t-learning - Future Scenarios - Developing basic numeracy skills from TV soap operas

Soap operas provide compelling viewing from many millions of people, portraying many issues that many people easily relate to.

Annie is sitting watching her favourite soap opera at home in between her early morning and late shift as a cleaner in the local supermarket. One of the characters - John, a trainee carpenter- in the drama, has difficulties with taking measurements and making calculations to estimate how much wood is needed and how much he would get in change when he buys something in a shop. Annie is having very similar problems and relates very much to John’s problems.

A particular feature of this soap opera is the ability to access additional information and video diaries by the characters through pressing the interactive TV button on the remote control of the digital TV service. After pressing the interactive TV button, Annie selects John’s picture to access his video diary. Annie watches and listens as John describes the problems that he has had with numbers and the ways he is now starting to overcome his problems. He then describes some of the exercises that he has been doing to start to overcome his problems. These same exercises are available on the interactive services that are accessible from the video-diary.

Anne tries out some of the exercises that involve addition, subtraction, multiplication and estimation. She gets an immediate response if they are correct and helpful guidance if they are wrong. Some of the exercises are in a game-show format and learners are invited to submit their results. In addition, learners are invited to submit their mobile telephone number. At various intervals during the day a SMS message is sent to her mobile phone with a simple exercise for her to complete and then returns the result. Participation rates are shown on the TV in the interactive services area.

For Annie this starts to become very engaging. She increasingly starts to get very excited by her successes and also realises that she is not the only person trying to overcome her numeracy problems. The numeracy theme continues to be touched upon over the following weeks in the soap opera but for Annie it is really John’s video-diaries that keep her going. For her, he has almost become a personal mentor describing how he overcomes his problems. Annie also does not suffer the embarrassment she has had in the past, as no one really knows what she is doing. The messages she gets on her mobile telephone are only read by her and she looks at John’s video diaries and completes the exercises when she is on her own at home.

Over time she starts to trust the messages on her mobile telephone - that are always friendly, encouraging her and pointing her to new exercises that she can find on her TV. Every so often she is also given a telephone number if she needs further help. One day she decides to call the number on the SMS message. A friendly person from the national learning call centre answers the call. Although, the call centre operator does not know Annie’s name she does know that the owner of the mobile phone has been completing various numeracy exercises over the last few weeks so she has some knowledge of what Annie has been achieving. This becomes the starting point for a conversation that eventually results in Annie agreeing to a home visit by a numeracy tutor who can further assess her learning needs and encourage her to join a small group in a local learning centre – something that Annie would have never considered doing since her negative experiences she had during her sporadic attendances at school when she was younger.

This scenario illustrates the potential of watching TV in a passive mode but to be able to gradually encourage a person to become an active learner without them having the negative experiences that they may have had when in formal education.

Future Scenario - Developing basic numeracy skills from TV soap operas