Different books - digital design

Since 2009, the Seine-Saint-Denis County Council has been backing “la Culture et l’Art au Collège (CAC)”. This project is based to a large extent on the presence in class for several weeks (40h) of an artist or scientist whose mission is to engage the students in a process of research and creation. 

Tutors: Pauline Barzilaï, Bertrand Sandrez, Arthur Violy/ graphic designers

Project manager: Anna Mezey

Objectives:
These days, browsing a digital book is similar to reading on the internet with digressions, comparisons, connections and discoveries. Inspired by this new trend, the project aims to give the students the chance to interact freely with a story and to broaden the reading model. Supervised by a graphic designer and multimedia expert, and equipped with iPads, the students explore and develop these new modes of both reading and writing.

Workshop:
E-reading
The contributor and the students set out some common markers: what is a digital book? In what ways is it augmented? How does it differ from a paper book and what are the advantages and disadvantages? The graphic designer expands on this discussion by presenting accessible technologies that enable the students to develop digital books. They test some of them on iPads and experiment with QRCode, a simple and widely-used technology.

Tarzan or Kafka?
The students debate to choose a work to use for their project, and read it. With the contributor, they specify the nature of the content that they wish to transmit to their readers. Very soon, the issue of digital processes and their effects arises: interaction capacity (e.g. how should the reader use QRCode) and capacity to augment the original story (sound, image, video, etc.).

Augmented books
Depending on the story, the class as a group drafts interactive storylines that will then be given to groups of students. This is followed by the implementation phase where the students combine drawings, videos, photos, text and sound. The groups again share out the different creations and work on the overall optimisation of their book. The contributor is responsible for the final page setting.

Outcome:
The classes’ projects are brought together in a single “book-object”. Using QRcodes, readers can access a series of multimedia contents hosted on the Internet. To explain how book-objects work, the students organise a demonstration in their schools using iPads. 

Outing:
- BIBLIOTHÈQUE NATIONALE DE FRANCE: GUIDED TOUR OF THE EXHIBITION “ANSELM KIEFER, L’ALCHIMIE DU LIVRE” FOLLOWED BY A WORKSHOP ON “POP UP” ANIMATED BOOKS.  

Participating schools: 
- Class 5e 7, Collège Maximilien Robespierre, Epinay-sur-Seine
- Class 3e DP, Collège Pierre Curie, Bondy
- Class 6 e B, Collège Eugène Carrière, Gournay-sur-Marne

Photo: PIERRE ANTOINE