Experiential Transmediality in the Classroom

Abstract

<p>The experience of transmediality in the classroom can mean “the application of storytelling techniques combined with the use of multiple platforms to create an immersive learning landscape which enables multivarious entry and exit points for learning and teaching” (Fleming, 2013). Its popularity with higher education pedagogies and research is highly attributed to advances in digital technologies, with which teaching and learning can take place in a hybrid environment, where the onsite-online boundary becomes blurred (Tombleson, 2024). This presentation aims to revisit and revitalize the classroom as a space originally constructed for face-to-face teacher-student and student-student interactions. As creative writing and media communications teachers, we argue that even when digital technologies play a secondary role, we can still experience a transmedial learning environment in the classroom without sacrificing students’ engagement and learning motivation. In this presentation, we focus on two cases where the co-authors designed and delivered what they call here “transmedial lectures”. Both lectures aimed at immersing students in experiencing transmediality creatively by involving them in sequences of interrelated and interactive activities, where digital technologies were used primarily to facilitate communication in a mass lecture attended by more than a hundred students. We did not see this experiential transmediality as transgressing traditional and digital media boundaries. Instead, we promoted the idea that experiential transmediality transgresses any and all boundaries. In one case, for example, the lecturer assigned students into groups, where they started with assembling a poetry collage, using it as the basis for a mixed-media installation and, subsequently, a stage performance. In an intensively interactive environment like this, students discovered the meaning of transmediality through hands-on, collaborative tasks, necessitating face-to-face interactions with both each other and the lecturer. Through these case studies, it is hoped that we teachers, whilst navigating the ever-expanding arena of educational technologies, and especially in light of recent advances in AI, reconsider the value of an experiential transmediality that goes beyond virtual engagement, where digital technologies are only one of the many pedagogical tools available to the contemporary educator.</p><p>References</p><p>Fleming, L. (2013). Expanding learning opportunities with transmedia practices: Inanimate Alice as an exemplar. Journal of Media Literacy Education, 5(2), 370-377. https://doi.org/10.23860/jmle-5-2-3</p><p>Tombleson, B. (2024). Transmedia learning: a literature review. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 33(2), 255-269. https://doi.org/10.1080/1475939X.2024.2310681</p>