Ebb & Flow (2010)

“Ebb & Flow” was a collaborative digital writing project led by Pullinger in which digital authors, including Pullinger and Tim Wright, worked with students of five Suffolk schools on creating digital stories set in the River Orwell region (the river flows through both Ipswich and Felixstowe where the schools were located).

The project began with a boat trip. Seventy five pupils sailed down the River Orwell to collect digital assets (short video clips, photographs, sounds), natural objects that could be digitalised later and inspiration to create stories. Later in the school year, these collected materials were used during workshops led by digital writers (Pullinger herself conducted two of them). Various digital platforms and tools were used to support and enable the creation process, e.g. Google Maps, Flickr, YouTube, Audiboo, and individual stories and poems as well as more considerable collaborative outcomes (e.g. the newspaper) were created, all set in the Suffolk location. On the project website, they were characterised as “eclectic and exciting, limited only by the creativity and imagination of the pupils”. The final results were put together on the project website created by Andy Campbell, who was also one of the workshop leaders.

The Department for Education funded the project under the Independent/State Schools Partnership Scheme.