A collaborative interactive narrative project
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It's Reading . . . But Not As We Know It! A collaborative interactive narrative project |
A team of final year BA Interactive Media Production students worked with 24 Year 9 pupils at Royal Manor Arts College, Portland to write, design and produce four interactive stories.
Popular authors like JK Rowling and Jacqueline Wilson are often credited with ‘reviving' the art of storytelling, particularly amongst children. But many youngsters still struggle to learn and enjoy reading at school, often turning to video/computer games as a modern ‘alternative' to the traditional narrative.
Interactive Media staff and students from Bournemouth University's renowned Media School tackled this challenge recently during a week-long exercise at the Royal Manor Arts College, a centre of excellence for the Arts in Portland, near Weymouth, by getting Year 9 pupils (aged 13-14) to create their own stories using multi-media techniques and resources.
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James Bent 007- Live & Let Cry |
Associate Senior Lecturer Jim Pope led the project to help the pupils write their own stories using a combination of film, graphics, sound and words to design and produced multi-media narratives to ‘read' on computers. The project also raised awareness of the The Media School amongst kids who might not otherwise feel confident about higher education and gave the University's undergraduate students an opportunity to gain experience of mentoring and working with younger students in a 'teaching' role.
Pope is currently researching such narratives as a new form of storytelling and, virtually, a new form of reading. He has recently completed a research paper for the renowned journal of new media, 'Convergence'.
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The Missing Petal |
"A former colleague of mine, who is a primary school teacher, has seen some of my research material and thinks that interactive narratives delivered on computers have great potential in encouraging and helping reluctant readers, of any age, to read and begin to enjoy stories, as opposed to computer games," says Pope.
"At the Royal Manor School, the pupils as well as our own students and staff learnt much more about the nature of storytelling and the possibilities for reading stories in a multimedia environment. I believe the educational possibilities for new media narratives are very promising.
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KC's Crazy Witch Diary |
"Instead of reading in a conventional linear fashion, these stories can be explored, rather like a website, and yet they still tell a story, with a plot, characters and action. The possibility to use words, pictures and sounds is very exciting for the young 'writers' at Royal Manor, and they are actually at the forefront of an evolving new form of storytelling.
"The use of multi-media resources in storytelling allows us to extend the possibilities of complementing the story with images, films or references to material on the internet, which can help the reader form a more rounded view of the story and help them to improve their understanding and enjoyment," he concludes.
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Olsen's Angels |
The collaboration between the The Media School and the Royal Manor School in Portland, Weymouth, is one of a number of projects co-ordinated through the Bournemouth University-based Centre for Excellence in Media Practice.
The Centre, the only one of its kind in the country as awarded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England, works with a range of partners in education and industry to create different ways of accessing higher education and transform the student learning experience to produce graduates who will help to shape the future of the creative industries.
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