Video and music editing, multimedia design and web page creation - such skills are most often associated with the publishing and advertising industries. Yet at Highwire, Hackney's City Learning Centre, it is school children who are shooting and editing videos, designing and producing interactive games, and publishing their creations on the Internet. Highwire marries computers to curriculum, encouraging the students to create and debate in equal measure.

Opened in October 2000, Highwire was the first City Learning Centre to be established through the Excellence in Cities scheme, set up by the Department for Education and Skills. These centres encourage the use of digital technologies in teaching, working with primary and secondary schools in their local borough. Highwire has run short projects on a wide range of subjects, including science, English, maths, art and history; the projects begin with a series of lessons in school; the students then come to Highwire for two days to use the computers and audiovisual equipment.

Thanks to a Wellcome Trust Society Award, Highwire is now developing its first long-term project, 'Genetics and Citizens'. As its name suggests, the self-contained course will bridge the science and citizenship curricula, and will be piloted with 14-16 year olds in January 2004.

When computers meet teaching

Vivi Lachs, Curriculum Director of Highwire, argues that computers can be an invaluable aid to the teaching of almost any area in the school curriculum. "I was a drama and English teacher, and I became interested in computer technology and IT when I was working with students with special needs," she says. "The students' concentration levels were much higher when they were using computers. Even though many of them had literacy difficulties, we could do a lot of curriculum work with them. So our interest has always been in finding ways to use technology to improve curriculum access and delivery."

Highwire therefore takes a creative approach to teaching, encouraging the students to make multimedia animations, videos and CD-ROMs. The computers are seen only as tools in this creative process, and so Highwire does not teach computer skills per se. "The students learn the skills only when they need to," says Vivi. "If it is not content driven, the students forget the skills. So if you say to them 'let's make a video', if the video is not about a topic that will make them think, engage and debate with each other, they won't learn the video skills. The technology is only useful if it has a point."

Highwire's rooms reflect this vision. Instead of the serried ranks of monitors found in many school computer rooms, there are rounded tables with flip-down LCD screens, video and music 'pods', and a sense of space and light. "When you're making multimedia, some students are discussing an issue, others are creating artwork, some are designing a spreadsheet," says Vivi. "They're doing different things in different places, so a computer room is a pain. What works really well is a primary school classroom, with computers dotted around the room."

Students' approaches to a topic can vary markedly. For example, the English students and science students who produced a video on genetic selection for an Ethics and Genetics course had very different ways of tackling the subject. "The science students located the subject in the science itself, and raised few of the ethical issues," says Vivi. "The English students had the challenge and the debate, but without the scientific context. In the Genetics and Citizens project, we aim to draw the two together."

Genetics and citizens

The citizenship curriculum was introduced in autumn 2002, the course aiming to raise students' awareness of moral, social and political issues. "Because citizenship is quite new, there isn't much content written for it yet, and the subject is very broad," says Vivi. "It's up to us to put the content in."

Genetics and Citizens will therefore begin by looking at the history and roots of genetics - from the 18th century to contemporary research - and how such discoveries have influenced society and are used in the public sphere or commercially.

The students will then split up to examine issues around bioethics and citizens' rights - issues such as 'designer babies', cloning and genetically modified food. The project will end with a Newsnight-style debate, with students playing roles as historical figures, scientists and other personalities with a range of views. The debate will be webcast around local schools, allowing other students to watch the debate and to e-mail comments and questions to the participants.

"By the end of the project, we hope that the students will understand the context, the science, and the ethics of genetics," says Vivi. "A lot of science teaching is not for those who take up a scientific career, but it will equip them to understand the issues. Scientists have more access to the arts than non-scientists do to science. It may make people less scared to engage with some of the scientific content."

See also

• Highwire: Hackney City Learning Centre Online
• Excellence in Cities programme established by the Department for Education and Skills