Who Do You Want to Be?

The Story
This contemporary story follows the development of an on-line relationship between the alter egos of two teenagers who live on opposite sides of the globe. Melbourne-based Saskia, a budding musician, writes a piece of music which she posts on the Internet, hoping to receive feedback.

In London, Noah, by day the geeky younger brother of the school football star is transformed each night into ‘Max Hammer’ the main character in an on-line comic that Noah has created.

The cyber-marauding Noah (in the guise of Max) discovers Saskia’s music and uses it in his comic strip, “The Very Real and Excellent Adventures of Max Hammer”. Saskia discovers this and goes on-line into webweave in search of the thieving Max Hammer to extract her revenge. She quickly realises that she is no match for the super confident, highly respected cyber-hero, Max. So she invents Indy, her cyber persona who is a mysterious, smoother, sexier version of herself.

When Max invites Indy to be co-creator of the comic strip – composing the music and advising on the story development – Noah & Saskia become the best of friends via the ideal selves they project in the virtual world. They feel like they know what’s going on in each other’s heads. That they can tell each other things they can’t tell anyone else. Except that neither of them is who they are claiming to be – and both are convinced that the friendship would end in an instant if their cool cyber friend found out their true identity.

When Max tells Indy he’s glad they are just ‘buddies’, Saskia feels rejected and is attracted instead by the attentions of her co-worker at the Chicken Coup, Ernesto, putting him and their budding band before the comic. Noah is confused by his own reaction to this, and when his friend Clive intervenes and attempts to sell the comic on his behalf, he is tempted as he feels ‘there’s no Max without Indy’.

As Max and Indy have their virtual differences, Noah & Saskia seem to take on the attributes of their avatars in the ‘real world’. And as the gap between their ideal selves and their real selves begins to close, the time comes for their virtual selves to get real.

Pedagogical Approach:

The series and its accompanying educational resources provide innovative opportunities to engage with current pedagogy based on theories of multiliteracy and visual literacy learning.

Lesson ideas in Unit One have been developed incorporating experiences reflecting a balance of multiliteracies pedagogies* – experiential, conceptual, analytical and application knowledge processes. In a nutshell, this means:

• experiential: students working with what is known or familiar to them
• conceptual: students learning new conceptual understandings/ terminology
• analytical: where students ‘stand back’ and participate in critical comment
• application: where students apply their learning in new ways.

For more information about multiliteracies pedagogy visit
http://www.alea.edu.au/multilit.htm

References
Kalantzis, M. & Cope, B. (2003) 'Designs of Learning', Altona, Common Ground Publishing.
Kalantzis, M. & Cope, B. (2004) 'Learning by Design', Altona, Common Ground Publishing.
The New London Group (1996) ‘A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures.’
Harvard Educational Review, Vol.66: No.1, pp. 60-91.

Unit Two helps students to explore the concepts of different personas, reality, honesty and being true to oneself. Activities help students to consider the effects of interactions between family, friends and other people and the perceptions of others on the development of identity. It explores the issues associated with young people communicating online and the possibilities, pleasures and problems on accessing the Internet.

Link : www.abc.net.au/noahandsaskia

The Writers of the Noah & Saskia Education Resources

Anne Cloonan

Christine Evely

Greta Caruso- VATE

Robyn English- ALEA

Synopses of the Episodes and Related Learning Resources
All other resources can be used for any episode.
Unit Four: The primary/literacy unit can be used with any episode.