CONTENTS
TOWARDS DIGITAL STORYTELLING FOR CHILDREN
THE EVOLUTION OF STORYTELLING FROM THE MIDDLE AGES
- Middle Ages - Oral Tradition
- 1400-1500's - Instruction
- 1600's - Enjoyable Learning
- 1700's - Introduction of Adventure
- 1800's - Storytelling that Delights
- 1900's - Too Much, Too Fast
- 1970's - Multimedia Mix
Links
Links will be provided for key words and ideas in the essay. They are marked with an asterisk in the text but can only be accessed from the link column.
Storytelling goes back as far as time allows us to remember. It encompasses many media. Each medium: oral tradition, print, radio, movies, television, has added to the orchestra of storytelling its own sound. Each is important in its own right and as it influences, is used by, and depends on, the others. Storytelling has taken time to develop within each new media that has appeared. We are fortunate to be at the forefront of its development within the digital environment which has become a very significant part of our culture.
We cannot envision the future without knowing and understanding something of the past. Impatient as we are, we expect a fully developed form on birth, much like Athena springing, full grown, from the forehead of Zeus. This does not happen. Our history shows us that change is inevitable, that as each new medium develops, it grows and evolves. And so it is with digital narrative. Changes will occur in the medium (digital technology) itself, in the form of the narrative, and in its content. Changes are, after all, a certainty in a culture whose mantra is "to go where no man has gone before."
Computers were originally textually based and much of the information they contain is still text based. Many technologies such as photography, video, and animation have quickly taken their places of importance along with text within the computer world. The duality of the medium is well expressed by Jay Bolter* in his 1996 article, "Degrees of Freedom." He says, "The computer as hypertext, as symbol manipulator, is a writing technology in the tradition of the papyrus roll, the codex, and the printed book. The computer as virtual reality, as graphics engine, as perceptual manipulator, belongs to and extends the tradition of television, film and photography, and even representational painting." Viewed as positive and beneficial rather than detrimental, this duality brings to mind exciting visions of the development of children's storytelling.
Digital narrative is still in its infancy and "there are many miles to go...." The development of printed books and of children's books in particular provides a historical backdrop against which we can view the changes occurring in digital narrative. In this paper I identify events in the development of book narrative to which events occurring in digital narrative have similarities. Events took 400 years to unfold to create what some consider to be the best in children's book narrative. Similar events are compressed greatly in the development of digital narrative because of today's rapidly changing world. But history teaches us lessons which we need to heed and which will help us make decisions about directions in development we may want to take.
We can be assured that the development of digital technologies will not stand still for us. There is continuous change, it affects us. The changes are being driven by computer scientists, by technicians, by software developers, by business. Where are the writers? Waiting for it to happen?
If we want to influence the growth of digital narrative we must guide the process by providing tools and encouragement to the developers of children's narrative, so that they may explore, learn and create new storytelling genres. And they must take the initiative and go down "the road less traveled". In this way we will provide wonderful stories for future developers, our children, to read, enjoy and eventually take forward into a new world themselves.
Definitions
Narrative: Though the term narrative usually only encompasses stories, for the purposes of this paper narrative or narration will be used as a general term to encompass not only storytelling but also instruction and information.
Hypertext: will mean computer text inclusive of links to other text, photography, graphics, audio and video.
Virtual reality: will mean a software environment in which people move within an imaginary setting.
