Interactive Media Literacies: Tell Show Do

Nelson Zagalo, Universidade do Minho

Ana Boa-Ventura, University of Texas at Austin

Universidade do Minho

IAMCR 2010

20 July 2010

"I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand"

Confucius, 551 AC - 479 AC

Cone of Experience (Dale, 1969)

Cone of Experience

Abstract Real Thing

Piet Mondrian, Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow, 1930

Pere Borrell del Caso, Escaping Criticism, 1874

Facilitated decoding

Creating the Experience

Storytelling is still seen today as the most efficient system of memorizing and learning new ideas, mostly because of the engagement developed by the eff icient undergoing associative task of making sense of a story.

J. Everett Millais, The Boyhood of Raleigh, 1870

Creating the Experience

Books and movies

Through literature the main goal of the writer is to tell the narrative with the most detail as possible in order to develop a strong “fabula” or mental story in the receptor’s mind.

Film doesn’t need to spend time telling details because they are shown. The story world is given already built to the receptor, purposing direct perception of the visual world that enhances perceptive emotions and so learning.

Imagination

Coppola, The Godfather, 1972 Puzo, The Godfather, 1969

Interactive media

Story is no more an act of “telling”, neither “showing” but an integrated set of active participation, of “doing”. Interactive media open a new space (virtual) for the mediation of knowledge. The story containing learning messages will evolve only through the actions and decisions of the participator. Learning becomes a task done using body perception instead of mental processes only.

Simulation

EA, The Godfather: The Game, 2006

What about the Interpretation (story) process?

Lack of code (literacy)

What about the Creation (representation) process?

Decoding

Storytelling demands processes of inference that involve active and associative thinking (Bordwell, 1985). We make sense of the world through patterns that help us in the associative process of finding the right concept in our brain database (Koster, 2005:25).

story

In each of these media we use the same processes, the difference gets in the amount of information given and so in the amount of imagination required.

Doing

Situated cognition in computer simulations engages the idea that knowledge is inseparable from doing. Rather than the storage and retrieval of conceptual knowledge, knowing implies thinking on the fly.

representation

Add interactive literacy as a complementary process for learning

Media literacy change

Cultural

Critical

Creative

Decode

Design

Emphasis on understanding and interpretation of content

Creative activity

Interactive Media Literacies: Tell Show Do

Nelson Zagalo, Universidade do Minho

nzagalo@ics.uminho.pt

Ana Boa-Ventura, University of Texas at Austin

anaventura@mail.utexas.edu

Universidade do Minho