{"id":12342,"date":"2017-06-05T14:35:45","date_gmt":"2017-06-05T21:35:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/?p=12342"},"modified":"2018-04-02T10:30:14","modified_gmt":"2018-04-02T17:30:14","slug":"visiting-digital-storytellers-with-the-alchemists-at-networked-narratives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/visiting-digital-storytellers-with-the-alchemists-at-networked-narratives\/","title":{"rendered":"Visiting Digital Storytellers with the Alchemists at Networked Narratives"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Networked Narratives team talks with scholars and practitioners thinking about new ways to collaboratively tell and share stories using digital tools.<\/em><\/p>\n

What is Networked Narratives, also known as NetNarr? This is a tricky question to answer for several reasons. First, NetNarr is many things: it is a hashtag, a course, a community, and an experiment in digital alchemy. Second, NetNarr is a process of worldbuilding, and the participants have in fact built a world with its own histories and mysteries, meaning that newcomers to the website<\/a> may feel rather lost. Finally, and most importantly, its definition is intentionally vague: NetNarr is an ever-shifting, collaborative process of creation, to get overzealous about defining it would be to constrain and confine it. There are, however, some things about its structure that we can say for sure.<\/p>\n

The NetNarr website defines Networked Narratives as \u201can open connected course of digital storytelling, world building, civic imagination, and a bit of digital alchemy.\u201d It is, in part, a course at Kean University, taught by Kean University Writing Project director Mia Zamora, examining storytelling in the 21st century, harnessing the power of digital tools and collaborative networks. To that end the course is also open to anyone on the internet, taking a page from DS106<\/a>, a longtime open storytelling course\/community run by Alan Levine (aka cogdog<\/a>), who is also involved in teaching NetNarr. Students and participants created their shared world through weekly blog posts, as well as more frequent creations shared through Twitter, known as Daily Digital Alchemies. <\/p>\n

Alchemy: The \u201cNorth Star\u201d of NetNarr<\/h4>\n

The guiding spirit infused throughout the NetNarr experience is that of alchemy, of \u201ctinkering and experimenting, sometimes being outside the mainstream,…the idea of turning something not so precious into something that is deeply precious,…the idea of breathing life into something that\u2019s inanimate,\u201d says Zamora. This playful, curious, outsider spirit drives a culture of peer learning and \u201cwhimsical sharing,\u201d that creates the co-learning and meaningful interaction that NetNarr is all about.<\/p>\n

For more information about the structure and spirit of NetNarr, check out our interview with its creators<\/a>, Mia Zamora and Alan Levine, as well as Geoffrey Gevalt of the Young Writers Project and several participating students from Kean University.<\/p>\n

Studio Visits<\/h4>\n

As part of the course, NetNarr produced a series of \u201cStudio Visits\u201d, co-streamed<\/a> here at Educator Innovator, talking with researchers and practitioners whose work intersects with NetNarr\u2019s focus on digital storytelling, digital writing, and transformative, collaborative learning. <\/p>\n

Leonardo Flores on Literature in the Digital Age<\/a><\/h5>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an experimental practice at this point, it hasn\u2019t become naturalized. But as it does, it starts to change mindsets, it starts to change how we even conceptualize the work.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n