You already have a way to judge a piece of content: its theme, its purpose, its audience and the techniques it uses. Today the story stays the same and only its format changes, which means the shape it arrives in: as a text post, as a picture, as audio and as a short video. You will compare what each format makes you notice, what it leaves out, and what it makes easy to share, then choose the format you would trust most and the one you would share most, and say what you gain and what you lose with each choice.

Format is the shape a story takes: a written post, a still image, a voice clip, a short video. The facts can be identical and the experience still changes, because each format controls what you notice first, how long you stay with it, and how easily you pass it on.

What really happened

All four versions below are telling this same story.

• Last night a lorry shed its load on the N72 bridge near the fictional town of Glenford.
• The bridge is closed until Friday.
• Traffic is diverted through the town centre.
• Nobody was hurt.
• The load was sealed cartons of soft drinks; local crews cleared most of it by morning.
• Glenford Community College opens as usual; the diversion adds about ten minutes to the school bus route.

Format 1 The photo

Look at it for about 20 seconds.

Format 2 The clip

Play the clip

It plays once and you cannot pause it. Watch the words on screen as well as the picture.

Format 3 The radio bulletin

Play it once, the way you would hear it in the car.

Format 4 The text post

Open the text post

N72 bridge at Glenford closed until Friday after a lorry shed its load last night. Nobody hurt. Diversion through the town centre is in place. Soft-drink cartons mostly cleared by morning crews. Glenford Community College open as normal; school buses add about 10 minutes. Check live traffic before you travel.

Open this one last, after you have notes on the other three.

Now fill in the table

Talk each version over with your partner, then fill in your own table. It has a column for each of the four versions. In every column, answer these three questions:

1. What do you notice first?
2. What is easy to miss?
3. If someone only saw this version and shared it, what would they think had happened?

Short notes, not full sentences. The first one is done for you. If a version tells you nothing new, write same as the facts above.

Now you tell the Glenford story yourself, twice, and see what the shape does to it. The six facts are on the step above and they stay the same both times; only the shape, the picture and the wording change. First you make a headline card, the shape a news site uses, then a copy of it changed into something made to be shared on a phone. The tool below has the instructions and the picture library.

Every picture in the library says whether it is free to reuse, needs a credit, or is off limits, and one of them will refuse to be placed. Check before you place a picture, and open Credits at the end for anything that needs crediting.

Your teacher will put one pair's two versions on the board, A beside B. Look at both and decide: which would you trust more, and which would you be more likely to pass on? Be ready to put your hand up for each, because the two answers are usually different, and the reason they differ is what this lesson is about.

Then each pair reads out the sentence they wrote earlier: Format changes ___ about this story, because ___. Listen for what the other pairs noticed that you did not.

From those sentences and from the versions on the board, work out together:

• What did the text post hold that the other formats left out or made hard to catch?
• What did the video add that was not in the facts?
• Which version would most of the class trust, which would most of the class share, and what do you give up when you choose one over the other?