Meetings organization

All group activities were conducted by the specialists in their areas - photography, film, and visual arts. It is the most important, however, that they could adroitly join creative actions with an accessible form of giving the most essential information about the newest technologies. Therefore, all workshop participants have fundamentally changed their approach to computers as exclusively means of fun and not always wise entertainment. Computer became an interesting and friendly tool of communication and creative actions for them.
What was characteristic of the Animated Debate project was that there was not any work evaluation. There was a task which was to be accomplished and there was a common work over subsequent phases. Instead of competition and evaluation there was common responsibility for the goals which were being achieved. The way how the workshop groups worked was complied with this idea.
In the Animated Debate project, in Polish groups, there was used the mode of intensive work, four hours once a week. Children, even after lessons at school, were not so tired not to work effectively and eagerly. Everybody consented to some effort, although while planning such workshops, one has to analyze each case individually. Not all children can agree to effort.
The mode of four-hour meetings once a week turned out to be useful mainly because of the work specificity. The groups could devote for example two hours for some peaceful painting; it was possible to divide classes into a theoretical and practical part. One should remember that animation work at computer is very time-consuming - scanning, pictures processing, graphics making, editing - all these takes a lot of time even to professionals, and we dealt with people who worked with computers for the first time in their lives. And although after a few months their efficiency increased, we still lacked time. Longer work time was of decisive importance when it came to affecting group motivation. It was possible to determine small targets, for example, short animations. Achieving these targets during one meeting allowed the participants to believe in their skills and abilities. Obviously, it is necessary to secure the participants for work comfort in the case of such solution.
Here are some observations. In the initial phases of workshops, children who at some point, did not work at computer, get discouraged very quickly. In this case, one has to take notice who, out of participants, takes precedence when accessing the computer (very often the number of computers in the workroom is not sufficient and does not allow for every participant to have his or her own worksite). Let it be people who work maybe little less intensively, they get discouraged more frequently, or who are more shy and ashamed of their works. It would be an additional incentive for them. Later, when nobody lacks a task, right allotment is the most important, so that no participant would be out of job.
An important element of workroom is a table. There, at the table, all meetings began; everybody sat together and summed up a previous meeting remembering which work phase the group was in. They also decided which should be done more and divided the tasks. This motive of common "briefings" turned out to be successful even in a double way - it built and strengthened the feeling of common responsibility for the TEAM every time, and ordered many things and accelerated their accomplishment. It happened that common "sessions" took place not only at the beginning of classes, but in every moment when it was required. It was necessary, because of problems with work discipline, to constantly take care of participants to create the team which would work together. Children, who participated in the Animated Debate workshops, initially did not realize the obligation to work, they look at the workshops though only their own persons. They treated it as play. And because of it could happen that one person was able to break up work of the whole group. Little, often not connected with the topic, events, often stopped work. In the animation work there is needed regularity, consistency, patience, peace, and sometime regular silence.
Children and youth have some obvious problems with concentration. Classes in such group should be conducted very patiently and systematically, while on the other hand neither the teacher nor the participants could allow themselves to waste time. We cannot influence children, their improvement of the ability to concentrate or the ability to work intensively in a short time, but what we can do is to stimulate them by showing the moments when relax and distraction are not desirable and disturbing. About the importance of discipline during the workshops can tell a fact that in the second year, a few people from one of the group had to be excluded from the workshops after a few weeks. It was not successful to persuade young people to concentrate on a task, which was endangered at this particular moment. Their negation of the meetings target began to affect negatively the rest of the group. This dramatic moment and its result took positive influence on the rest of the group.
One more important element of work organization was the same cycle of events. And these were not only meetings "at the table", but also independent worksite preparing (crayons, pencils, paints, and paper), dividing into small task groups, cleaning, talking about the work results, or language classes. Classes with computer, animation work was also divided into parts (searching information, work with graphic programmes, contacts with partners, and sending and checking emails). This reoccurring provided the group with some self-confidence. They knew what they could expect, they knew they had choice, but in the range of determined phases of classes. It helped to limit useless discussions and eliminate the feeling of being imposed something by the instructor.