NEW MEDIA DEMANDS NEW LITERACIES
'Inanimate Alice' has proven to be popular across a broad range of ages as well as with a broad range of viewers, including both book-lovers and gamers. Because the level of interactivity starts out low in episode one, increasing with each subsequent episode in order to reflect Alice's own growing abilities, we've found that we can take an audience unfamiliar with multimedia fiction with us. Educators like 'Inanimate Alice' because of this; students from primary to post-graduate level find the work engaging.
Today educators face a quandary. On the one hand there are anxieties about the reliability of internet sites and concerns regarding how to educate students to make informed online decisions. On the other hand there are, for example, government initiatives like the National Curriculum in England and Media Literacy outcomes in Canada which emphasise the important role technological skills play in all sorts of learning environments. But how can teachers successfully integrate new media literacies into the classroom?
'Inanimate Alice' is easily assimilated into learning environments; its use of multimodality (images, sounds, text, interaction) enables students to see storytelling in a new, multi-sensory light. 'Inanimate Alice' is a new media fiction that allows students to develop multiple literacies (literary, cinematic, artistic, etc.) in combination with the highly collaborative and participatory nature of the online environment.
Are you interested in sharing your ideas or participating in the Inanimate Alice educational project?
If so you are welcome to add the iTeach Inanimate Alice button to your course site or blog - just copy the code related to the image you wish to appear on your site and paste it into your page.
<a href="http://www.inanimatealice.com/education"> <img src="http://www.inanimatealice.com/education/images/iteach.png" alt="iTeach Inanimate Alice" title="iTeach Inanimate Alice" border="0"> </a>
<a href="http://www.inanimatealice.com/education"> <img src="http://www.inanimatealice.com/education/images/iteach_medium.png" alt="iTeach Inanimate Alice" title="iTeach Inanimate Alice" border="0"> </a>
<a href="http://www.inanimatealice.com/education"> <img src="http://www.inanimatealice.com/education/images/iteach_large.png" alt="iTeach Inanimate Alice" title="iTeach Inanimate Alice" border="0"> </a>
