Just Tripping Along The Freakazoid

Interactive Fiction, participatory culture and Transmedia Events - will we be left behind or late to the party The points brought out in this article - www.jokeandbiagio.com/indie-filmmakers-meet-interactive-fiction are really worth thinking about. It highlights how, in some ways, today is a very exciting time in media and also a very scary time. Things are changing, the world is changing, and a shift that began 10 years ago is really beginning to be felt. We are living more and more, for better and for worse, in a participatory culture and people today want to not be passive consumers, they want to feel part of the experience. But is this a fad or something more, a true change? And if there is a shift, will people be left behind? I remember playing " The Beast " or more accurately, trying to play. I found it frustrating and difficult as there always seemed to be someone there first, someone else was picked, someone else got to play, and I still was a passive observer....

Along with the other blog entry I wrote - I wanted to put these two thoughts out there 1. A current trend in thinking with Transmedia is moving beyond the 'traditional" concept of a story and towards a concept of user experience see thismonkeycantype.com/blog/2010/02/17/stop-tellingselling-stories-create-experiences/ and rosspruden.blogspot.com/2010/02/ode-before-dying.html - for example 2. students today are growing up in an emerging participatory culture (see the excerpt I am posting below) so - if these are true and growing - then working to better merge these concepts into the very framework of our society through the education stream might be a good idea???? How many teachers really know about these ideas????? --------------- From: Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century (Jenkins et al., 2006) "The Challenge Ahead: Ensuring that All Benefit from the Expanding Media Landscape Writing in the Chronicle of Higher...

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 ...