Personal Demons, a multimedia project designed to enhance young people’s literary skills, has been awarded third prize as the ’‘best e-learning resource of 2005’ at the European eLearning Awards 2005.

Personal Demons, a collaborative programme between Newman School, Rotherham, and the Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technologies (CARET) and the Faculty of English, is an aspiration-raising project that offers pupils the chance to collaborate with author Steven Alton in writing his fourth novel.

The unique program enables schools to access the novel-in-progress via the web. Students can then write their own extracts with potential improvements to Mr Alton’s current text on the interactive site. The idea of having some of their work included in a real novel inspires previously disaffected pupils.

The program originally started with Jack Todhunter at Newman School and the author Steven Alton and has now expanded to include close to a dozen schools.

CARET’s mission is to provide the University with a central focus for the creation and evaluation of new technologies for online education. Harriet Truscott from CARET said: "We're delighted to have won this award. It's a real tribute to Steve and Jack's hard work and imagination, but it also recognises the experience of CARET in designing innovative teaching and learning materials."

The author Steve Alton said: “It continues to astonish me that something that began as an informal exchange of emails between myself and my former English teacher has snowballed into such a fantastic, diverse project. Although I'm obviously delighted, I hesitate to say that this award is the high point, because the way 'Personal Demons' is developing, I have a feeling that there may be more surprises to come.”

The eLearning Awards aim to highlight and reward ‘excellent practice in using information communications technology (ICT) for learning’.

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