Designing With Transmedia: Watch This Space
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| Source: Stockphoto |
I used to fly back and forth to Salt Lake City, a lot. I stopped
counting after 26 trips. Statistically, it’s bound to happen on those
flights. And it did.
I sat next to Donny Osmond.
I didn’t bug him, talk with him, or ask for a photograph with him. Because I was focused on something else, something much more important to me. I was focused on a book.
To this day, the book sits within arm’s reach of my working space. What book is so important? The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning,
edited by Richard E. Mayer, 2009 edition. What held my attention so
strongly? The disciplined and codified research that says no matter how
fancy you make the learning method, the learning is the same.
How could this be? Bigger, better, faster, happier learning is my raison d’etre. What’s going on here?
I
started my doctoral program with one focused idea: that I believe in
the power of transmedia. The entire field of virtual reality is still in
the wild wild west stage, and here, anybody can do anything. Hence, I’m
calling it all transmedia. But I don’t mind what it is called*. I’m
just fascinated with what we can do virtually that fools the mind and
brain into thinking an experience actually happened.
The
Cambridge Handbook is 616 pages of deliciousness of what we do know
about learning and how it intersects with multiple forms of media. Said
another way, there are definitely ways of doing technology-enhanced
learning right and ways of doing it wrong. I’m looking at you,
PowerPoint slides that are clearly speaker notes. Grr. One of
the main thoughts that Mayer wants you to walk away with is that if try
to compete instructional approaches against each other, you’ll almost
always find:
- The newer approach will be preferred by the learner (novelty effect).
- Both approaches will score the same learning gains (yay neuroplasticity).
- It’s
almost impossible to design an apples-to-apples research study to
determine which approach is best. Why? Because different approaches work
best for different learners. Also because different approaches
are…well…different. Duh.
All that being said, instead of
saying goodbye to my love for transmedia and what it could do for
education, I’m all the more vigilant that it must be used only in those
situations where it fits best. By now some researchers summarized by
Bailenson (2018) are pointing the way to where transmedia is used best:
- Where the learner needs to collect and interact with information within a 360 sphere.
- Where all other attempts to satisfy a learning sphere would be impossible, dangerous, expensive, or damaging to the environment.
I’m
part of a research project right now that is writing about the future
of science and math education and I’m specializing on the impact of
cross-reality (XR). We’re more than 10 years into these technologies and
still it feels like the first days. If you are reading this, you are
part of the generation that will remember life before the ubiquity of
transmedia. We are part of the bridge generation, which means that we
see the benefits and detriments most clearly.
I’m thrilled that the entertainment industry
is really leading the way with figuring out the best uses for
transmedia. When they find out what works and what doesn’t, education
will follow and I’ll be part of that. Watch this space.
After all, if Donny Osmond couldn’t distract me, nothing will.
#Transmedia
#virtual reality #virtualworlds #crossreality #mixedreality
#augmentedreality #design #instructionaldesign #cambridgehandbook
#richardemayer #bailenson #sorrydonny
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*Oh the names for these! Partial list, because these are all slightly different.
- Virtual reality (VR)
- Augmented Reality (AR)
- Mixed reality (MR)
- Cross-reality (XR)
- Transreality
- Hyper Immersive Virtual Experience (HIVE)
- Multimediated Reality Continuum
- Collaborative Virtual Environment
- Immersive web
- WebXR
Bailenson,
J. (2018). Experience on Demand: What Virtual Reality Is, How It Works,
and What It Can Do. W. W. Norton & Company.
This post originally appeared on LinkedIn on June 27, 2019
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/designing-transmedia-watch-space-heather-dodds This post was updated on April 3, 2026 with a better font and removal of missing images.