Digital Dystopia or Taming a “Lion” of Code

In the physical world, you can eyeball a thing and observe its level of intricacy. Of course, microscopes reveal more intricacies than are apparent to the naked eye. In the digital world, if it looks simple, it is actually really complex. Of course, we want our digital tools to be user-friendly, clean and simple, but if we take a microscope to them and look at the coding behind the surface our utopia of effortless digital interaction become a tangled dystopia of code. Some geeks have an innate sense of direction. Others, like me, struggle with the syntax of embedded html. It has to be just right, or it simply does not work.

Here is an example from our COETAIL grading spreadsheet which we each have access to in our Google Docs:

At the top of my page it says: “Ruth’s COETAIL Grading.” Underneath are displayed columns A – E which list the Week, Blog Post Title, Date Posted, etc. In the past, I typed in my blog post title and then added the link string right into the cell making a clear but long and unwieldy entry. And then it was brought to my attention that the link string was not even clickable. If I had just dumped in the link string without adding the “Blog Post Title” then I would have been fine; the link would have worked. Adding the name of the title in the cell interrupted the function of a direct link.

So I began to try to figure out how to embed a link under the title of the blog post. I wanted just the title to show in the cell. When the instructor clicked on the title, it would automatically take her to the post. Not so easy. My resident geek found some advice on the subject here: Enter Links in a Google Spreadsheet . That was easy to do in this blog post because there is a link tool available. Not so with Google spreadsheets. You have to know the code…. and it looks like this:

=hyperlink(“http://ruth.ingulsrud.net/blog/2012/09/22/digital/”;”digital dystopia”)

There is one little hitch though, that my friendly “Enter Links in a Google Spreadsheet” page did not tell me about. You have to have “Normal” selected instead of “Plain Text.” (Those commands are found in the “More formats” pull-down menu which is hidden behind an icon that says, “123.” Why “123” should signify more formats is beyond me. So this little hyperlink trick did not work until the normal font was enabled…. and then…. TADAAAH! It worked. Looks simple on the surface; just the title of the blog post shows up. Below the surface lurks the coding which will not cooperate unless you say the exactly right thing in the exactly right format. Coding can be belligerent and cranky and very hairy.

But that is the least of my worries. I am trying to make a simple, illustrated digital children’s book that highlights its words as the embedded narrator speaks them aloud. Looks simple and obvious when it works, but underneath the calm surface is hours of coaxing the vicious code to behave. I may need a whip and a chair.

Communication Evolution or the Rise of Digital Storytelling

“What we do now with words, we’ll soon do with images,” says Kevin Kelly, (a “Wired” geek), in an ancient article published way back in 2008. And what he describes in his NY Times article, “Becoming Screen Literate,” has already come true. Kevin describes how technology shifts bend the culture and the ways in which we communicate and pass on our essential truths. Storytelling has gone from oral to print to photographic to video in the space of a very short span of our history.

The print advertisement was developed at M&C Saatchi, Melbourne, by creative director Steve Crawford, head of art Murray Bransgrove, art director Rebecca Hannah and copywriter Doogie Chapman, with photographer Christopher Tovo and retoucher Ed Croll.

And while we may consider the modern mash-ups and remixes a completely new type of storytelling medium, it is just another way in which storytelling reworks available material to create old stories in new ways. All art recombines and storytelling is no exception.

Storytelling has always been a visual art. The storyteller relied on her actions and expressions or on his masks and props. Storytelling has used puppets, music and actors since ancient times. Now we have so many visual choices to choose from that the prospect of telling a story can seem overwhelming. The story itself, is the most important component, of course, but now it has become obvious that the supporting visuals of storytelling can make or break the story itself.

Most would agree that “Star Wars” is a compelling story, but the truth is that George Lucas could not “sell” his story concept to any movie studio until he had engaged the services of a technically skilled and inspired artist named Ralph McQuarrie, (who has just recently passed away). Ralph drew some compelling illustrations to accompany George’s movie pitch, creating from his fertile imagination, the imposing menace of Darth Vader and the appealing innocence of C3PO. Accompanied by these compelling images, when Lucas pitched his movie to 20th Century Fox, it was immediately financed.

Teaching our students to visualize stories as they write them and then giving them tools to illustrate their stories in a rich variety of ways will equip them to communicate the story lines that the future longs to hear and, in some cases, needs to hear. Exercises in crafting original stories based on old, traditional themes can be as easy as interpreting a fairytale.

During a weekend workshop, we were challenged to create a lesson plan that resulted in the writing of an original digital story. In just a few hours, our team of three was ready. With the intention of encouraging students to write a modern version of an old fairytale, we hammered out a rubric and produced an example story. One told the story, while another quickly illustrated the action in storyboard squares, while the third wrote the lesson plan out in detail. The result was a book created in iBook Author that can be viewed on an iPad or exported as a PDF viewable on any laptop device. Here is our original fairytale sample:

Gretel and the StringFactory

Original fairytale

Another quick and easy way that students can create and share their stories is through Google Docs. The tools provided allow students to create simple drawings, import photos and artwork and even embed videos to accompany their text. Using Google Docs is also a great way to encourage collaboration between students on a story. Because the teacher can be included as an editor on the document as well, students can get immediate comment and feedback on their stories as they write. Here is an example, unfinished but quickly created for a short workshop on digital books that I offered last Friday during a teacher Pro-D work day at our school. The last few pages were added by various teachers as they experimented with the functions of Google Docs. Take a look at the result:

DustyMcHoofers

The PDF version does lack the functionality of the Google Docs version. It does not play the embedded video or show the WordArt “Water” disappearing, etc., it does show a basic sample of what can be produced in a very short time with a minimum of instruction and prep.

We are now ready to set our 4th graders loose to unleash their creativity within the generous and expanding boundaries of a wide range of storytelling tools. It will be exciting to see what they come up with.