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“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” Charles Darwin Change is inevitable and the new year brings the mindset and … Continue reading
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Badges are a hot topic in education these days. Edutopia has a list of badges you can self-select or apply for, Mozilla’s Open Badge Project provides an infrastructure (still in Beta), including code, for the designing, earning and issuing of … Continue reading
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Ironically, while Common Core is causing a shift in pedagogy in traditional face-to-face classrooms, online classrooms are proliferating with the previously used pedagogy. The Common Core movement has veteran teachers rethinking and changing the way they teach. It is not … Continue reading
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Hypergridding is possible between most public grids. Of course there are those private grids, kind of like gated communities. Sometimes you look the same when you arrive and sometimes you get a little mutated. ………………………………………………………………………….. There is something of a … Continue reading
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The VWBPE MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) has spawned some OOCs. The first one is an Open Online Course on developing Alternative Reality Games (ARGs) and the second is on creating Machinima. Again, you may choose to participate actively or perhaps … Continue reading
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I come across an article several times a week that describes a K-12 district or a state’s efforts for offering the opportunity for students to “learn online”. Higher education has been involved with online/distance learning for a longer period of … Continue reading
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The VWBPE MOOC took me into WoW last week. It was a bit of a learning curve, but my Virtual World (SL, RG, Opensim) experience did give me some frame of reference, particularly with basic movement and communication skills. … Continue reading
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The use of Virtual Worlds to explore and enhance the literary experience is a useful activity for pre-reading, ongoing as a specific piece is read, and/or as reinforcement after the reading is complete. The value of a virtual world in … Continue reading
The students in “Norma Underwood’s” class in an Arizona public school are building and scripting in a 3D environment, sculpting in Rokuro, collaborating on projects, and communicating with their peers and interested visitors. I had the opportunity to visit Norma’s virtual class space on Reaction Grid, never having to leave my home state over 2000 miles away. What a treat to see 12 and 13 year olds assembling, communicating and cooperating in a medium that many are completely unaware of.
The class is an art class, lucky for these students they have a teacher who acknowledges and has taken the time to learn an art medium for the future. The young architects and 3D artisans have used floor-plans to build 3D homes, decorated them and added items like video games and chess sets. Learning objectives focus primarily on standards in the area of art and mathematics. Additionally, Norma is incorporating 21st Century objectives like collaboration, communication and problem solving. These are not as easily tested in the traditional assessments required by the state but obvious in the products the students have created and obvious as well when you watch them engaged in their work.
Transmedia Storytelling is a strategy that uses current and emerging technologies along with traditional strategies to enable the participant to become immersed in a story to increase engagement and understanding. Henry Jenkins, Professor of Communications, Journalism, Cinematic Arts, and Education at the University of Southern California, explains that “In transmedia, elements of a story are dispersed systematically across multiple media platforms, each making their own unique contribution to the whole.” It is a strategy that is used in the world of marketing and entertainment, still lagging in the education sector.
Telling stories across multiple platforms and formats addresses multiple learning modalities, encourages participation and motivates participants. Stories are used to teach a wide variety of concepts at all levels of education. A virtual world with a sim designed to draw students into a “game” could potentially result in a high level of learning of a literary work, historical event, or scientific phenomenon. The compelling attributes of transmedia storytelling are the capacity to engage participants and the capacity to promote creativity among the participants. Engagement is crucial to meaningful learning and creativity is identified as a 21st Century skill necessary to solve problems and be competitive in a global environment. As we look into school reform and teacher preparation for 21st Century schools it may be beneficial to ensure that teachers have some knowledge and skills in the the use of Transmedia storytelling.
