Case Studies

Animals in the Great War eBook – a Sustainable Funding Case Study

February 28, 2021 by Erica Hargreave Leave a Comment

In March of 2019 we were fortunate enough to interview Maria Grazia Suriano, the researcher and writer of the eBook ‘Animals in the Great War’ for our Sustainable Funding Series for Media, Educators, Technologists, and Creators. Animals in the Great War is an open educational eBook designed to investigate the World War I and study its history from the standpoint of the animals that took part in it. In addition to the eBook, due to both necessity in crowdfunding this project and in observing what students responded, a number of digital photo and video storytelling pieces have been developed to compliment the eBook and engage students in this history in a manner that mirrors their storytelling preferences and that they respond with interest to. The target audience for the Animals in the Great War eBook are educators, history teachers, and students of history (high school aged and older). Below, we share that interview with insights into the Sustainable Funding Model that Maria and her team at Associazione Culturale Se utilized in funding the Animals in the Great War eBook, what Maria learned about crowdfunding, and how she will apply what she’s learned to future projects. Maria and I also discuss digital storytelling, teaching empathy, othering, breaking down borders, open education, and the Animals in the Great War eBook itself. Some of what we discuss here, Maria and her team at Associazione Culturale Se have gone on to apply to other projects, including her eBook ‘Percorrere la nonviolenza‘.

I’d like to be part of this different economy, this social economy. …. This is important. I don’t know how this could work in this all very capitalist world, but maybe this social economy could save us.
_{~ Maria Grazia Suriano, Writer of Animals in the Great War}

Creators: Maria Grazia Suriano and Associazione Culturale Se

Country: Italy

Interview Date: March 28, 2019

Link to the Project: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323612634_Animals_in_the_Great_War

Funding Method: Crowdfunding, Matching Funds Grant, Blood-Sweat-&-Tears

Interview with Animals in the Great War eBook Writer Maria Grazia Suriano

The Project : Animals in the Great War eBook

Animals in the Great War is a free eBook designed to explore the history of the Great War (World War I) through the stories of the animals from many different countries that partook in World War I – challenging the concept of borders, exploring othering, and instilling empathy.

This project, aimed at secondary school students and teachers, is designed to get young adults interested in learning about the history of the Great War (World War I) through the stories of animals. Stories like those of the pigeons in espionage, that cannot help but intrigue.

By learning about the war through the stories and perspectives of animals, it is hoped that it will encourage students to think critically about history, the construct of borders and othering, as well as instil empathy.

In the research, crowdfunding, and speaking on this project, it was recognized that it was not only the stories of animals in the war that were engaging students in this history education project, but the photo and video storytelling pieces shared in talks on and in the crowdfunding campaign. As such, stories within the eBook have been modified into smaller, more easily accessible storytelling pieces and shared via the Associazione Culturale Se’s blog:

Case Studies from Animals in the Great War

The Creators : Storytellers behind the Animals in the Great War eBook

The eBook ‘Animals in the Great War’ was researched and written by Maria Grazia Suriano, the co-founder of Associazione Culturale Se. Her colleague at Associazione Culturale Se helped with sourcing the images in the book and editing the book. A translator also worked with them to translate the book into English from Italian.

Maria Grazia Suriano is an independent historian, specialized on European history with a focus on identities, cultures, borders and ways to cross them.

In 2016 Maria cofounded Associazione Culturale Se, a non-profit organization with the aim of spreading inclusive knowledge and enhancing the subordinate subjectivities often excluded from institutional narratives. The Associazione Culturale Se’s focus with this is on promoting history education from the twentieth century, revolving around themes of desire, empathy, possibilities, responsibility, affectivity, differences, diversity, and solidarity. In doing this they offer courses and workshops in history education, and create educational history resources for use in the classroom, like the eBook Animals in the Great War and the accompanying Case Studies on their website. The organization’s funding plan is based on public financing, but as this is scarce the organization offsets its financing by offering editorial services, and Maria offsets her income as a copyeditor, yoga teacher, and translator.

Road to Funding Sustainably

As mentioned above, the Associazione Culturale Se in the past has looked to public funding to finance their projects. In the case of the Animals in the Great War eBook, however, they embarked on a new funding journey by entering their eBook into a funding competition with the Europeana Foundation. The competition, Strike a Match for Education was a Matching Fund, designed to encourage co-investment between public and private institutions and the crowd. In this case, for each 1 EUR donated by the crowd, Europeana contributed 1 EUR up to a maximum of 100 EUR per donation and no more than 3,500 EUR per project, once the campaign achieved its minimum crowdfunding goals. To apply, the project had to be digital, use Europeana openly licensed content as a central element and be relevant to a secondary education audience (students 11-18 years and teachers). Europeana was also looking for scalable and present ideas that would work across multiple countries and/or languages.

Three projects, including the Animals in the Great War eBook were approved for matching funds, and then entered into a crowdfunding campaign to raise the public portion of the funding on Goteo.

What is Goteo?

Goteo is a crowdfunding platform based in Spain which focuses on projects that generate a collective return through promoting the commons, open source code and / or free knowledge, creating as they call it, a social economy. They’ve coined themselves as the open source crowdfunding platform.

Some of the distinctive features of Goteo are:

its requirements of openness for the projects, which need to contribute to free culture or the commons in some manner;
enabling participants to contribute as volunteers for the projects, in addition to with money;
it is run solely by a non-profit foundation, the Spanish Goteo Foundation, enabling tax deductions for donations;
its code is free/open source and it has an open API; and
it enables other sources of income for projects by partnering with public and private institutions to run match funding competition and allowing successful projects to carry out a second campaign round to raise more funds.

Lessons in Crowdfunding

For Maria and her team at the Associazione Culturale Se this was their first crowdfunding experience, and they realized they were wholly unprepared for it.

It’s naive to approach crowdfunding without a network and digital strategist / strategy. You need to be prepared. A good idea is important, but it’s not enough to be successful in this social economy.
_{~ Maria Grazia Suriano, Writer of Animals in the Great War}

With hard work and creativity, the Associazione Culturale Se were able to meet their minimum goal of 3,000 Euros with the matching funds from Europeana, which covered the cost of the eBook being translated into English from Italian. To help in reaching this goal, they utilized creative commons photographs from World War I and created video shorts with those images on the service of various animals in the war.

Maria and her team learned a lot about crowdfunding in the process, including:

that their project needed someone with experience in digital strategy, storytelling, and crowdfunding;
that (at the time of their campaign at least) crowdfunding is better suited to an international project and team, as the concept of crowdfunding was all very new to the Italian public; and
you need to be prepared and have a plan, as a good idea is not enough.

This also broadened their horizons on the potential of digital storytelling in education, in recognizing how their youth audience was drawn to the photo and video storytelling pieces they created as a part of the crowdfunding campaign. These digital storytelling pieces drew the young people into wanting to discover more about history, and ultimately got them questioning borders and thinking empathetically about those impacted by war.

Other Funding Streams

The Associazione Culturale Se had hoped to gain the support of an animal organization in the campaign, but unfortunately were not able to garner this. Maria suspects this was because they were too small as they had not begun to build an audience before the start of the campaign.

Future Building

While not as successful with funding the Animals in the Great War as they would have liked, Maria and the Associazione Culturale Se did learn a lot, and found that the idea of becoming a part of a social economy really resonated with their sensibilities. This is something they wish to explore more on future projects and even crowdfund again. Just next time they will be better prepared by approaching crowdfunding with an international project, with an international partner, a plan in place, and someone with digital strategy, storytelling, and crowdfunding experience to take the lead on that aspect of the project. They also learned that a book is not enough, and want to delve into other mediums and forms of storytelling to engage the students in history.

As they further grow a social economy around their project, they’d love to see companies with similar values to theirs be a part of making their work sustainable through sponsorship.

Culture Has to be Free

One of the fundamental believes of Maria’s and the Associazione Culturale Se’s is that culture needs to be free to make information accessible. One of biggest problems that teachers face is that they don’t have the money to buy the resources that they need. This problem does not solely sit with educators though, but also with learners. Many people don’t have the possibility to continue with their formal education after public schooling, making it important that they have something to think on, something different than a school book.

It’s important. Culture has to be free … at all levels, because many people have no possibility to continue after school. It’s important that they have something to think on … something different than a school book.
_{~ Maria Grazia Suriano, Writer of Animals in the Great War}

Have a question for Maria? Ask it in the comments below, and we shall see if we can get you an answer.

A enormous thank you to BCIT for sponsoring this case study, to Grant for the Web for funding the broader Sustainable Funding Series,to the AMTEC Trust Award and CNIE for funding my professional development work around this work, and to David Porter for acting as an advisor to me in this work.

Elementari – a Sustainable Funding Case Study

January 25, 2021 by Erica Hargreave Leave a Comment

In March of 2019 we were fortunate enough to interview Nicole Kang, one of the founders of Elementari for our Sustainable Funding Series for Media, Educators, Technologists, and Creators. Elementari is a platform for creating interactive stories, targeted to schools, teachers, and kids. Below, we share that interview, insights into the Sustainable Funding Model that Elementari is building towards, as well as other conversations that Nicole and I had around diversity and inclusion in storytelling, open education, marketing, and Elementari itself. This was just the beginning of a journey that myself and our team at StoryToGo are taking with Elementari and Nicole Kang, as we have begun to use Elementari ourselves, creating our own interactive stories, and have taught kids and adults alike how to bring their stories to life with Elementari.

Elementari has a huge component that is based around computational thinking and trying to introduce coding concepts in a way that is not code to students who might not want to learn how to code.
_{~ Nicole Kang, Cofounder of Elementari}

Creators: Nicole Kang & David Li

Country: France

Interview Date: March 24th, 2019

Link to the Project: https://www.elementari.io/

Funding Method: Blood-Sweat-&-Tears, Freemium Model, Workshops & Speaking Engagements

Interview with Elementari’s Nicole Kang

The Project : What Is Elementari?

Elementari is an online platform for building interactive stories, designed based on a culture of remixing. Users are able to add their own imagery and sound, but the platform is ultimately designed to remix the professional illustrations and sounds of artists. These artists are automatically credited when an Elementari user publishes a story using the artist’s work.

While Elementari can be used by adults, and holds a lot of potential for creators such as ourselves, the platform was ultimately designed for Kindergarten to Grade 12 schools, teachers, and youth, as a tool to facilitate reading, writing, coding, game design, and building an understanding of crediting artists and of remix culture. In the interview teaser below (starting at time marker 01:59), Nicole talks about her sensibilities behind Elementari …

The Creators : Who Are Behind Elementari?

Elementari was co-founded by Nicole Kang and David Li.

Nicole Kang is a bit of a world traveller, born in the US and now living in France. She studied Management Science at MIT, but most of her work experience has been in education, particularly around scientific inquiry and STEM. Included in this was working in the Educational Arcade at MIT. Nicole’s interest education took her to Taiwan to pursue a Masters, where she ran into issues in conducting experiments in scientific inquiry, as she doesn’t write in Chinese. This created a shift to ESL and ultimately to developing the concept for Elementari, sparked on by a course in digital ebooks. Nicole recognized the need for Elementari in the course as they were using InDesign which at that time she found unnecessarily complicated, frustrating, and impossible to share. All things that Nicole believes are counterintuitive to what education should. Rather she believes education should be open to everyone, allowing everyone to be able to learn, catalyzing her to leave her Masters to begin to build Elementari. In building Elementari, Nicole primarily focuses on the packaging, the marketing and the backend website development.

Meanwhile, David Li has focused on building the authoring tool. David’s background before starting Elementari with Nicole was in engineering, management, and linguistics.

I believe education should be open to everyone, allowing everyone to be able to learn.
_{~ Nicole Kang, Cofounder of Elementari}

Road to Funding Sustainably

Early Days, Solving the Initial Challenges

Two of Nicole and David’s early realizations in developing Elementari and a sustainable funding model behind it were:

that they needed to have something built to show, in order to attract funding to the project; and
that they needed assets in the forms of illustrations and sounds for Elementari users to build their stories with.

After some initial unsuccessful pitching of Elementari in Taiwan and France, Nicole and David realized from comments like, “What’s the point of creating stories? Who reads stories? Who wants to write stories?” and “If you only need $100,000, then since you went to MIT, why don’t you just ask your friends and family to pitch in and pay for it?”, that they were going to need to build and demonstrate what Elementari was capable of, before continuing to invest their time in marketing the platforms to potential funders. Despite never having undertaken a digital development prior to Elementari, David and Nicole were determined that they could solve the first problem by teaching themselves and building Elementari on their own to present to potential investors. Impressively, they have done just that.

Not being artists, the need for assets needed a different approach to solve. For this, they recognized that many illustrators were sharing their assets on social media for likes, but that was the limit to the engagement they were creating around their illustrations. So they decided to invite artists to share their images on Elementari for users to build stories with. This enabled the artist to build upon their portfolio for marketing purposes, by giving them stats as to how Elementari’s user base are utilizing their images, and which images are the most popular. This has worked for them, attracting in artists like Len Smith, who illustrated Toontown in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Richard Walsh, who illustrated the Math Blaster Reading Series. Surprisingly Elementari’s team discovered that it wasn’t the young art students who were interesting in contributing images, but rather the older professional artists. They think this is because the professional artists like the idea of kids being able to use their artwork to create stories, they enjoy this different avenue to promote themselves, and as they see the future potential in profit sharing with the platform.

Funding Structure for Elementari Users

Currently Elementari is free for everyone to use to create stories with a limited library of images and sounds. A paid Premium version of Elementari gives users access to the entire library of images and sounds.

Similarly there is a free teacher tier for educators that allows for one class of up to 35 students, and then Premium versions for more capabilities, unlimited classes, more students, and for schools and school districts. You can see an example of Elementari’s plans for January 2021 below.

It is the Premium Educational Plans that the Elementari team sees as their sustainable funding model for the future.

We don’t want to put a barrier in the way for anyone to create. We want the disadvantaged kids to still be able to make their dino stories into reality. That’s one of our main goals.
_{~ Nicole Kang, Elementari Co-Founder}

All the educational support materials that are being built to teach lessons with Elementari are public, and teachers are encouraged to adapt and remix to suit their individual classroom needs. Those can be found by clicking here.

Other Funding Streams

Other ways that Nicole and David are helping to fund the early days of Elementari, include:

writing workshops, and
pitching the Premium Model.

As part of pitching the Premium Model, they have been taking on educational partners to run case studies and develop curriculum. During the case study and curriculum development, the partner gets free use of Elementari, and then after the case study and curriculum development, the partner has the option to sign up for Elementari at a reduced rate provided they wish to continue using Elementari.

Future Building

In the future, some of Elementari’s goals include:

profit sharing with their artists (aiming for up to 70%),
working with the schools to create examples of what a good classroom library would look like to help convince the school gatekeepers that Elementari is a good investment for their school,
the option of non-remixable stories for sensitive content and for professional writers,
ability for readers to choose their own characters for a story.

Ultimately, creating a bottom up, product creation approach to marketing is what Nicole believes will work for Elementari. Basically working with educators and kids to demonstrate what is possible, in order to get Principles, School Districts, and Parents to buy in. It is with that in mind that Elementari has approached the COVID-19 pandemic, giving teachers and parents access to a free classroom account on a trial basis, offering a free virtual coding club, hosting free webinars for educators, and offering virtual field trips for Hour of Code.

Other strategies that help to market Elementari are:

that the stories are embeddable on other sites, and
an Elementari Ambassador Program with percentage sharing on sales.

Final Thoughts on Being an EdTech Entrepreneur

Some final reflections and advice from Nicole on being an EdTech Entrepreneur …

Have a question for Nicole? Ask it in the comments below, and we shall see if we can get you an answer.

OE Global 2020 : A Case for Virtual and Open Conferences to Bring People Together to Share Ideas

November 23, 2020 by Erica Hargreave Leave a Comment

#OEGlobal20 - a virtual and open conference

I had the great pleasure last week to participate in the OE Global 2020 Conference virtually from my home in Richmond, BC, Canada. While I have attended other virtual events and conferences throughout the year, this one was a bit different, and more engaging and exciting for me for a number of reasons:

Firstly as I had been invited to speak at OE Global 2019 in Milan, but had not been able to afford to attend, it was wonderful that a virtually hosted conference made that possible.
Secondly as I had met a number of the delegates for the first time at another conference in 2019, and I was looking forward to ‘seeing’ them again.
Finally, as the conference was designed in such away to accommodate people from around the world, and as Alan Levine had created an online community for delegates to connect before, during, and after the conference.

All the hard work and strategy that the team from Taipei Medical University, OE Global, eCampus Ontario, and TU Delft put into organizing the conference paid off. Just look at the stats below.

The conference statistics from the OE Global 2020 Conference.

It seems I was not alone in the question of affordability and accessibility opening up the conference. “75% of the people were first time attendees. Doing this conference in an online fashion enabled a lot more people to participate, who perhaps wouldn’t have been able to if we’ve done it in-person.” ~ Paul Stacey of Open Education Global

One of the exciting things moving forward, post the conference is that OE Global has made all of the recorded talks open and accessible on YouTube, and will be opening up OEG Connect for others to join in the discussion and begin working together on open educational initiatives.

As you begin exploring OE Global 2020, below are the talks and workshop that I gave with others here on StoryToGo, including Lori Jones, Danielle Dubien, Lori Yearwood, and Kevin Ribble:

Drawing Eyes and Building Awareness Around OERs

StoryToGo : Building Global Connections, Opportunities and Sustainability in the Middle of a Pandemic

Are You Asking? Accessibility of Open Educational Resources in Online Learning

These are all projects and initiatives that we’d love to invite others to participate in. Join in the conversation, brainstorming, and planning on OEG Connect:

Hope to see you in the mix on OEG Connect!

80 Days, the Digital Game – a Case Study

September 4, 2020 by Erica Hargreave Leave a Comment

Recently as a part of my studies in Digital Games, Learning, and Pedagogy (ETEC 565S) for my Master of Educational Technology, I was tasked with analyzing a digital game of my choosing by creating a series of game logs reflecting on my experiences with the game. The game I chose to analyze and create a case study around was 80 Days.

You will find a link to each of the game logs I created in my analysis of this game below.

Game Logs from my Analysis of 80 Days

Game Log 1 : First Impressions Before Gameplay

Game Log 2 : First Playthrough

Game Log 3 : Watching Gameplay

80 Days, the Video Game

To briefly introduce 80 Days, it is a digital game released by Inkle and written by Meg Jayanth, based on the Jules Verne novel Around the World in 80 Days.

First Impression and Trepidations with 80 Days

When I first picked 80 Days for my digital game analysis, I did so with the hope that it would be a little like Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, a favourite digital game from my youth. I wanted a game filled with adventure, mystery, and intrigue. Also, given the current pandemic, I’ve been missing travel, so my hope was that 80 Days would provide me with that and give me the opportunity to learn about the history and culture of different areas around the globe.

I had two trepidations in delving into this game.

The Goal of Attempting to Get Around the World in 80 Days – as I am a slow traveller, who likes to take the time to explore the places I visit, that is what I thought I would wish to do in each city visited in the game. While some travellers are missing the transport of travel in the present pandemic, and modes of transit are certain to be an important aspect to 80 Days, as they were in Jules Verne’s novel, for me it is the place and people that I am missing.
The Presentation / Perception of Women and Different Cultures Around the World – this game was after all based on Jules Verne’s novel Around the World in 80 Days, an adventure undertaken by two European men in 1872 at a time when the British Empire saw themselves as the white saviours and women were portrayed as the weaker gender, who were in need of men to look after them.

I discuss these trepidations in my initial game log and my glimmer of hope that possibly the female writer of the game, Meg Jayanth, who while British, was born in India, had found a way to craft a more worldly perspective on a story of two European gentlemen that was set in 1872, rather than disinterest or as Ian Bogart frames it in How to Do Things with Videogames, a disconnect between violence, sexism, racism, classism, and empathy. I just wasn’t quite sure how she was going to do that and maintain historical accuracy. These are all things I discuss in this video on my first impressions of the game.

First Playthrough of 80 Days

How wrong I was in my initial assumptions! While I did get a game filled with adventure, mystery, and intrigue with 80 Days, I got those things in a very different way from what I was expecting.

You see what 80 Days is an interaction fiction game, like a choose your adventure novel, only with multitudes more choices of directions to take in the game that lead to different plots and narratives. I have to admit that a few weeks ago, I did not understand how a choose your own adventure story could be a game. After playing 80 Days, my perspective on this has changed, as this is most certainly a game (and a story, at the same time). The choices you make at the markets on goods to purchase or sell, routes to take, conversations to have, responses to those conversations, all have an impact on the narrative, plots presented, and upon Fogg’s health within the game. There is strategy in the decisions made, and repercussions to the decisions chosen. And ultimately, the unpredictability of those repercussions and the surprising narratives that ensued are what kept me reading and playing.

In playing, my trepidations disappeared, I discovered I enjoyed the race and was not as prone to dilly dally as I thought I might be. I found that the anticipation of a journey, the sound of a steam whistle, and the chug of an engine all left me with a feeling of anticipation and of nostalgia. By blending the story of Around the World in 80 Days with a reimagined steampunk 1872, it gave writer Meg Jayanth the artistic license to craft a new storyworld with an imagined political climate, new characters, and different gender roles and jobs. While this meant that we interacted with many more women in 80 Days the digital game, then Phileas Fogg and Passepartout did in Jules Verne’s novel, this is not to say that the 80 Days video game avoided real issues around politics, sexism, racism, religious intolerance, classism … etc. Quite the opposite, 80 Days addressed these cleverly throughout the stories of the everyday interactions in travel. I know that I myself, playing the role of Passepartout, have already inadvertently made a woman feel unsafe, and learned that she has in some way been assaulted in the past; have helped a woman captain give birth to her new child, so as not to need to present herself to her crew in a vulnerable state; have been rendered unconscious by a nun, in an attempt to gain my aid in political plots at play; had a bomb explode in my soup, after taking a bit of culinary advice; and been pickpocketed by a little girl in a wheelchair that I thought I was enjoying an innocent exchange with. Needless to say, this is a whole new world from Around the World in 80 Days.

In the debate as Bogart puts it in How to Do Things with Videogames, is this a game or art? It is both a game and art, just as it is both a game and a story.

In discovering this, I decided to try my hand at creating my own playthrough broadcast, which is not as easy as it might seem, and involves both strategic decision making and storytelling. Gametubers is a niche that I have watched curiously for years, as a digital video creator and having been invited into a number of discord gamer communities, as a result of sharing my videos on Vidme. While I understood from conversations in the discords that there was the potential for generating revenue through gameplay videos, I did not find gameplay videos particularly engaging and had no idea the revenues could be as lucrative as T.L. Taylor cites in her book, Watch Me Play: Twitch and the Rise of Game Live Streaming. This however seemed like a good opportunity to experiment in the niche of gameplay videos, so you can see my first take on such a video below:

Which leads me to …

Watching a bit of 80 Days Gameplay

While being somewhat skeptical of this form of entertainment previously, I have to say, 80 Days and Paragon Plays have converted me. In watching Paragon Plays’ Mutiny Aboard the Waterlily | 80 Days [Interactive Novel Gameplay], you will discover from the video below that I become somewhat of a Gameplay Video Convert. When done well, as is the case of Paragon Plays, this is an art form and a story genre, as pointed out by T.L. Taylor in Watch Me Play: Twitch and the Rise of Game Live Streaming. Having said that – something that is also touched on in Watch Me Play, there is a lot more work that goes into being a financially successful gametuber / streamer than crafting entertaining videos. Gavin of Paragon Plays created wonderfully entertaining videos, yet he never really gained the audience needed to financially benefit from this story niche, which may be why his channel now lies dormant.

Aside from my admiration for Gavin from Paragon Plays’ narration, strategic storytelling in editing his video from both past gameplay and present additions that include backstory to the game, gameplay tips, and story insights from Jules Verne’s Around the Word in 80 Days, I learned a number of things from watching Gavin play that were not expressively told to me. From watching, I observed the benefit in gameplay and broadcast in making quick decisions, I realized that the gameplay and story snippets were richer with familiarity to Jules Verne’s novel, and I gathered that by making bolder choices, the story got that much richer and more suspenseful. In the words of Passepartout in Around the World in 80 Days …

Fortune favours the bold.
Passpartout

I now understand why people both make and watch gameplay videos – for the personalities and storytelling, as well as for tips in terms of gameplay. These observations have made me want to dabble more in the creation of gameplay videos myself. I think what I’d like to do in this bent is to create a serialized ‘bedtime story’ from chapters of a full game playthrough of 80 Days. Thinking this might be especially fun to do as a team project with my nieces and nephews. For the first game playthrough, I think I’d like to follow the route of travel from Around the World in 80 Days to see if I stumble upon any similar plot lines to that of the novel.

Exploring Societal Discomfort in 80 Days

One other thing that struck me in watching Gavin play and reflecting on my own gameplay, was that the player seemed to be rewarded with a favourable outcome when making decisions that respected female characters in the game and that respected different cultures and religions, although only after a number of ‘tests’ as to the player’s sincerity. Despite this being my observation, writer Meg Jayanth does discuss in a talk at the 2015 Game Developers Conference the importance to her that the storylines in 80 Days not lead to the notion of the ‘white saviour,’ like they might have with the story of Aouda, the widowed princess in Around the World in 80 Days, whom Fogg and Passepartout save from her husband, the Raja’s, funeral pyre. Meg speaks about this from 23:37 to 24:43 in the video below.

For me, the placing of the player into scenes of discomfort and moral dilemma is what not only makes 80 Days a nuanced piece of storytelling, but a provocative examination of society, our believes, and our actions and inactions within it, all whilst enjoying a bit of gameplay in an imagined world. This is where the learning happens within the gameplay for me, as in this way 80 Days evokes empathy in it’s players towards the ‘other’ in the game, much as Bogart reflects on in Chapter 2 of How to Do Things with Videogames. I’ll be curious to observe how these moments of discomfort and moral dilemmas impact my nieces and nephews as we play and read together, and the discussions that ensue as a result.

References

Bogost, I. (2011). How to Do Things with Videogames (1st ed.). University of Minnesota Press.

GDC. (2015, November 5). 80 Days & Unexpected Stories [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Apa7Klu8Trg

Jayanth, M. (2015). 80 Days [Interactive Game]. Inkle. https://www.inklestudios.com/80days/

Paragon Plays. (2016, May 23). Mutiny Aboard the Waterlily | 80 Days [Interactive Novel Gameplay] [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orOdVFMydjE

Watch Me Play: Twitch and the Rise of Game Live Streaming

StoryToGo. (2020, August 12). First Impressions of 80 Days [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joSLFXnbkXI

StoryToGo. (2020b, August 21). First Playthrough of 80 Days [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pw3WX7_3tV0

StoryToGo. (2020c, August 30). Embarking on 80 Days with Paragon Plays [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUBMl-yWKok

Taylor, T. L. (2018). Watch Me Play: Twitch and the Rise of Game Live Streaming (Princeton Studies in Culture and Technology). Princeton University Press.

Verne, J. (1873). Around the World in 80 Days. Pierre-Jules Hetzel.

The Power of the Protest – Positive Changes Coming from the June 2020 Black Lives Matter Protests

June 25, 2020 by Alex Charters 4 Comments

One of our Roamancing writer’s recently did the research and wrote a letter to a loved one about Systemic Racism, Police Brutality, and positive change coming from the Black Lives Matter Protests and Marches to explain to them why the current Black Lives Matter protests and marches are needed. As we feel this is an important issue and think she did an excellent job of both researching and addressing the problem, we are sharing her letter in 3-parts, here, on Being Emme, and on Roamancing. Her research is focused on the United States, but as is evident in the news in recent weeks, this is very much an issue that needs addressing here at home in Canada too. You can read the first part of her letter by clicking here and the second part of her letter here.

We chose StoryToGo to share the final part of Alex’s letter, as it shows the powerful and positive impact that one form of storytelling can have – that of the protest. These are also stories that we wish to share further, and by sharing them in 3-parts that span 3-different sites with 3-different communities of readers, we hope that Alex’s research and words will resonate further.

June 2020 Black Lives Matter Protests in Phoenix, Arizona.

Dear …
I took your advice and have been doing a lot of research and reading on the subject and I wanted to share with you what I’ve found.
It’s okay if we don’t see everything the same way – I’ll always listen and think about what you have to say and hope you’ll do the same for me! Because what’s the point of having a brain if I don’t use it for critical thinking? You taught me that.
Anyways love you lots and hope you’ll read with an open mind.
Alex Charters

Below is a continuation of Alex’s letter that began with the sobering facts on police brutality and a brief history of systemic racism.

A poignant question at the Black Lives Matter March in Phoenix, Arizona (June 2020).

I understand a lot of what you said on Sunday and agree that Canada is not America. We have our own problems that we need to face but I think supporting the Civil Rights Movement in America is very important right now. (And added by the editor similar issues do exist in Canada, particular towards our Indigenous people.)
The international support and media attention have forced America to take action and start making real change.
Alex Charters

Positive Changes Coming From the Black Lives Matter Protests:

Re: George Floyd

Derek Chauvin was arrested and charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter of George Floyd. This is almost unheard of with 99% of officers getting no charges in the shooting of suspects.

Re: Breonna Taylor

The ‘no-knock” warrants that allow police officers to enter homes without providing any notice will now be regulated.

Re: Michael Brown

Ferguson (where Michael Brown was murdered) just elected its first black mayor and she is also the first female mayor.

Other Positive Moves

Black Lives Matter Protests in Phoenix, Arizona – June 2020

In California, prosecutors are lobbying the state bar to ban district attorneys from accepting money from police unions.

In Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that he will “seek to identify $100 million to $150 million in cuts from the LAPD,” and that the funds will funnel into different areas such as jobs, health care and education.

In New Jersey law enforcement will be adding mental health professionals, as well as other reforms.

In San Diego police end the use of carotid restraint.

In Colorado a bill was introduced to address abusive law enforcement.

Unanimous passing of mandatory police education and bias training passed through Michigan’s Senate.

Minneapolis City Council voted unanimously to require police officers to intervene anytime they see unauthorized use of force by another officer and to ban police chokeholds altogether.

In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio pledged to redirect some of the New York Police Department budget toward youth and social services. De Blasio also committed to repealing Section 50-A, which prevents the public from accessing disciplinary records of police officers.

The US Marine Corps released guidance on the removal of public displays of the Confederate battle flag.

I think the problems black Americans are facing are very real and these protests are an extension of the Civil Rights movement from the 1960’s. These movements are pivotal in making change.
Alex Charters

For a first hand account from the Black Lives Matter protests and marches in the United States, read Lori’s experiences partaking in the marches in Arizona, as an interracial family.

References

River Revery – a Sustainable Funding Case Study

December 20, 2019 by Mary McDonald Leave a Comment

River Revery is a community-based, collaborative project of two London, Ontario writers, artist/educator, poet Penn Kemp and media artist and educator, Mary McDonald. River Revery addresses the artists’ concerns with the health of the habitat surrounding the Thames / Deshkan Ziibi River. In addressing local environmental concerns in an artistic and poetic way, and through inviting community participation, they aim to engage with global, universal concerns for the environment.

River Revery’s Transmedia storytelling initiative, #RiverReveryLdn invites Londoners to join in “knowticing” intricate details of beauty in London’s natural world surrounding our beloved Thames/Antler/Deshkan Ziibi River. These small moments of beauty help to remind us to celebrate and care for the beautiful and fragile environment within which our community is held.

Creators

Mary McDonald, MultiMedia Artist, marymcdonald.ca

Penn Kemp, Poet, http://pennkemp.weebly.com/

Country

Canada

Link to project

RiverRevery.ca

The Creators

Poet Penn Kemp, and editor of Pendas Productions

Pendas Productions is a micro publishing company publishing artbooks of poetry and drama, often in combination with CDs. Since 1977, Pendas has produced 30 poetry artbook/CD and DVD combinations often in collaboration with musicians and artists with editor Penn Kemp. We have featured more than 20 Souwesto authors and produced several anthologies.

Penn writes: “Poetry is an essential expression of the human spirit: collaborating with Mary extends poetry’s possibilities and audience to the wider community. I believe that poetry is a path to environmental activism and change”.

Media artist Mary McDonald

I am passionate about community participation in arts and the ways in which new media and accessible creative technologies can make that happen. I create interactive Augmented Reality installation and transmedia storytelling using accessible digital mobile technology to show, share, invite and empower others to bring and contribute their artistic responses to “Become Part of the Story.”

I have been very active in the London arts community for a number of years, through a number of artistic disciplines. Through these projects and through my development as a multimedia artist, my passion for bringing community together through the arts, creating opportunities for contributions of the community to the arts and inviting their interaction and engagement has become increasingly important to me and a foundation of my work.

I plan to leverage River Revery as a way to connect our community, our artists into a creative collective. Bringing our attention and our intention to our natural environment is of paramount importance to me. What we care about is what we will care for. Using artistic responses, new medias and accessible, mobile creative technologies, enables people to bring their attention to the beauty around them, to “knowtice” it with intention, which creates in turn, collective environmental action.

Through interactive guided Augmented Reality poetry/art walks and participatory exhibitions, walking workshops and in-place workshops focussing on how to create transdisciplinary art with accessible, mobile digital creative technologies the community of London will be invited and empowered to become part of the story of River Revery, uniting community and artists into a creative, collective, generative response to the environment which envelops London.

The Project

River Revery is a collaboration of London, Ontario artists — poet and activist Penn Kemp, and multimedia artist, Mary McDonald. River Revery received a City of London’s Community Arts Investment Program grant (CAIP grant) from the city of London through the London Arts Council. This collaboration was designed for building community engagement around the appreciation and protection of the Thames/Antler River that runs through London and involves community arts participation through transmedia storytelling.

Wishing Well AR Artwork — AR artwork for Wishing Well

The project includes an Augmented Reality moveable art exhibit which is a series of artworks with embedded QR codes, printed and mounted on aluminum plates. These hang on free standing metal easels, which allows the freedom to have the exhibit to occur in any location, including in natural locations outside such as along the river, at the Forks, and in conservation areas. The visual art is linked through QR codes (a very simple but accessible and effective method of AR) to Mary’s multimedia sound and visual interpretations of Penn’s poems. The project also includes a website on which the Community Story Wall features community participation in arts, the text of the poems and the sound and poetry film interpretations as well as hosting the OER components and community workshop materials.

The main goals of the project are to leverage River Revery as a way to connect the community, our artists, our schools to celebrate and “knowtice” the beauty around London, our River…to “knowtice” is to acknowledge the value, appreciate and care for the natural ecosystem London sits within.

As well, the artist aims to break down the barriers between artist and “audience” to become a collective community, all active participants, caring, creating, sharing and learning with accessible creative technologies, art, and transmedia storytelling. connected and acting through art, and transmedia storytelling.

Instructions can be found linked on the Story Wall at RiverRevery.ca

Road to Sustainable Funding:

Free/OER Elements:

The text and the poetry films are freely available on the website. Print versions of the entire poetry book which includes some photographs and QR codes to the online AR films and sound explorations are available for purchase. Also available to purchase are prints of photographs and a DVD of the poetry films.

OER downloadable and remix visuals including film segments will be available on the community workshop resources page on the website. Also included here will be plans and curricula for community workshops for participatory and engaging art projects utilizing mobile, accessible creative technologies.

Developing a Multiyear Plan:

River Revery — Become Part of the Story

River Revery at London, Ontario 2018 Wordsfest. — Premiere exhibit of River Revery, Centre at the Forks, Museum London for Wordsfest 2018.

2018 Creation of River Revery

2019 Community Engagement
- walks and workshops
- possible partners: Thames Talbot Land Trust, UTRCA, Fanshawe, Antler River Rally, Western Serves student volunteers, London Public Library, Centre at the Forks

2020 Bring in other artists for collaborative, curated events and explore other partnerships
- “Bring the Outside In” (working title) large, curated transdisicplinary event(s) bringing together community, artists, environmentalists

Developing River Revery’s Broad Community Engagement, a Multi-year Plan:

2018 Creation of River Revery —
- 4 AR visual artworks have been printed and mounted on aluminum plates which can hang from free standing metal easels such that the exhibit can be placed anywhere — including outside along the river, in the park at the forks of the river in the centre of downtown…
- These artworks are linked to 4 poetry films which are sound and visual interpretations of Penn’s poems which I have created with accessible mobile technology
- 4 artworks remain to be printed and mounted, (cost exceeded well beyond capacity) linked to 1 more poetryfilm and 3 sound and music interpretations
- Community Story Wall and transmedia storytelling #RiverReveryLdn is live and there has been some initial engagement with the project through the initial exhibition of the work as well as volunteer Western University students who raised awareness by distributing invitation cards and engaging with the public.
- All of the elements are free to access. They are not openly licensed as the poet is a strong believer in Access Copyright. In Canada, the majority of the literary community are advocates of Access Copyright.
- OER: The workshop materials I create, located on the Resources page, with the Community Story Wall, are OER and will include workshop plans along with art only — downloadables — images, video, nature and music sound clips to jumpstart or remix projects

2019 Broad Community Engagement — walks and workshops
- There is a possibility of partnering this year with the Thames Talbot Land Trust, to provide guided AR poetry walks in conjunction with their “Mood Walks,” a partnership they have with the local chapter of the Canadian Mental Health Association, as well as other walks and events they program such as their volunteer BBQ — possibly funded through a second Community Arts Investment Program grant
- Explore and implement “Advertising through Arts Partnerships” initiatives — local businesses pay to “host” the AR Artwork for River Revery with the promotion of this multiple location “River Exhibit” done through the London Arts Council, the City of London, Tourism London etc which often offer free promotion of cultural and artistic events
- Possible other partners include the local Conservation Authority, Fanshawe/Komoka Provincial Parks, Antler River Rally group, Western Serves student volunteers
- The London Public Library has expressed interest in a proposal for a series of community workshops in partnership with their new emerging media lab — focussing on community participation in art with accessible mobile creative technologies
- The London Public Library has also expressed interest in hosting an exhibit and interaction with the AR participatory installation, Still/ed Here which includes the poetry film and AR installation, On the Margin of History
- Possible additional workshop partner: Museum London’s Centre at the Forks emerging media labs

2020 — Beyond River Revery to expand out into larger events that Mary would curate
- “Outside In/Inside Out” (working title) large, curated transdisicplinary event(s) bringing together community, artists, environmentalists
- I have discussed the possibility of launching these in connection with London Arts Council’s new social enterprise — Culture City X Tours — some funding through the London Arts Council
- Lead AR poetry walks and walking workshops for the Thames Talbot Land Trust Passport to Nature program, which is funded through their corporate, community and private sponsors

Additional funding partnerships to pursue: City of London, tourism London, local businesses and foundations, private donations, patronage, “adoption”/sponsorship of events/artworks
Explore and implement ecosystem that connects local businesses with artworks to benefit from “Advertising through Arts Partnerships” in which a reverse advertising model is implemented — the local business pays the artist to host/rent the artwork (AR artwork in the case of River Revery) and this hosting, perhaps as part of a temporary, or on-going exhibition of single or multiple locations is promoted as an arts and cultural event, perhaps in conjunction with a regional arts venture, by the artist and the arts organizations they partner with — thus leveraging the arts and culture networks developed in a city/region for the benefit of both local businesses and artists (producing thriving cities)
I am also exploring other ways to connect local businesses in support of the arts — either through in kind donations, supporting live or online events, sponsoring the mounting of artwork …other ways to include local businesses within the funding “ecosystem” beyond simple advertising or patronage. *Building the value and vested interest into the partnership so that it becomes a reciprocal, multiplying partnership
Other possible sources of revenue include sales of poetry books for Penn and printed photos and artwork, DVDs of the poetry films for Mary.
Additional opportunities to investigate include sales of other printed items with digital art/photo art/ AR art through online companies like Redbubble and links on the site to purchase prints, the book of poetry, photography and QR codes, and even possibly other things like clothing/home decor w the visual art and/or the QR code triggers to the AR.

Lessons learned, tips for success:

Key takeaway: the larger the project became, the more people it could impact and involve not only increased the value of the project to the community but opened up new opportunities and avenues for funding to pursue

It’s very difficult to be creating the art at the same time as you are trying to promote and arrange events and collaborations. Ideally these time periods are separated and/or some of the legwork or preparation for crowdfunding, developing sponsorship and partnership relationships ahead of creating time.

Looking at all the elements with a “whole value” mindset is essential — aspects of the work may be fuelled solely by passion and driven by determination and my own money and time — however, the exchange value of this work or these aspects of a project may prove just as, or more valuable in terms of future connections in the long run — keep my eyes on the big picture

Continue to look at each project as a stepping stone to the next “level”, the next vantage point from which it is possible to see or launch your next project

Expanding the project also allowed me to expand into other ways of funding — moving towards a more sustainable funding model

However, as I move forward with more and more projects, I am developing my “pie in the sky” approach — one that allows for continual spiralling iterations of a project that at the same time allows for funding “slices” to be added in to the pie as it grows

Think Creatively — financial support opportunities are directly linked to the numbers of people impacted and reached which often has at least an incidental corresponding relationship with the cultural value of a work — as the community reached, impacted, connected with, around a project grows, so too doors to potential funding opportunities open.

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