The Talking Shop - Informal Learning Through Arts & Media
The Talking Shop project is all about having fun and making friends! We think that by bringing communities together to enjoy informal learning experiences, we can encourage and explore with them their creative potential and abilities. There are many different activities happening across Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent to allow people to express themselves through art, design, performance, broadcasting and social networking media.
At the end of the project we hope that we will have achieved:
- A stronger, more active and more sustainable network of creative organisations in North Staffordshire, with enhanced links into the community
- More adult learners from non-traditional backgrounds accessing formal education, through the experience of informal learning
- Products and performances produced within the workshops
- An increase in the number of people and organisations in the area using social networking media productively to develop and encourage community pride
- Improved confidence amongst participants in expressing themselves creatively
- New skills in media literacy - interviewing, being interviewed, making programme content and/or using social media
- Public dialogue between participant groups and those behind decision making in the city
- Enhancement of local creative networks, and the legacy of a permanent "Talking Shop" to link these networks and to promote active, productive collaboration and cooperation
- A sustainable community radio project, whose overall aim is to promote these aims of informal learning through participation, engagement with creative activities and networking.
One of the main purposes of The Talking Shop project is to reach people who would not normally consider further or higher education. Offering the community informal learning opportunities in unconventional ways to develop their interests in something new and different. Reaching people in this way will allow us to inform participants of further opportunities to build on what they have already learned informally and at the same time, build their confidence in their ability to pursue avenues of further learning in the future.