Welcome to the week on Multimedia, Transmedia and their associated new digital reading and writing literacies

Preschoolers may be natural multimedia story tellers. But then at preschool or shorly after, at age 6 or before, school intervenes and teaches them that printed words are the superior way to convey one’s thoughts, ideas, and stories. Yet technology now exists to support even young children in telling stories with music, sounds, images, voices and (yes even) text. Yet just as with printed text, there are “new literacies” associated with shooting good video (lighting and sound recording), effective video editing, persuasive selection of music, and powerful uses of still images, and as a teacher you should be prepared to guide your students toward these important communication literacies. But be careful. Along with the technical capabilities to produce multimedia documents, comes the ability to throw all the “bells and whistles” of images, transitions, animations, sounds, and music into a document with confusing and often ineffective results. So teachers must be prepared to help their students develop the “new literacies” associated with multimedia story telling.

What is transmedia storytelling?

First consider Trans-Media storytelling. Books (like Star Wars) have feature films that are sequels and prequels to their story line. Those movies then have video games that expand their plots and make the storytelling interactive. Those video games have playing cards and action figures that provide background to the back story.. and on it goes to TV cartoons, interactive fiction, and maybe back to books and to another movie. In all, the full story unfolds across multiple media.

My favorite example, Inanimate Alice, continues to expand with the Virtual Reality piece now a commercial site ($9.99 per episode). So be careful and scroll down to “Start Alice’s journey here.” Take a few minutes to explore the first adventure and at least 1 other, so you can see how they all differ in how they integrate multiple media with narrative reading, even including mini-games. Also take a peek at The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Writers must be comfortable in all of them to tell their contemporary stories. Read about some thoughts at Script Magazine.What do you think about “reading” multimedia book and what would teachers need to do to teacher students to be writers of books like these?

Are writing teachers preparing students to compose in this way? Aho (2005) says maybe yes, maybe no.

Are video games the “new classics” as a form of interactive fiction that can let narrative unfold through game play?Common Sense Media has a running list of educational video games, many often involve multimedia reading. Review some sample projects and particularly consider  the frontiers of virtual worlds, and the resources available to help.  Consider Roger Travis’ contention that playing Halo II and World of Warcraft are modern day versions of the Greek bardic tradition for experiencing epics, including Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey.

Self expression even in school cannot be limited to creative writing and text alone. Consider music videos, YouTube, virtual worlds, and even just blogs and podcasting. Something and simple as podcasting, with associated short movies can tell a story in a multimedia fashion complete with creative writing, but supplemented. Podcasting has been of use in K-12 schools. Consider the implications. 

So teachers must be prepared to help their students develop the “new literacies” associated with multimedia story telling. In the context of Common Core State Standards, Kist (2013) lists some suggestions as to how to begin to “work in” digital literacy with paper-based literacy.

What makes for good instructional multimedia?

What’s it take technically to create a video? Let’s ask YouTube’s AskTheBuilder. Also check out PBS’s site for teachers to help them with video production. Mini Movie Makers has some good tips and suggestions. And Learn About Film may provide some more in-depth background, at least related to movie making.

Maybe there are tools like a pen that records audio for you, that can help you produce multimedia instructional materials.

Next consider a theory of how we learn from multimedia presentations constructed from over 250 articles and 20 years of research by Richard Mayer at UC Santa Barbara (Mayer 2001). As an example, have you ever heard described or simply read about why we see phases of the moon… compare that with this simulation from the Univ of Nebraska (requires the Flash be enabled for this site).

What about research on TV? Has Sesame Street shortened students’ attention span? See Fisch.pdf on TV learning. 

What is digital literacy?

This short 2016 Education Week article reviews some of the basic things that are often discussed, including the American Library Association’s definition. Don Leu and his group have been working on the reading aspect of this for many years and have worked toward a theory of new reading literacies. In his crowd sourced blog/book on Beyond Literacy Michael Ridley curates a discussion of what lies beyond traditional reading and writing. Interestingly, you might note that the wikipedia definition of crowdsourcing linked in the previous sentence is itself crowdsourced as you can see in the history of that wiki page. This is one new way that writing is done in a digital age– it is collaborative, online, and inherently social– the result of many “authors.”

After viewing these resources, how would you define digital literacy?

Reading and Writing in a transmedia world- Is decoding text in paper books (reading) and composing the 5-paragraph essay (writing) enough?

OK.. maybe it’s a separate thing, these “new literacies,” but there’s no time for them! We have to focus on basic skills, reading and writing. But wait! According to the National Writing Project digital story telling can be good instruction for basic reading and writing, focusing on editing and revising skills, and composing for authentic audiences. And yes, digital story telling does align with the Common Core State Standards for writing and oral expression.

And before we end, maybe you have heard of the age-old debate about the value of media for learning, Clark vs Kozma. Who among us has not seen a Powerpoint presentation the is so distracting because it uses every different animated gif, every different transition, color and Smarttext… randomly. Certainly color and graphics can be wisely used to enahnce a presentation and reinforce concepts and categories and efficiently display dynamic relations. But the trick here is WISE use… thoughtful selection, choices made for reasons supported by research. Clark says the multimedia don’t matter. Kozma and others say there is an interaction between media, pedagogy, and content of which we can be aware and use.

Finally consider how you can use multimedia in your teaching. What’s available this week on the History Channel, CNN, NASA TV, A&E, CSPAN, Biography, Discovery, Food Chanel (for science, perhaps), Court TV? Most of this can be streamed to classroom projections via internet connections.

How can we add teaching “new” digital reading and writing literacies without losing what we already do?

Krist (2013) has some suggestions about how to weave new digital literacies into Common Core State Standards in simple ways that do not degrade your current efforts to teach traditional reading and writing.

Enduring Understanding- Student Learning Outcome from this module

This module discusses transmedia storytelling and how multiple media can be used strategically together to be persuasive. It is argued that there are new 21st century digital reading and writing literacies associated with transmedia that we need to teach and that can be done without losing current reading and writing instruction.