Transmedia and Education

I've been thinking and reading and talking with assorted people (such as Mr. Robert Pratten from ZenFilm - check out a great blog here - zenfilms.typepad.com/ ) regarding transmedia and education (the joining of two topics that are important to me and of interest). While there has been some interaction between the two, erm, fields, concepts, industries, um yeah those two things :) I am curious about how much. I use some tenets and projects in my teaching associated with crossmedia and transmedia (see here for a great discussion on how maybe to see the difference between the two - www.lunchoverip.com/2008/05/from-crossmedia.html ). - I see transmedia as the method {how content relates and how the student/teacher interact with each other and the content} and crossmedia as the tool {delivery of content - the access points to the content} - but as a full on concept, method and way of thought and instruction, well, I do not as much as I would like to.

so, I am toying with three ideas -

1. What would transmedia teaching and crossmedia teaching look like (and thus what would the ideal classroom to support this learning/instruction/environment look like)? Are there levels to using this (projects, vs activities, vs whole-instruction)?

2. What actual resources, projects, literature, etc. are already out there regarding transmedia and education?

3. Developing (or finding if it exists) a curriculum that teachers can use to bring transmedia teaching to their classroom (this would be a FULL curriculum from the planning and overviews and thought, all the way down to actual leson examples, tools teachers need and so on)


So this is my quest - and I know I am nuts because the work I will do could probably be transformed into a master's thesis or maybe even take it deeper to a dissertation, but alas, there are no places in my neck of the woods were I could find a program that would support my research although I would love dearly to go back to school. So I am just going to do it for me and my students and type up my own thoughts as I go ;P

But, anyone reading this, if you know of ideas, thoughts and resources, please let me know!!!!!!!!!!

I have a few - like this one - Learning in participatory culture and also this is neat - storycentraldigital.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/doris-day-as-miss-marple-interstitial-genres-chick-lit-transmedia/

or this www.hastac.org/blogs/nancykimberly/transmedia-experience-livestreamed-brazilian-high-school

And this - eduscapes.com/sessions/multiplatform/

and this one - remotedevice.net/blog/transmedia-and-education-three-essential-readings/

and this one www.rikomatic.com/blog/2009/11/transmedia-challenge-game-show-for-new-media-education.html

and a couple more - http://www.educationarcade.org/node/65 and www.mytransmedia.com/ and spotlight.macfound.org/blog/entry/henry_jenkins_transmedia_improv_encourages_learning_by_remixing_media/ part of spotlight.macfound.org/

portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1139074&dl=GUIDE&coll=GUIDE&CFID=78661109&CFTOKEN=45429411

oh yeah and henryjenkins.org/2009/05/what_is_learning_in_a_particip.html and some good white papers here - newmedialiteracies.org/ (like www.newmedialiteracies.org/files/working/NMLWhitePaper.pdf


So I know it is out there (although a lot seem to focus more on what I label the crossmedia aspect with dipping toes into the idea of a participatory culture) but around here, I go up to other teachers (I teach high school and college and I teach teachers from all levels regarding curriculum, technology use and instruction, so I interact a lot with teachers) and ask them about transmedia, I get blank stares.

So, I describe what transmedia is, and get blank stares.... I keep trying and finally hit crossmedia ideas then I receive a few... ohhhhh that's just for entertainment, or I hear we can not do that here as we are not allowed (that is a separate post coming which is I try to use social media and digital thought as I work with (buzz word alert) digital natives and millennial students and most of those methods and projects are blocked in schools or people are very afraid to try these projects.............. So I am interested in learning - is this viable and useful in education and how to get it past the point of academic and industry people talking about it (and saying wonderful things) into say a 9th grade biology class in Point Travel Kansas??????????

But anyhoos - gotta prepare for class ;)