Seeking to transform what is possible in the real world via a fictional community and exercising collective civic imagination, we launched Elements of Networked Narratives or #NetNarr as an experiment in “digital alchemy” (http://netnarr.arganee.world).
Offered as a Spring 2017 Digital Storytelling course at Kean University, we invited colleagues on a global scale open participants. #NetNarr is an open collaboration delivered in emergent improv style, a laboratory mix of Mia’s Writing Electronic Literature course and DS106 -- where Connected Course-style participants write in their own digital spaces which are aggregated in a course hub.
Participants in #NetNarr inhabited personas, remixed digital media, and explored the role of multiple identities in networked spaces. It included “virtual field trips”, live video visits with international artists & scholars to explore the latest in digital storytelling, electronic literature, fan fiction, and #netprov. Taking a cue from the age of alchemy (often thought of as closeted pseudoscientists concocting formulas to make gold from common substances), #NetNarr sought narrative transformations while co-building a “mirrorworld” inspired by current conversations.
Our students gained experience with memes and GIFs, twitter bots, web/audio annotation, text/graphic ciphers, audio editing, creation of alt personas. A core group of open participants, despite often not having clear rules of engagement, persisted with us, and even independently created their own #Netnarr activities.
#NetNarr is an experiment in designing for narrative emergence and teaching itself as a narrative-based experience. As budding digital alchemists, we have not been constrained by what we do not know. We even have rogue characters who “hacked” our class.
In our presentation we will share a unique community as we consider the intersection of co-learning, networks, civic imagination, pedagogy, and digital writing/making. We will also reflect on the role that “co-imagineering” and ARG practices (alternative reality games) might play in addressing real world challenges. This was our pilot for a flexible approach to teaching, not on the web as content, but in the web as a space of its own. We hope our ideas inspire you to join us for a next iteration in 2018.
