I finished my first FutureLearn course;
Transmedia Storytelling
Stories are increasingly told across a variety of formats, such as books, comics, events, films, games and TV programs – a trend known as transmedia storytelling or multiplatform storytelling.
Taken from FutureLearn – Transmedia Storytelling – About the course
Transmedia Storytelling is a six week course focused on the way stories are told nowadays with all the different technologies we have at the tip of our hands. When I read the introduction to the course I wasn’t really sure what that meant. When I started the course and the information they gave beforehand didn’t really clear it up either. I wasn’t familiar with the term ‘transmedia storytelling‘. Even if I could somewhat imagine what it meant, mostly thanks to the term ‘multi-platform storytelling‘ as used in the explanation above gives a better idea of what it actually means. When you hear multi-platform you probably immediately think books, movies, games (for different platforms – telephones, tablets, computers and consoles). But transmedia doesn’t make that as clear as it probably should – at least not to me.
The reason why I choose this course was because it sounded like an interesting topic when I came across it. I’m a graphic designer and a multimedia designer and I have a love for telling stories, this course was definitively one I couldn’t pass over.
The reason why I choose this course
It really was interesting an interesting topic. The biggest difference with my other course is that this one is a whole lot less interactive than the ‘Start Writing Fiction‘ (SWF) course. Where you are required to follow certain assignments to get ahead in the course In this one however little is asked of you, there are no real assignments, however you are asked to participate in the comments but most comments are really short and the interaction is minimal.
At SWF you are asked to write stories, build a character and more. So in that regard this course is a lot less intense, therefor it also takes less time to work through the course. Nevertheless it’s interesting it taught me some new things that I was not aware of before. It made me look differently at the things I’m reading and watching at the moment or in the past. Especially nowadays with so many different ways of telling a story – whether it’s in an actual book or in a movie, television show, videogame or mobile app – more people should be aware of the term ‘Transmedia storytelling’. Especially because in this day and age we are all using it even if we are unaware.
Hence I’ve learned a lot, I can’t deny that. However I’m not sure if this is something I will use in the future though the topic is very interesting.
One last thought
When the course came to an end I received an email telling me that this was this team’s first experience with a massive online course and they wanted us to fill out a form to tell them about our experiences during the course. In all honesty that didn’t surprise me all that much – not that this course wasn’t good or hard to follow or anything. It just had a different feel to it, somewhat like they were searching to find a way to convey the information to the participants. Another thing that made it at times hard to follow was the fact that the videos in the course were not in English, of course there was an English translation but at time sit was really hard to follow.
All in all it was an interesting course and if storytelling is something you like to know more about this might be an interesting course. Even though it doesn’t really help you in actually telling the story.
Nanoright 