Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TRANSLITERACY (Exploiting transmedia skills and informal learning strategies to improve formal education)

Teaser

The technological transformations experienced in recent decades have promoted changes in the way in which people are taught, informed and entertained. In the last 25 years the digital technologies have changed the way subjects behave, think, interact and socialize as persons...

Summary

The technological transformations experienced in recent decades have promoted changes in the way in which people are taught, informed and entertained. In the last 25 years the digital technologies have changed the way subjects behave, think, interact and socialize as persons, citizens, workers and consumers. The knowledge economy is a new socio-economic order in which new technologies are the drivers of knowledge production and application. For the new generation this is the ‘natural’ environment of their life. However, it is not easy for traditional institutions –like the schools as well as other formal education institutions– to manage the transition to this new social and cultural environment. The TRANSLITERACY project has the aim to bring these two worlds through the production of a Teacher\'s Kit for teachers and professors to facilitate the introduction of new teaching strategies and activities into the educational institutions.

The TRANSLITERACY project is important for the society because it has a direct impact on formal education. The project will go beyond the scientific outputs (papers, conferences, books) and will offer teachers and professors a set of strategies, activities and examples to be applied inside the classroom (Teacher\'s Kit). Therefore, it is a project that seeks to have a direct impact on society. The debate about the need for changes in formal education system is not new. Numerous studies warn us about the need to promote new educational dynamics in line with technological changes but, in fact, there are few initiatives that actually promote concrete actions. This project aims to go beyond speeches and provide real tools for promoting educational change. In fact, the outputs of the research could be also exploited in future policy and regulatory agendas (i.e. in the definition of school curriculums or national/regional education objectives).

The overall objective of the project is to understand how the young boys and girls are learning transmedia skills outside the school. The construction of those cultural competencies and social skills is at the centre of the research. Once identified the informal learning strategies and practices applied by young people outside the formal institutions the team will ‘translate’ them into a series of activities and proposals to be implemented inside the schools. The project will produce a Teacher’s Kit so facilitate the renovation of pedagogic practices in the school.
The general objectives and specific objectives of the project are the following:
ï‚·- To better understand and analyse how teens from nine different countries (now 8, see periodic technical report) develop and share their transmedia skills in informal learning settings
ï‚·- To identify the transmedia skills and informal learning strategies developed by teens in transmedia practices.
- ï‚· To identify the problem-solving strategies developed by teens in video gaming (video game literacy)
- ï‚· To identify the practices of content creation, production and sharing strategies developed by teens in fan fiction (Participatory culture literacy).
- ï‚· To identify the dynamics of content creation, production and sharing strategies developed by and teens in social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) (Web / social networks literacy).
-  To create a map of transmedia skills, protocols and strategies – found on the real processes implemented by teens - that can be applied into the formal education institutions
- To generate an open, adaptable and customizable Teacher’s Kit based on the outputs of the research with recommendations, learning strategies and activities to be developed with students inside the formal education system.

Work performed

Beyond the administrative issues related to the introduction of changes in the Consortium structure and Amendment, the research followed the sequence of activities originally planned. The Deliverables and the Ethic protocol were uploaded to the Portal according to the schedule. The tasks performed during the first 18 months are listed below:
- Website: Creation and managing of the website (www.transmedialiteracy.org).
- Reorganization of the Consortium.
- Ethical protocol: The Coordination Team worked on the Ethical protocols regarding the research activity with teenagers.
- Methodological protocol (I): The Coordination Team worked in the methodological design, on the testing of the methodology in Barcelona and on the production of the first part of the methodological protocol. The team also produced the fieldwork protocols that the partners should apply.
- NVivo platform: Acquisition of NVivo licenses for the data processing and creation and organization of databases in NVivo.
- Fieldwork: The Consortium have been carrying out Fieldwork.
- Methodological protocol (II): The Coordination Team worked on the second part of the methodological protocol (Data Processing).
- Data Processing: The partners have started processing all the data through NVivo software. This phase should finish around March 2017.

Final results

The TRANSLITERACY Project will contribute to the understanding of the informal learning processes and transmedia practices outside the school by teens. The impact of the Project will go beyond the scientific outputs (papers, conferences, white papers, books) and will offer teachers and professors a set of strategies, activities and examples to by applied inside the classroom (Teacher’s Kit). The expected impacts of the Project are:

-ï‚· To increase understanding of youth culture in different social and cultural contexts.
-ï‚· To increase understanding of collaborative cultures, user-generated contents, and transmedia practices.
-ï‚· To reduce the gap and create tighter links between the educational institutions and the real life of young people.
-ï‚· To innovate the teaching-learning strategies inside the school.
-ï‚· To define and diffuse new pedagogies based on the transmedia skills developed by teens outside the school.

The TRANSLITERACY Project will produce a series of outputs, from traditional scientific texts to interactive online applications –online platform to distribute the Teacher’s Kit-. The outputs of the research will be useful not just for scientific scopes: the identification of transmedia skills and informal learning practices –and the relative educational proposals included in the Teacher’s Kit- could be exploited in future policy and regulatory agendas (i.e. in the definition of school curriculums or national/regional education objectives).

Website & more info

More info: http://transmedialiteracy.org/.