Hi all,

I have a dream that we can profoundly enhance our blogging experience by working together interactively. There is a new mode of on-line story-telling happening called Transmedia and it is being used across a whole range of artistry and industry. It is the way that some marketing companies saturated the community with their product (using a blend of uTube Video, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Vlogs,  Real puppets, TV commercials etc.) So Transmedia means what it says: a way of telling a story using a wide range of expressive devices.

So how does this apply in literature, in the creative arts?  Take a look at http://www.lizziebennet.com [The Lizzie Bennet Diaries] which is a modern adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice].

So what I am going to suggest in these last weeks of our blogging/vblogging is for you to experiment as a group to create a Transmedia “story” (could be critical and/or creative) across the bloggers in your group (and beyond your group- if you wish).

So here are some suggested topics for your Blog/Vlog groups (and what is a Vlog?)

This activity will replace individual blogs in the last weeks of semester. It could be fun and it could certainly teach you a lot about what is around the corner, technologically, creatively, educationally. If you find that you can’t activate any one in your group, but a message into LEO and ask “Can I please join your group?” If you are in a group who needs another person, then please let the person who wants to join, into your group.

I will give you a little time to work on this in lectures and tutorials next week.

Shakespeareans:

Write/Film a modernised “Transmedia” story in which Hal and Falstaff confront each other in Love and Hate- you can include other characters in the play who might take part in this confrontation.  Within your group allocate roles and responsibilities. Each person in the group could be responsible for one of the “characters” (and this list could be expanded: Mistress Quickly, Doll Tearsheet, Poins, Bardolph, Shallow….). The along with these roles two people could work together as “Directors”, two people could work together as technology scouts (i.e. researching what transmedia elements could be used in this joint presentation. Use each of your WordPress sites to set up components of the story with clear links from one site to the other. Two people could be set up as “Critics” and “Troubleshooters”: your job to inspect how the story is going, how it is working.

{If as a group you can think of a story that you would prefer to experiment with, then please  choose a different narrative, but be sure it has the kind of complex interaction that is found between Hal and Falstaff.}

Romantic Victorians

Write/Film a modernised “Transmedia” story in which Charles Dickens, George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans), William and Dorothy Wordsworth meet at a dinner party to confront the question: “How can we help to make the lives of the generation who are now between 17 and 25 more rich and meaningful?”

Within your group allocate roles and responsibilities. People in the group could nominate who they would like to “be” ( and you can invent some more characters as needed: Matthew Arnold, Emily Bronte, Dante Gabrielle Rosetti.) Along with being one of these characters two people could work together as “Directors”, two people could work together as technology scouts (i.e. researching what transmedia elements could be used in this joint presentation. Use each of your WordPress sites to set up components of the story with clear links from one site to the other. Two people could be set up as “Critics” and “Troubleshooters”: your job to inspect how the story is going, how it is working.

{If as a group you can think of a story that you would prefer to experiment with, then please  choose a different narrative, but be sure it has the kind of complex interaction that is found between Hal and Falstaff.}

Please email me in LEO if you can think of anything else that I could set up to help this get off the ground. For example: do you need a LEO based discussion space? Or can you work together on Facebook…… let’s see what happens!

How to Create a uTube Video.