Teaching with Transmedia

Abstract

The media environment is currently being dramatically changed by social networking, mobile computing, augmented reality, and transmedia. Of these four, transmedia is probably the least familiar to most educators. Transmedia enhances a central story idea with a variety of media components that provide additional information, give increased importance to minor characters in the main narrative, or even add new characters that were not in the original story. These techniques are already being widely used for movies, television, and advertising. They also offer significant advantages for education, although it will require some major adjustments in order for them to become accepted in higher education.