s own expertise in production and knowledge of the broadcaster, ensured the core team had fluency across the interactive work. Connected learning opportunities are created when the digital content creators are personally connected to the story across these multiple “narratives”.

Principle 2: collaborative design

Successful informal online learning environments are not led by editorial decisions nor are they fully technologically driven. Rather, they are a genuine exploration of both form and content from the outset, especially when there were no previous interactive graphic novels that incorporated a similar complexity of design. Projects designed for the web require their own context-specific ideation as the mergence of editorial and technology from the onset are imperative in creating a successful online learning environment. Author Two’s robust and critically acclaimed collaborative relationship with Smith, through Cronulla Riots: The Day that Shocked the Nation (2014) demonstrated to the author, through practice-led research, the need to meaningfully collaborate across disciplines.

Huynh spent more than six months in development for the project, which involved the faithful adaptation of the short story into visual form. This was then edited by Author Two, alongside Smith and Huynh with the intention of creating an online-first experience. While Le provided the team with complete autonomy in the adaptation process, translation from text to graphic novel, the team was mindful of maintaining the integrity of Nam’s text. To this end, Huynh first adapted every story beat. This resulted in a 120-page visual treatment of the entire forty-nine pages of the original short story. This then needed to be reimagined into an approximately twenty-minute, interactive script.

Once SBS greenlit the final paper edit of the project, editorial development was complete. Production then took a further six months. This constituted Huynh’s ongoing artistic interrogation of the characters in The Boat, which included the three central characters of Quyen, Mai and Truong, as well as the boat itself. Huynh was painstaking in his research of costume, place as well as the specific characterization that comprised his version of the story. Once final artwork commenced, Huynh chose the materials of Bristol board, bamboo calligraphy brushes, sumi-ink, chalk and paint. At the same time, SBS was exploring the technological delievery of the work. The final site consists of over 300 handcrafted illustrations, fifty-nine of which include custom animation, sound effects (SFX) and layering – each delivered as individual digital files. Designing for online connected learning involves ongoing connection between the creators so there are resonances between the form and function.

Principle 3: Technological and editorial innovation through interactive elements

Interactive elements draw together creative and technical elements. Specifically, in terms of technical execution, The Boat is a confluence of cutting-edge web technology and traditional techniques where Japanese Sumi-e inspired ink illustrations meet Web Graphics Library (WebGL) animation and interaction. The Boat’s online learning environment affordances were harnessed in new ways. Matt Huynh’s individual frames were delivered as assets to SBS who then animated and developed a site that initially presents as a conventional long-scroller but quickly surprises with immersive events tied to the story, branching narrative paths, and an Web Audio soundscape scored by Petty. Media is streamed dynamically into the site, adapting to the users’ reading speed, creating incredibly fast load times in contrast to the scale of content available. The experience is available on desktop but also on iPad and Android tablets, where the unique abilities of these devices are harnessed, going so far as incorporating force-feedback rumbling on Android tablets as the waves of the ocean crash against the boat and its inhabitants.

It is these interactive and engaging technical elements that SBS imagined would particularly appeal to young people. Connected learning occurs physically when the viewer is able to sensorially respond to visual and media arts techniques, while also feeling a physical connection to the story as the viewer can manipulate technological interactivity elements like movement and sound.

Principle 4: co-creating online environments for, and with teachers

Accompanying the immersive online interactive was a set of more formal online education resources to inspire innovative digital learning by connecting to formal learning environments.

From 2010, SBSLearn contracted education writers to draft the teacher notes component of its education resources and from 2020, the SBSLearn website incorporated ways for teachers and students to connect to the broadcaster through focus groups, competitions, online blogs and email. Author One supported SBS in moving towards a more direct collaboration with teachers and students from 2014 in a practice-led research role. She was able to provide curriculum links to learning areas, adaptability, and the encouragement of innovative, relevant, and engaging learning experiences. This included resources to encourage students to create their own products, with links to the production-related Australian Curriculum – Media Arts content descriptions as reflected in The Boat online education documents. Two online teacher guides were created. The first focussed on “Comprehension Activities”; the second on “Creative Activities” (SBS, 2015). The materials include more contemporary digital pedagogy activity ideas than SBSLearn had experimented with before, such as twitter fiction, blackout poetry, and digital storytelling. Being situated at SBS enabled many conversations for co-design and building of relationships between educators and broadcasters. The connected learning experiences were enhanced by making direct links to the curriculum and also enagaging with teachers to pilot the resources.

Principle 5: ready access for formal classroom learning and curriculum

Teachers in this study discussed how they selected online learning resources based on their and their students’ interests and curriculum requirements. Seamlessness occurred when authentic contemporary resources aligned to specific curriculum and class digital pedagogy: “It needs to be completely relevant to whatever course content I am teaching” (Senior Teacher D). The ability to find these connected learning opportunities was enhanced when the resources were searchable and shareable via Scootle, a national online learning portal through which over 450,000 teachers in government schools, non-government schools and pre-service education institutions access. The national Education Services Australia Limited (ESA) requested The Boat learning resources be included. In this online learning hub, resources are linked to specific curriculum areas, with teachers able to search by topic or key terms for open access resources. This increased open access enabled many more Australian teachers to consider using The Boat in formal learning environments. While not every digital learning environment will feature in national databases, the principle of making them findable and easily able to be connected to learning can apply to other innovative learning environments.

Discussion and implications for practice

This article analysed a case study of an innovative learning environment to propose principles of how this experience may inform the creation of other similarly innovative learning environments. A limitation of this study may be the lapse of time since the creation process as the authors notes and recollections may have emphasized some elements and forgotten others. However, the passage of time has also highlighted the uniqueness of the case, and prompted the identification of the principles. The visual and pedagogical opportunities and principles of collaboration in content creation together created opportunities for students to experience connected learning. Beyond the scope of this research is gleaning more insight into how young people are creating their own texts inspired by The Boat. Further study in this area is encouraged.

The Boat resources bring end users and interactive digital creative works together. It makes visible the career pathways, and direct connections with creators. This layering of co-design, behind the scene video resources, enabling students to “meet” the creators was key to the success of The Boat with students and teachers. The SBSLearn creative activities and resources encouraged young people to make their own stories using various elements like sound, point of view, text on screen, feeling and atmosphere. This connected learning approach gives young people permission to tell their own story in creative ways and non-mainstream genres. This critical aspect of young people as creators – connecting to creative careers is further enhanced in The Boat by showcasing diverse stories within community and connecting with the local arts community to understand creative processes more.

The Boat connects self-directed informal learning with formal resources. The five key co-design principles detail how from intimate translation to seamless connection, broadcasters, media producers and educators can co-design future effective and well used learning environments for secondary and tertiary students. As public broadcasters globally continue to grapple with engaging audiences and meeting charter obligations, SBS contemporary programming has embraced innovative hybrid formats and connected online learning. As evidenced in the expansion of SBS across both linear television and digital, the ongoing focus of SBS is to provide content that reflects contemporary multicultural Australia and promotes social cohesion. Broadcasters can consider new ways to engage with their online audience, and emerging digital pedagogies through the development of online interactives and a curated online learning hub. These new approaches also embody “connected learning” where as Ito et.al. explain; “In a world of global interconnection and rapid change, effective learning is lifelong and integrated into the real world of work, civic engagement, and social participation” (2013. p.14).

Finally, this article highlights the value of the collaborative process of practice informed research to inform the development of future digital resources and the use of, and engagement with screen content and related resources. These new knowledges that emerged from collaborative engagement within and across communities, contribute evidence of the value of understanding learning through connected learning. It confirms what media educators like Masterman (1990), Sefton-Green (2006, 2011, 2014) and Jenkins et al. (2009) cite as key to digital pedagogy whereby users are immersed in self-directed critical viewing and reading, creative production, reflection, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and cultural and historical analysis. Learning and take up of broadcaster digital resources can be further enhanced by broadcasters working directly with an education consultant to provide feedback on curriculum and pedogogy appropriateness and links to learning areas, adaptability, and the encouragement of innovative, relevant, authentic digital pedagogy that respects student and teacher agency. Teachers indicated that they were rarely in need of unit or lesson guidance; rather, they need good quality Australian online content that they can align to their in-depth unit and digital pedagogy planning. Historically, broadcaster education resources often included a step-by-step lesson guide with minimal interactive components. The Boat’s thoughtful ease of viewing experience on personal devices that can move through chapters and across hand drawn imagery and changing text on screen as well as via a viewer determined pace and were significant in enabling connected learning, which can inform other kinds of co-design.

Conclusion

As the data in our research suggest, collaboration between broadcasters and teachers to co-design meaningful online education resources for young people is important. Practice-led, action research methods combined with an understanding of connected learning, fosters broadcaster and teacher mutual understanding. One of the greatest challenges for broadcasters and digital content creators is enabling teachers to easily access their content. As the five design principles in this article explain, easily accessible and adaptable online learning environments with links to existing curriculum, teacher pedagogy and student learning experiences ideas are an essential part of designing online learning environments.

The result of this collaboration is a learning environment for teachers and young people, providing seamless, relevant and engaging online learning. The Boat provides teachers and young people with a high quality and immersive education environment which provides inspiring features as ways to analyse and create innovative digital connected learning experiences.The five principles in this article provide a critical design process framework for co-design of broadcaster education digital resources:

Principle 1:

Intimate translation

Principle 2:

Strategic collaborations

Principle 3:

Technological and editorial innovation through interactive elements

Principle 4:

Co-creating online environments for, and with teachers

Principle 5:

Checking for seamless connections to formal classroom learning and curriculum

Teachers and students continue to use The Boat and its online education resources for engaging and relevant digital pedagogy and, in turn, this knowledge can help broadcasters to understand how to best work with teachers and students to access and use innovative Australian screen content resources. This approach to connected learning bridges the gap between formal and informal learning and is beneficial to both broadcaster and education communities.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Australian Research Council Linkage scheme [LP130100031].

Notes on contributors

Prue Miles

Prue Miles is a Senior Lecturer in the faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) who specializes in digital technologies and authentic partnerships for transformative learning. She is a Chief Investigator on the ARC Linkage Project Thriving in Vertical Schools. Her research interests are in digital pedagogies, media education, innovative curriculum design, inclusive learning spaces, online learning and teaching resources and professional learning for teachers. She currently manages an innovative whole of university partnership with a new inner city secondary college.

Kylie Boltin

Kylie Boltin is an Associate Professor of Screen and Media at Edith Cowan University. She is an Investigator on the ARC Linkage Project Thriving in Vertical Schools. Previously, Kylie was a commissioning editor and producer at the multicultural Australian broadcaster SBS. Kylie has led dozens of award-winning inclusive and diverse practice-led research projects. Her innovation projects, utilizing new technology including AI, have screened widely at festivals such as SXSW, Austin and International Documentary Festival Amsterdam where she most recently led the team awarded the IDFA Creative Technology Award. Kylie is also an NSW Premier’s Literary Award-winning screenwriter and multiple Walkley award winning journalist.