Presentación EADiM Network Conferece 2011 (ICNM - WSYA,Graz

Arnau Gifreu Castells

Universitat Pompeu Fabra

EADiM Network Conference

Graz, Austria, November 2011

Proposed use of the interactive documentary in the field of education: half-way between learning and entertainment

Case studies developed at the University of Vic (Spain)

Beginnings:

Traditional Documentary + Digital Technology

= Interactive Documentary

Proposed use of the interactive documentary in the field of education: half-way between learning and entertainment. Case studies developed at the University of Vic

Nowadays:

Documentary Genre + Digital Media + Net (Internet)

=

Interactive Documentary


PROPOSED USE OF THE INTERACTIVE DOCUMENTARY IN THE FIELD OF

EDUCATION


A colleague commentary on education during E-week 2011 (Digital Vic) at Vic, Spain:

“Coming from 3D real-time videogames, a traditional lecture for a student nowadays is similarly to watch one of the first black and white films of the Lumieres brothers”

Current students need a new educational system / model!



Some of the advantages posed by new technologies in educational uses:

- Open possibilities to create networks of learning

- Foster cooperation and collaboration between those who wish to learn (while opening paths to reinforce the personal differences and autonomy)

- Facilitate the exchange of information and resources

- Facilitate the dissemination and presentation of results and work

- Facilitate the replenishment, storage and indexing works

- Provide new ways for the evaluation

- Provide greater flexibility in many ways


I-Docs as pedagogic tools and teaching materials used by the teacher in different contexts:

- As a visual support to illustrate or complement the lectures: interactive documentaries can be used as interactive teaching materials in the classrooms and supplemented with presentations s

- The interactive documentary could be integrated in some way –through a hypertext link- within the virtual campus of the educational institution,

-Some of the tests or presentations made by students in the class requested by the teacher or peers could be made from conducting searches and concepts required through the parts or modes of navigation and interaction presented in the application.

- As a possible digital application that can replace tests and purely hypertext exercises from the Internet

- As a teaching tool to teach the teachers themselves and companies interested in developing similar projects or from the specific technology


- In the more evolved sense of the term, the format poses a number of open possibilities that could be summarized as follows:

a. Allows students to upload their own content about the subject or choose a theme and try to raise a theoretical project about creating an application that displays the desiredcontent.

b. There are virtual exams, and the person can choose a particular mode of interaction (which also suits to the nature of the student) and complete and develop the part that is required in the application.

c. The same applications are developed for multimedia handsets and mobile devices, with which the user can view and perform the exercises with attributes such as the ubiquitous (anywhere) and timelessness (at any time to find available through the connection all the time).

d. Immersive experience in education where we do not know if we are real or part ofthe same program and/or environment: augmented reality will be able to enter virtually to the same application, and enable the exercises, while nanotechnology will allow other types of approach, and all connected in real time with the mobile phone.


- In the sense of the evolved term, interactive documentary and online information applications could be conceived as virtual multiplatform systems (in the style of videogames where participants are avatars) and where the student could detect where the fellow classmates are also doing or have already completed the exercise,talk to them and ask them questions or give them any resources within the system.

- Also some tools 2.0, embedded in the same application, may allow a student communication from the channel they choose to communicate (a post on a teacher’s blog, student, community of the subject, working group, short information via Twitter, Facebook, etc.).


The economy experience (1998). B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore

1. Linear documentary

(Viewing)

3. Interactive Documentary

(Navigation / Playing)

2. Interactive Documentary

(Learning)

4. Generative Documentary)(Interaction /Sharing)

Horizontal axis: describes the degree of user participation (active or passive)Vertical axis: describes the connection or relationship that links users and environmental project (absorption or immersion)


Examples:

Absorption = watching movie at home (alone, small screen, no environment)Inmersion = watching movie at cinema (audience, big screen, environment)Passive participation = observers/listenersActive participation = playing key roles in creating the performance or event

PROCESSES/BEHAVIORS TYPES OF I-DOCS1. Viewing (observer) 1. Linear documentary 2. Learning (student) 2. Interactive Documentary

(teaching)

3. Playing (player) 3. Interactive Documentary (navigation)

4. Sharing (interactor) 4. Generative Documentary (interaction)

CASE STUDIES DEVELOPED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF VIC


OBJECTIVES OF THE FINAL COURSE ON AUDIOVISUAL COMMUNICACTION AT UVIC:

- The 4th year students of Audiovisual Communication Degree have to develop a Final Degree Project in order to obtain the title at the University of Vic. Students have a whole year –and four subjects related- to create interactive platforms, interactive documentaries, short films, interactive virtual tours, mobile applications, etc., in which the parts have merged into a single audiovisual and multimedia online project.


LUMIERES

Case studies developed at the University of Vic

Lumieres is an offline interactive documentary that discusses on the history of cinema.

Lumieres is an informative tool that posed as academic resource. Through textual content, film clips and interviews, it helps to understand the historical development of cinema.

Lumieres’not only limited to a chronological database, but also gives the opportunity to understand the film history. The goal is both give to the user a knowledge of directors, titles and movements, and also to provide the necessary tools to help understand the different languages of the different narrative periods, countries and personalities.




LUMIERES



LUMIERES / HISTORY



LUMIERES / DIRECTORS



LUMIERES / INTERVIEWEES



LUMIERES / DISCOVER

METAMENTAL-I-DOC

Summary: Audiovisual and online interactive documentary that reflects on the documentary genre

Produced: 2009-2011, Vic (Spain) www.metamentaldoc.com

Company/producer: Audiovisual Communication end of degree project. Specialisation in multimedia. University of Vic.

I-Doc Direction: Arnau Gifreu

Documentary Direction: Ingrid Blasco

Author(s): Ingrid Blasco, Glòria Campos, Myriam Figueira, Arnau Gifreu, Marc Molinos.



METAMENTAL-I-DOC

MetamentalDOC multimedia is an interactive documentary that looks at documentary film and independent documentary film. It is a project that contains a great deal of content of various types. The project came about as the result of an audiovisual documentary produced by the same team, and grew to the point where it became a larger work than its predecessor. metamentalDOC multimedia is also a documentary, but is not linear, but instead based on a web and interactive medium. In this platform, the content has been expanded and the audiovisual project has become part of the multimedia, with the inclusion of some parts and at the same time, the inclusion of audiovisual content.





METAMENTAL-I-DOC / OVERVIEW



METAMENTAL-I-DOC / MODALITIES



METAMENTAL-I-DOC / INTERVIEWS



METAMENTAL-I-DOC / AUDIOVISUAL STAGE



METAMENTAL-I-DOC / HISTORICAL PERIODS



METAMENTAL-I-DOC / VIRTUAL CLASSROOM



METAMENTAL-I-DOC / PLAYLIST

SOCIETAT 2.0 [2.0 SOCIETY]Summary: Audiovisual and online interactive documentary about the social effects of new communication technologies in today's society

Produced: 2007, Vic (Spain) www.societat20.com


I-Doc Direction: Arnau Gifreu

Documentary Direction: Joan Teixidó

Author(s): Arnau Gifreu, Oleguer Homs, Mireia Hurtado, Laia Piera, Guillem Santapau, Joan Teixidó.



SOCIETAT 2.0 [2.0 SOCIETY]Societat2.0 is an online interactive documentary that pretends to generate a profound reflection on the media environment of today's society. The intention is to show an audiovisual documentary inserted inside an interactive documentary, but the bonus here is that the interactive application also provides extra documentation and invite the user to reflect and comment on new forms of social communication.

The project begins with an audiovisual piece that briefly explains the history of social communication of the first decade of the century. This linear introduction serves to provide a proper context to the viewer and place it in perspective so that they understand how the Internet and mobile devices have revolutionized traditional forms of communication.

The interactive documentary is complemented by a specifically environmentally designed inteface to provide more information to users to navigate. It has four main sections: the chronological axis, stakeholders, the project and participation.





SOCIETAT 2.0 [2.0 SOCIETY] / DOCUMENTARY



SOCIETAT 2.0 [2.0 SOCIETY] / CHRONOLOGICAL AXIS



SOCIETAT 2.0 [2.0 SOCIETY] / PROJECT



SOCIETAT 2.0 [2.0 SOCIETY] / SOCIAL ACTORS



SOCIETAT 2.0 [2.0 SOCIETY] / PARTICIPATE

EN UN XIP MULTICOLOR

Summary: Audiovisual and Online Interactive Documentary about Neil Harbisson, a sonocromatic cyborg

Produced: 2011, Vic (Spain) www.xipmulticolor.com


I-Doc tutorization: Arnau Gifreu

Author(s): RogerSoldevila, Josep Parés, Isaac Martinez, Arnau Costa



EN UN XIP MULTICOLOR

Interactive documentary about the figure of Neil Harbisson, a sonocromatic cyborg. This project incorporates an audiovisual documentary, broken down by theme and videos that explain unfamiliar concepts. In the interactive space, the user can experience the feeling of creating their own sound picture, with the possibility of sharing in social networks and post it on the online gallery. The idea is to create an interactive application and a n interactive documentary. Both the application and the documentary are on Neil Harbisson disease condition known as achromatopsia or monochromatic (genetic disease, congenital non progressive that affects vision as a result of this are visible only black and white). The documentary addresses the theme of man and the use of technology to improve their living conditions and more specifically it uses the term cyborg, because the character in which the documentary is based on, is considered as such. It is for this reason that one of the possible metaphors when designing the web interface is to create a system that allows the user to understand this idea of man and machine.




Case studies developed at the University of VicEN UN XIP MULTICOLOR / HOME


Case studies developed at the University of VicEN UN XIP MULTICOLOR / NEIL


Case studies developed at the University of VicEN UN XIP MULTICOLOR / DOCUMENTARY


Case studies developed at the University of VicEN UN XIP MULTICOLOR / INTERACTIVE SPACE


Case studies developed at the University of VicEN UN XIP MULTICOLOR / GALLERY I-SPACE


Case studies developed at the University of VicEN UN XIP MULTICOLOR / WEB MAP


Case studies developed at the University of VicEN UN XIP MULTICOLOR / PLAYLIST

SPARKLYNG -BIG VISIT-

Summary: Database Interactive Documentary where people can meet in space and time in the city of Vic, creating personal chronological timelines for each interactor

Produced: 2011, Vic (Spain) www.sparklyng.com/beta


Direction: Jaume Masarnau, Arnau Gifreu

Author(s): Jaume Masarnau, Arnau Gifreu



SPARKLYNG -BIG VISIT-

Sparklyng (Big Visit) is a project located a half-way between the audiovisual domain and computer domain. From a visual standpoint, Sparklyng (bigVisit) approaches the field of interactive documentary documenting certain experiences of the city of Vic and gives the user the ability to access a different amount of information on significant spaces.

From the digital device point of view, it is a multimedia application with geolocated content. In addition, the project was created in HTML5 language and formed as platform, and there is a desktop version built on standard web languages that also works for next generation mobile devices.





SPARKLYNG -BIG VISIT- / INTRO



SPARKLYNG -BIG VISIT- / INTRO



SPARKLYNG -BIG VISIT- / MAP



SPARKLYNG -BIG VISIT- / REGSTER



SPARKLYNG -BIG VISIT- / UPLOAD CONTENT

6) CONCLUSION


- One of the essential premises of the traditional documentary is the desire to organise a story that is both informative and entertaining. And, in this sense, the interactive format should continue with the tradition of trying to offer similar experiences that mix a recreational (entertainment) proposal with an educational one (knowledge), in the most efficient, original and attractive possible way.

- And this is mainly possible thanks to the combination of different navigational and interactive modalities, which enables a multiple exchange between the work and the interactor.

- Firstly, navigating and visiting different proposals and structuring the contents (information and knowledge) means the use of strategies and resources of the games. This way, from the structure of the interactive, and through the navigation modalities, the user, in a certain way, “plays” with the possibilities offered by the work and can satisfy their first necessity: the one related to amusement and entertainment.


- Secondly, this strategy closer to the game experience usually gives the user a sensation of deep immersion and stops their learning from being boring and that their need of being informed or need of learning ends up fading. Therefore, the didactic proposal offered is attractive and dynamic, beyond that present in most classical hypertexts.

- Already at this stage, the interactor “learns through playing” and once they have “learnt the lesson” in a fun, original and lighthearted way, they can share it with other interactors, in real time or whenever they deems it appropriate.

- Therefore, we see how an interactive documentary can satisfy three needs or desires: the player’s one –recreational–, the one of the student or anyone with cultural interests –educational or formative– and the relational –communication level with other participants–. We believe that, through the correct mixing of these three aspects, non-fictional multimedia applications can be equated in attractiveness with proposals close to fiction.


- We firmly believe that the interactive documentary will become one of the informational formats more used in the coming years.

- It is nowadays a natural relief from traditional media such as television and photojournalism. The information and even culture are consumed on demand at any time and from anywhere. The future does not happen only to the TV screen, but also to computer terminals and multimedia phones.


Contact:

Arnau Gifreu Castells

Digital Interactive Communication

Audiovisual Communicaction

Universitat Pompeu Fabra

FEC – Universitat de Vic

[email protected] / [email protected]

www.agifreu.com

THANKS!

Education

Presentación EADiM Network Conferece 2011 (ICNM - WSYA,Graz