Into the Driver's Seat

"Together with a whole network of media researchers, creators and students we will:
- learn storytelling basics such as antagonist/protagonist relationships, narrative/narrated time, ...
- have a look at exciting current media projects
- analyze how they are designed and executed based on aforementioned basics
- and discuss how (and if) new online tools and formats change the way stories are told and perceived.

The 8-chapter course starts on October 25th, 2013 and ends on December 20th, 2013.

It will offer weekly video material, lessons, interviews and tasks on the following topics (not necessarily in this order):
- storytelling basics
- serial formats (on the TV, web and beyond)
- storytelling in role-playing games
- interactive storytelling in video games
- transmedia storytelling
- alternate-reality gaming
- augmented reality and location-based storytelling
- the role of tools, interfaces and information architectures in current storytelling.

Our first Storytelling-MOOC will focus on fictional formats.

"Our goal is to inspire and help understand. To broaden our horizon of what is and might be possible and what has already been attempted, and what has succeeded or even failed - and why.
In several little tasks you'll analyze and practice storytelling on your own and in teams."

FREE :: STARTS SEPT. 9 :: LIMITED TO 500 PARTICIPANTS

 

"Google has funded an associate professor in the Indiana University School of Education to develop a "Big Open Online Course," or BOOC. Daniel Hickey will offer a free course in September focused on educators and titled "Assessment Practices, Principles and Policies" for as many as 500 students, funded by a $50,000 Google grant.

"Hickey intends for this BOOC to offer most of the advantages of a Massive Open Online Course, or MOOC, but with more interaction, while taking advantage of Google's new Coursebuilder course management system. "Google wants to know whether interactive online practices that are working well with 20 students can be scaled up," Hickey said.

 

"Students who complete the BOOC will learn the practical skills needed to improve classroom student assessments while exploring assessment principles and new accountability policies. These topics are becoming more important to educators as states introduce new curriculum standards and achievement tests, while at the same time beginning to evaluate teachers according to short-term gains on those tests. Students who wish to take the course for graduate-level credit will be able to do so by completing additional course requirements, including a term paper based on the weekly assignments".