Campfires in Cyberspace

In the given article, “Campfires in Cyberspace: Primordial Metaphors for Learning in the 21st Century” David D. Thornburg Ph.D,states that we have been telling stories like they were told in Aristotelian world (p. 7), each having a beginning, middle, conflicts, climax and finally, resolutions. The listeners are passive, they don’t have an opportunity to choose their own climax or change the story as per their interest Thornburg argues that modern technology is powerful & flexible, and allows us to tell the same story but may be in a different way. And, ironically, this dimension of interactivity hasn’t been much explored and experimented by educators and software developers.

He further reveals that interactivity is not just allowing the user to choose ‘the pace at which a linear story unfolds’. It is much more than that, where learners can have a totally new version of the existing story.

I remember, a few years back, I was telling the story of ‘ The Pied Piper of Hamelin’ to my grade 5 students. One girl suddenly interrupted, “No, he didn’t take the kids away. He played his pipe and took all the moms to a dark cave.” I asked all the students one by one; whom they think was taken away by the Pied Piper. That was a wonderful experience. They had their own world coming out of their heads.

I found : http://www.learner.org/interactives/story/index.html. This allows little interactivity but yet not a perfect piece of “ interactive”storytelling software, as described by Thornburg.

In order to enhance the learners’ creativity and capability to think out of the box, we have to have some multimedia tools which provide an opportunity to mold the stories according to their own perspective, experience and background.

I really liked the idea of having a gadget which may be a combination of something such as the Amazon Kindle and the Nintendo DS. Yes, it is absolutely going to be very effective in learning. But, I feel that if children totally rely on electronic gadgets, especially during the early years of their life, I really suspect about the development of their fine motor skills. My son tries to touch the screen of my laptop to play the next nursery rhythm on youtube. When it doesn’t work he gets frustrated and bangs the keyboard. He finds it very comfortable to use the iPhone and the iPad, just a finger touch and the work is done! As I mentioned in one of my previous of post regarding the use of most modern gadgets like the Leapfrog’s leapPad, innoTab and other similar kids’learning touch pads, which enables kids to do everything just with touch. Just touch and the flowers are colored in red, another color select, and the sun is yellow.

I am not against any modern gizmo(I can’t imagine my life without any of those!), but I think that educators and parents should give children a balanced environment of modern vs. traditional, especially during initial years. Dr. Slywester, also says,”An immature brain must practice key human skills to reach the mastery level required in a society that uses technological substitutes to override brain limitations. Thus, juveniles who hope to drive a car at 16 had better get on a tricycle at 3, and do thousands of hours of lead-up practice on bikes and skateboards and other wheeled objects, before their parents will give them a set of keys to the potentially lethal weapon we call a car.” (The Brain, Technology, and Education: An Interview with Robert Sylwester").

For example, the story of ‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin’ can be narrated by the parents or educators initially and then, it can be reinforced by nice interactive software.

Do you remember the ‘rabbit and the turtle’ short story with the moral slow and steady wins the race?

Here is an interesting version of that: Http://bangalore.karnatakaeducation.org.in/sites/default/files/tcol/Energizer-Rabbit-TurtleStory.pdf