Digital storytelling is undoubtedly gaining a respected position in the bastion of literature with multiple modes available for enjoyment. While digital literature encompasses everything from ebooks and enhanced ebooks to born digital environments with multimodal experiences (Larson, 2009 & Hovious, Shinas & Harper, 2020) that deliver rich narrative experiences, true electronic literature is inextricably bound to the software used to create it and the hardware required to run it (Tomasula, 2012). This in essence draws a line between electronic books that are no more than an alternate delivery system of the text and those which make full use of the functionality of the digital environments in which they exist. As Larson (2013) notes, used effectively, technology can meet unique needs of individual students. Good examples of digital literature resources are essential to integrate into learning experiences.
Literacy is a social practice (Montfort, 2003 & Gee, 2012) and today’s students were born digital (Prensky, 2001) although their technological fluency is often overstated (Alexander, 2011). They have grown up surrounded by digital tools, using digital environments and new multimodal literacies which involve the interpretation of a variety of visual, textual, and audio texts (Larson, 2013 & Hovious, Shinas & Harper, 2020). The view that literacy is continuously evolving and therefore readers must continuously develop literacy tools to engage with emerging modes is embedded in the constructivist theory of learning (Alexander, 2011 & Larson, 2015). Rich digital texts that provide for media convergence (Murray, 1997; Larson, 2013 & Hovious, Shinas & Harper, 2020) deliver students opportunities to participate in literacy and a social and collaborative process (Larson, 2015) and develop the skills to build deep understanding about the texts.
The strength of digital literature lies in titles that demonstrate a high degree of intertextuality and transmediality as seen in many computer games (Alexander, 2011 & Ensslin, 2012). “Digital technologies and media allow productive, creative explorations of how ludic features can be embedded in literature born digital, and of how literary elements can ne integrated in computer games.” (Ensslin, 2012) In 2004, Ken Perlin argued that narrative form in games had not reached a level in which the player achieved transference to the characters point of view in which they become the character as they do for a period of reading or, when watching a film. I would argue that benchmark has now been achieved through immersive games with strong narratives that blur the lines between story and game and allow players to experience the immersive second-person perspective (Alexander, 2011). Titles such as Inanimate Alice, The Walking Dead and Life is Strange all cross the line between game and literature and it is in this space where students can use their suite of digital literacy tools to engage with texts that provide deep engagement.
Another area that can bridge the gap between story and game providing high levels of convergence and transmediality is in Augmented Reality Games (ARG). ARG’s provide an engaging platform for non-fiction storytelling through an immersive and investigative process extensively identified by Gottlieb (2016) as an engaging blend of fiction and non-fiction elements and can be created using resources already available on the web. This however will present potential challenges regarding intellectual property rights. While many ARG’s can be produced through reuse and remixing of available media, it is expected that copyright holders will assert their rights as has been the case with other digital media (Alexander, 2011).
One of the challenges that persists for educators planning to use digital literature is with the loss of texts, typical every five years or so, in line with the average life span of an operating system (Tomasula, 2012). The loss of access to resources is a persistent challenge (Alexander, 2011) for educators as they deal with the obsolescence of webpages. The loss of access to digital literature titles that are essential to learning activities will pose a block to the uptake of teachers investing in these resources. One way to confront this challenge is for educators to make their own resources but most lack the time or skills (Alexander, 2011) to invest in this activity. Having attempted my own digital story for this project using Microsoft Sway, I can attest to the time required to complete the project and the frustration of limited functionality and unreliability of the platform especially when adding media such as audio and video. One then questions the value of the investment of time for an unreliable product. Alternately, access to literature can be purchased with greater reliability of access and longevity however, literature in this category can be costly and many schools will be reluctant to invest in these resources and certainly not to a degree that provides ubiquitous access. Which ever path is chosen, the rapidly changing technology world will provide an ongoing challenge for educators in staying up to date in their practice and meeting students’ needs for “successful participation in a global environment” (Larson, 2013).
Ensslin (2020) notes that further research is required to fully understand how leveraging everyday online literacies of digital texts can be used to engage and motivate students. She further suggests that the path forward to achieving this is with the integration of intentionally designed texts into the curriculum to develop exemplary pedagogical practices required to make the most of the multimodal literacies students already bring to the classroom. Finding the best ways to teach students how to understand digital stories is, therefore, essential in our modern information environment.
References
Alexander, B. (2011). The New Digital Storytelling: Creating Narratives with New Media. Praeger.
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. (2020) F-10 Curriculum. https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/#
Ensslin, A. (2012). Computer Gaming. In Bray, J., Gibbons, A. & McHale, B. The Routledge Companion to Experimental Literature. Routledge. Accessed from https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=D2e8x_0AwokC&oi=fnd&pg=PP2&dq=Code+poetry+and+new-media+literature&ots=3z77jMcE-r&sig=jyheu8JBTDBXoqK0s4-h8_r5UEI#v=onepage&q=Code%20poetry%20and%20new-media%20literature&f=false
Gee, J. P. (2012). Social Linguistics and Literacies: Ideology in Discourses (4th Edition). Routledge
Gottlieb, O. (2016). Who Really Said What? Mobile Historical Situated Documentary as Liminal Learning Space. gamevironments 5, 237-257. Retrieved September 29, 2020 from http://www.gamevironments.uni-bremen.de.
Hovious, A., Shinas, V. H. & Harper, I. (2020). The compelling nature of transmedia storytelling: Empowering twenty first-century readers and writers through multimodality. Technology, Knowledge and Learning. DOI: 10.1007/s10758-020-09437-7
International Baccalaureate (2015). Fostering interdisciplinary teaching and learning in the MYP. http://marymount.emsb.qc.ca/documents/IB/2016-2017/Interdiscipllinary%20guide.pdf
Larson, L. (2009). E-reading and e-responding: new tools for the next generation of readers. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53(3), 255-258. http://www.justor.com/stable/25614554
Larson. L. (2013). From print texts to e-books: the changing nature of literacy. Kappa Delta Pi Record, 49(4), 168-173. DOI: 10.10850/00228958.2013.845505
Larson, L. (2015). E-books and audiobooks: extending the digital reading experience. The Reading Teacher, 69(2), 169-177. http://www.jstor.com/stable/24575045
Monfort, N. (2003). Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction. The MIT Press
Murray, J. H. (1997). Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. The Free Press
Perlin, K. (2004). Can there be a form between a game and a story? In Wardrip-Fruin, N. & Harrigan, P. First Person: New Media as Story, Performance and Game. MIT Press.
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. Retrieved September 29, 2020 from https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/31169414/Digital_Natives_-_Digital_Immigrants.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DDigital_natives_digital_immigrants_part.pdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A%2F20191007%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20191007T093111Z&X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=1bcb861ad655ffc2dac079a79bae0f7e007aa75704f75d5495b3b7f753466924
Tomasula, S. (2012). Code poetry and new-media literature. In Bray, J., Gibbons, A. & McHale, B. The Routledge Companion to Experimental Literature. Routledge. Accessed from https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=D2e8x_0AwokC&oi=fnd&pg=PP2&dq=Code+poetry+and+new-media+literature&ots=3z77jMcE-r&sig=jyheu8JBTDBXoqK0s4-h8_r5UEI#v=onepage&q=Code%20poetry%20and%20new-media%20literature&f=false
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