On Thursday (19th of November) I started the final unit of the term with my English 102s at Grant MacEwan University (Edmonton, Alberta). After essays and other academic texts, our final study would focus on the multimodal narrative, Inanimate Alice.

Before I began the lesson I recalled what I had done with other classes (mostly media or creative technologies while at De Montfort University in Leicester, England). But this time, it would be a little different. I could incorporate more of a “literary” analysis as this was for an English class…right?

Interestingly out of about 30 students, only one admitted to having read something similar to Inanimate Alice (but when he was “younger”). I gave a background to Inanimate Alice. I introduced the students to Alice, to Brad. I also explained what Alice’s parents do. We talked about setting and character development, noting that Inanimate Alice can be read as a bildungsroman.

We agreed to spend the remainder of the lesson reading Episodes 1 and 2. Students were also given time at the end of the lesson to reflect on their first-time reading a multimodal narrative. Some of the questions I asked them to think about included:

• How reading this online fiction is different from reading the essays in the course books or reading the texts for your research assignment
• What can readers infer about the identity of Alice? What traits does Alice seem to possess?
• 1 instance of foreshadowing
• Complete this sentence: “I think the author is trying to say….”

These students have had plenty of opportunity to respond to literature. They all understand what a story setting is and how to examine character development. However, until we slowed down and re-read each screen of Episode 1, the students found it difficult to answer the aforementioned questions. Only when we paused on a screen and analysed the role of sound (it’s speeding tempo and increasing volume), the role of image (the gravel road, jerking in and out of a downward view), the role of text (the comforting voice of mother Ming) and reader interaction (the blurring arrows urging the reader to click on), we were able to recognise foreshadowing. Josh reads this scene as: “The text reads “Mum says, John knows what he’s doing, he’ll be back soon. That’s what she said yesterday and the day before. But not today.” This text suggests that unlike before, the mother, Ming, can no longer comfort Alice because she too may be worried about when John will be returning, foreshadowing that something may have happened to him.” Looking for a different example of foreshadowing, Ivy interprets: “[a]n example of foreshadowing is that Brad is becoming more animated, he first appeared as a stick figure in the first episode but his images is constantly progressing. I believe as the episodes progress he’ll become an actual person.”  Jamie also had a different view of foreshadowing: “An example of foreshadowing is expressed by the speech bubble that states Alice is the girl always losing her parents. The whole scenario of it appearing seemed out of place, perhaps hinting at a hidden importance.”

Slowing down and performing this kind of close reading proved powerful for the students (and me too!). In turn, they clicked back to individual screens and reread the multiple modes. When asked how this online narrative is different from some of the texts students have read in the past Tasha explained that Inanimate Alice is very “different [from] reading a book, essay, or text because there are many different sounds, moving pictures, and games that could distract you from the text that you have to read. It helps you to visualize what is going on… Also the speeding and slowing, and the type of music makes you more emotionally involved in the story. For example, in the second episode after Alice finds her parents, a softer music is playing and it gives you a sense of relief.” Another student, Matthew, noted: “The audio is very context sensitive, as with the pictures. When the story gets more intense the music speeds up.”  Many of the students also enjoyed the required elements of interactivity. Not only the clicking of the arrows (which Matt likens to “the equivalent of turning a page in a convential text.” ) but the puzzles too. As Kalmy explained, “It also allows us to interact with the story as well (ie: selecting the clothes she’s going to wear).”

My English 102 students began to read as transliterate readers. Scott put it succinctly:

“The growth in [t]ranliteracy as Alice grows in age in my opinion is the author/creators way of expressing how the general public views this mixture of media, text, and story. We’re still developing a bridge between all of our learning tools. While everyone is structured to learn how to read and write the old fashioned way, new forms of literacy tools are developing.”

Since our first class, students are now becoming producers of their own texts. Their creations (an example of differentiated instruction) will, in turn, reinforce the importance of reading all modes simultaneously. Students can choose one of the following activities:

• Write a letter to the authors: Kate Pullinger and Chris Joseph

** Use strong English, give examples
** ask at least two questions
** length should be two paragraphs

• Create a podcast reflection of Episodes 1 and 2 (include the link to your podcast and e-mail me the HTML and the written version). Analyse the role of multimodality. You might use http://www.mypodcast.com// or http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
• Create a google map of places from the first two episodes of Inanimate Alice (include the link to your map in the comment and e-mail me the HTML). For each place marked on the map include:

**analysis of the story related to that area
**and a link to an image

While the students are crafting their responses, I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s class because I as Brian sees it, “Inanimate Alice is the next generation of text, designed to incorporate all of the modern technologies of today.”

You can follow along on our class blog.

Hello. My name is Dale Luckwitz, educational technologist, editor and newest member of the Inanimate Alice team. I will be handling social media aspects of Alice — Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and other outreach medium.

I came to Inanimate Alice initially as a fan, and this mindset boosts my excitement about unfolding developments, not just with Inanimate Alice as a digital narrative, but also with the varied ways it is being adapted for classroom instruction by educators. The sense of this project as a living, growing, adapting entity is what I love the most, and that sentiment is echoed in comments I have read from educators.

I will be writing a number of blog posts in upcoming months, and will focus on brevity, offering concise discussions of particular elements of Inanimate Alice — the useful, the innovative, and the entertaining.

For this introduction, however, forgive my complete abandonment of brevity, but I want to share with you the elements of Inanimate Alice that captured me, and hopefully capture you.

Inanimate is Art.
Above all, I appreciate the craft of Alice, from the controlled, understated observations of our young Alice (written by author Kate Pullinger) to the melancholy visuals and haunting music of digital artist Chris Joseph. Other contributions, from photography, typography, and virtual product design, show a level of pride, commitment and creativity that make Inanimate Alice a joy.

Inanimate Alice is Adventure.
From Alice in a remote area of China to the wonder of watching an online series grow and develop as an energetic work in progress, the entire story and process of story is an adventure.

Just as the production values of each subsequent episode grow in complexity, mirroring Alice’s increasing skill as a game designer, so do the ways in which educators adapt the story of Alice to teach writing, literature, English as a second language, and other subjects.

In fact the series itself did not begin with the education field in mind. Instead, that aspect grew out of the series organically, and now we are looking at the future roll out of a number of high-quality teaching tools (don’t worry – we will keep you posted). For an educational technologist, that is adventure!

Inanimate Alice is Innovation.
From the blending of fiction with gaming to the progressive development of episode complexity as a type of of storytelling tool to the creative education plans created by Dr. Jess Laccetti, the Inanimate Alice project continually moves with purpose, but not limitation. We as a team attempt to look not at what has been done, but what can be done. That is thrilling for all of us involved in the new world of digital fiction, both for entertainment and education purposes.

Inanimate Alice is … a Bit More than All of the Above.
I am a lifelong learner — the type of person who never liked the limiting question of “What do you do for a living?” Inanimate Alice represents that good something that refuses to be too tightly categorized. The project is beyond the individual creators and is more than just a story, or a teaching tool, or a piece of digital art. It is all of those, but more. And how I do like that more.

I thank all of the blog readers for granting me this rare indulgence (550 words and going!), but I wanted to let you all have a sneak peak into my thoughts and relationship to this project.

I look forward to hearing from you all, and hope you will follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/InanimateAlice and at Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Inanimate-Alice/125007357446.

We are all going to have some fun.

Dale Luckwitz -- social media for Inanimate Alice

Sincerely,
Dale Luckwitz

Last year we heard from two educators in Australia who are doing amazing work using ‘Inanimate Alice’ in the classroom. Here’s an update on their exciting work from Margo Edgar (classroom teacher at Pascoe Vale PS) and Kate Story (Teaching and Learning Consultant)

Pascoe Vale Inanimate Alice Wiki

This coming week (May 21st- 23rd)we are presenting at the 6th International Conference of the Middle Years of Schooling Association in Brisbane. The conference focus this year is on the use of ICT in classrooms for teaching and learning. As a part of our presentation on Digital Literacy for the explicit teaching of readers and writers in the middle years (yr 5-9) we have created a wikispace for sharing our planning and the student’s amazing work using Inanimate Alice as the stimulus.

The challenge we put to the students in grade 6 at Pascoe Vale Primary School was to analyse episodes 1-3, identifying author’s writing techniques and style for a digital narrative, to then create and present their own episode 4 using powerpoint.(The students did so without viewing the actual episode 4 until after completion.)

We would like to share with you this wikispace which will include all of our plans and the student’s work. We are happy for that to be shared with Inanimate Alice users worldwide and would like to confirm that we have your permission to use Inanimate Alice in this way and following protocols you outlined in previous correspondence.

In all we have put together a plan for implementing Alice within a Digital Literacy unit lasting for approximately 10 weeks (around 30 hours of work.)The wiki will include a copy of this plan with all supporting documents as well as our conference presentation and samples of student work, their powerpoint episodes, photos and videos of students at work.

It has been an outstanding success and something that is being showcased across schools in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. Inanimate Alice has provided us with a stimulus and vecihle to develop the reading and writing personalities of our students in a digital forum. We are only too eager to share with you our journey.

Kind regards,
Margo Edgar (classroom teacher at Pascoe Vale PS) and Kate Story (Teaching and Learning Consultant)

More stories inspired by the Inanimate Alice series are to be found on Mrs. Kluge’s blog.

http://tkluge.blogspot.com/

We continue to be amazed at the imagination and ingenuity of the authors of these stories.

The New Technologies – New Stories project with the K-12 Curriculum Directorate at the Department of Education and Training in New South Wales, Australia, is under way.

At Zig Zag Public School, students are exploring Inanimate Alice as a mystery genre title.

http://zzps.edublogs.org/inanimatealice/

Students reaction to the episodes are pasted as comments in the blog.

A recent survey of more than 500 district technology directors around the United States says teachers are leading the adoption of web 2.0 rather than the students, the “digital natives,” themselves.

“The research indicates that the movement toward Web 2.0 use to engage students and address individual learning needs is largely being driven in districts from the bottom up–starting with teachers and students,” said Jay Sivin-Kachala, vice president and lead researcher for IESD, in a statement released Monday. “Furthermore, the results show that many districts are using or planning to use Web 2.0 tools in teacher professional development, which suggests that teachers will become increasingly comfortable with these technologies and better able to teach students how to use them safely and productively.”

Angela Thomas, a senior lecturer in English and Arts Education at the University of Sydney, is one example of an educator bringing technology into her classrooms. Not only is Angela sharing her knowledge and enthusiasm for a burgeoning field of multimodal narratives and virtual worlds in education, but Angela is also helping students how to use that very technology.

During a recent session of her “Certificate of Digital Literacies,” Angela used Inanimate Alice as an example of a new media narrative which enables various levels of critical study. According to Thomas:

Inanimate Alice provides a great starting point for pointing out to teachers an exemplary form of Digital Fiction. It progressively uses more complex features related to what I’ve termed (Thomas, 2005) as the affordances of digital fiction: multimodality, multiliteracies, hypertext, interactivity, spatiality, and identity. For English teachers who are not adept with technology it provides a wonderful introduction to new forms of narrative, yet the developing sophistication makes it richly layered with features that can be discussed, debated, analysed and interpreted by e-literature theorists. Pragmatically, it is something that every single teacher I work with can leave my workshop and go back and use it in some way in their classrooms. It has connected with all of my students at some level, whether they teach year 2 or year 12. It is very difficult to find such rich examples that are suitable for use in the classroom context and that have a universal appeal. More recently, the encouragement for teachers and their students to remix or mashup the story allows for a much higher level of participation within and around the narrative of Alice’s journey, and its clear that the authors are genuinely pushing boundaries and shaping new narrative possibilities – true artists of new media authoring.

Thomas, A. (2005). Positioning the Reader: The Affordances of Digital Fiction. For: Reading the Past, Writing the Future. Brisbane, Queensland Council for Adult Literacy Inc. pp.24-33.

Thanks in part to our tweeted conversation, Angela also agreed to take photos of her group busy at work interacting/reading Inanimate Alice. Take a look at some of the wonderful images that Angela has kindly uploaded to Flickr. Doesn’t this just make you want to try digital fiction? (And yes, Angela has a pretty decent computer set-up!). Do read Angela’s blog posts about this session too.

Inanimate Alice is used as an example of “internet art” at the Art Gallery, University of Maryland. The Art Gallery’s “Slow Reveal” -collection of links to internet art sites – was just launched yesterday.

Some of the context of internet art:

“Once the Internet emerged as a mass global communication network in the mid-1990s, artists quickly recognized the possibilities for creative innovation as well as the opportunity to question and redefine the conventions of art. The original term net.art referred to a certain group of artists: Vuk Ćosić, Jodi.org, Alexei Shulgin, Olia Lialina, and Heath Bunting, who identified themselves more as on-line activists.[1] The Internet created an opportunity for them to address some of the most pressing social and ethical issues of the day. As with cable and video in the mid-twentieth century, these artists began inserting themselves into the framework of the Internet while removing themselves from institutional art spaces.” {[1] For more information on early Internet Art, see Stallabrass, Julien. Internet art: online clash with culture and commerce. London: Tate Publishing, 2003.}

Of the works the Art Gallery links to, they say:

“The creators of digital narratives and their audience are responding to the tools of our time, in an attempt to make meaning of our everyday experiences.”

Teacher Diane Aronow provides background on students that have created work inspired by the Inanimate Alice series.

They are all high school special education students, many with learning disabilities, and many that really dislike reading and writing. When I first discovered the Inanimate Alice episodes, I thought they would be perfect for my students. I made up a Unit for them, including some ideas from the educational pack your site provides and adding some of my own ideas. The images, sound, and interactivity truly engaged them and still lent itself to “teaching” literary elements such as setting, mood, characterization. When we completed the 4 episodes, my students couldn’t stop asking, “When is Episode 5 coming out?” I finally said, “You guys are going to create your own!”  I had 4 different classes, each working as a collaborative group. They used a program called PhotoStory 3, which I’m guessing is similar to iStories. My students wished they could have had their episodes “do more”, such as moving text, or clicking on objects, etc. Overall they were happy with their results. I actually had them use an evaluative rubric to score them to see which episode “won”. It was a great learning experience.

Have a look at these links to see what the students have created.

http://aronowsenglish10.blogspot.com/
http://aronowsenglish11.blogspot.com/

Here is one example:

Created by LaToya S., Theresa K., Diana M., Mitchell C., Angie E.

Episode 1: “China,” Inanimate Alice has been named as an example of “digital literature” in Alan Bigelow’s curated collection: “In Search of a New(er) Digital Literature.

From Alan’s curatorial statement:

“Given its ongoing (and often surprising) metamorphoses on the web, it is dangerous to lay claim to a universal identity for digital literature, where exceptions to the rule often signal the coming of new forms, new iterations. But as a result of recent technologies, and digital literature’s explosive re-invention of itself on the web, some aesthetic patterns may be emerging on the contemporary scene that offer hope for a form still struggling for its public identity.

Of course, not all digital literature is found on the web—interactive multimedia installations, CD/DVD-based works, and live performances with multimedia components, to name a few, are important and fascinating parts of the digital literature scene. The offline component to this exhibition,for example, shows that web-based art can have a life outside the virtual world, something many galleries and museums are finallyrecognizing as digital literature makes its way into art centers and exhibition venues worldwide.

But for the most part, the works in this exhibition, and many like them, find their life, and major readership, on the web. The web is not just a quick and expedient way to find an audience for digital literature, a way to self-publish at minimal cost, and a path to self-promotion; it also offers worldwide access to a multimedia platform for which these works can be created, and provides a place for them to thrive. As the public has growing access to cable and DSL, and browsers become more adept at handling different media, the web becomes an increasingly friendly place for digital literature, and for an audience weaned—through their daily cyber-lives—on multimedia, connectivity, and interactivity.”

MERLOT: Multimedia Educational Resource for Online Teaching has Inanimate Alice up on their site, noting it as a useful tool in teaching:

“A teaching resource for digital literacy, stimulus for story telling and creativity that is FREE to download. It has been developed in partnership between BradField and the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust and its schools. “Inanimate Alice” the multi award-winning interactive audio-visual narrative from new-media production house the BradField Company (BradField) has been identified by Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT) as delivering compelling new media suitable for an education audience. Seen by over 1 million viewers (estimate), it is an aid to creativity in the classroom, assisting in story telling and literacy and can be a free and major contribution to the creative curriculum that has been welcomed by teachers accessing it.”

See here for more: http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=335105