AN EDUTAINMENT APPROACH TO ACADEMIC TEACHING

BASED ON STORYTELLING

Wolfgang Heiden

Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences, Grantham-Allee 20, 53757 Sankt Augustin, Germany

Eric Fassbender

Macquarie University, North Ryde, N. S. W., 2109, Sydney, Australia

Keywords: Edutainment, Digital Storytelling, Hypermedia.

Abstract: In this paper, we describe an approach to academic teaching in computer science using storytelling as a

means to investigate to hypermedia and virtual reality topics. Indications are shown that narrative activity

within the context of a Hypermedia Novel related to educational content can enhance motivation for self-

conducted learning and in parallel lead to an edutainment system of its own. In contrast to existing

approaches the Hypermedia Novel environment allows an iterative approach to the narrative content,

thereby integrating story authoring and story reception not only in the beginning but at any time. The

narrative practice and background research as well as the resulting product can supplement lecture material

with comparable success to traditional academic teaching approaches. On top of this there is the added value

of soft skill training and a gain of expert knowledge in areas of personal background research.

1 INTRODUCTION

It is a well-known fact that people memorize facts

and ideas better when they are emotionally involved

(Aristotle, 1885). For example, Davies says that "the

hemispheres of the brain work together when

emotions are stimulated, attention focused and

motivation heightened" (Davies, 2000). In addition,

learning is supported by reception of content through

multiple sensory channels (Dryden and Vos, 2000;

Wallace, 1994; Yates, 2000). This common

understanding is supported by neurological studies

(Hurlemann et al., 2005). Various E-Learning tools

make use of this knowledge, although emotional

involvement, if combined with personal affection or

sympathy, can also interfere with objective

understanding of the related information (Gaskins,

1996). However, the success of E-Learning often

suffers from a lack of motivation for self-conducted

studies (Hamada, 2006, Keith 2006).

The reception of a well-told narrative can result

in a high degree of emotional involvement. It also

often triggers the motivation to learn more about the

background facts, especially in a historical,

scientific, or technological context. Current

documentary productions on TV tend to mix the

presentation of facts and dramatic scenes to keep the

spectator interested (and emotionally involved). This

means that TV and often video games use this

emotional involvement to engage and motivate users

to continue watching or playing, yet contemporary

classroom teaching methods are lacking this factor.

Or, as James Paul Gee puts it, "Educators often

bemoan the fact that video games are compelling

and school is not" (Gee, 2003, p. 68). Hypermedia-

based E-Learning environments can fill this

emotional and motivational gap and are well-suited

to fulfill the desire for background information that

is directly related to narrative content.

Active research of literature as well as

demonstrations and interviews with experts also

enhances learning. Davies states that "once a person

is motivated and actively involved, learning is

optimized" (Davies, 2000). Gee, who advocates

active learning in video games as opposed to passive

perception, says that "active and critical learning" is

essential and "may well relate to later learning in

domains like science, at least when we are talking

about teaching and learning science as an active

process of inquiry and not the memorization of

126

Heiden W. and Fassbender E. (2010).

AN EDUTAINMENT APPROACH TO ACADEMIC TEACHING BASED ON STORYTELLING.

In Proceedings of the 2nd Inter national Conference on Computer Supported Education, pages 126-131

 SciTePress

passive facts" (Gee, 2003). This is particularly valid

with respect to background research for narrative

writing. Even for most fictional stories authentic

details have to be included (Friedman, 2006) and

authors always have to know much more about the

background of a story (including the facts behind the

fiction) than they eventually tell the recipients. In

addition, developing narrative content is a highly

creative process, filled with emotion and – maybe

even more important in terms of motivation – fun.

Fun "create[s] relaxation and motivation" and

"relaxation enables a learner to take things in more

easily, and motivation enables them to put forth

effort without resentment" (Prensky, 2001, p. 111).

The potential of story-authoring in educational

environments has been discussed earlier (Aylett,

2006). The existing authoring systems do, however,

not include an iterative approach, as they allow only

the production of single, finalized stories. Most

edutainment products aim at children of primary or

secondary school level, while little attention has yet

been paid to academic teaching, in particular in

combination with active storytelling.

The integration of modular story authoring and

non-linear story reception in a Hypermedia

environment (i.e. an environment that combines

multiple forms of media – like text, video, audio, 3D

animation - in one presentation) therefore seems to

be a promising concept for edutainment because it

effectively links narrative and informational content

in an approach that uses multiple forms of media.

Thus, the production process – as well as its product

– serves as an edutainment system that remains open

to active as well as passive use at any time. Active

use in this context means authoring of additional

narrative modules and passive use refers to the

consumption of narrative content.

Digital storytelling is currently almost always

discussed in terms of interactivity. While non-

linearity of reception is usually not considered

interactive, alternative approaches offer options

from simple branching to immersive role-playing

games in a simulated environment that are inhabited

by artificial intelligence (AI) characters. A flexible

switch from passive reception to active authoring

and back has not yet been included in the discussion

within the community – either because this also does

not fit to the purist definition of interactivity, or

maybe just because it has not yet been realized.

In an open modular narrative environment with

multimedia components it is possible to passively

consume a story and – if inspired for own ideas – to

add new modules that show different views on the

existing content, add supplemental information,

open new branches not yet told or offering

alternative paths, thereby contributing to a growing

narrative network.

2 THE HYMN PLATFORM

As an extension to previous storytelling paradigms

combining several media (e.g.), the Hypermedia

Novel (HyMN) has been introduced as a generic

concept for digital storytelling (Heiden et al., 2001),

as well as a platform for narrative edutainment

applications (Heiden, 2006). The HyMN paradigm

integrates different user roles like receptor, author,

and publisher in a single environment, allowing

personalized as well as distributed story reception

and storytelling.

Two approaches to HyMN structuring have been

described so far (Heiden and Ostovar, 2006). Both

define a combination of serial and parallel structure

elements for the organization of Narration Modules

(NarMo) as semantic units. Atomic Narrative Units

(ANU) resemble the “movement” as defined by

Sharda as basic narrative building blocks (Sharda,

2005). In a Hypermedia Novel (as shown in Figure

1), however, an ANU is distinguished from media

units (Content Modules – CM), which are often, but

not always, identical. A Narration Module can either

be atomic (and therefore an ANU), representing a

particular part of the story through the use of a

single form of media (e.g. a movie sequence or a

section of written text – a CM) or contain a sub-

structure of its own. Serial Containers (SC) represent

a logical order of reception, while Parallel

Containers (PC) offer alternatives, which are equal

in narrative content but are different in regards to

media, viewpoint, level of detail, etc. Depending on

the choice among these alternatives, several different

paths lead through a single story. Branching threads

offer the possibility for the recipient to make

decisions that may change the plot (thereby

strengthening the interactive aspect) – and also of

relating information material to the story. (The latter

aspect becomes particularly important for

edutainment applications.)

The recipients can either choose from a pool of

pre-defined paths for a consistent sequence of

Narration Modules, or find their own path,

navigating via a graphical representation of the story

structure.

The relationship of the different structural

elements of a Hypermedia Novel is depicted in

Figure 1.

AN EDUTAINMENT APPROACH TO ACADEMIC TEACHING BASED ON STORYTELLING

127

Figure 1: Hierarchical structure of a Hypermedia Novel,

showing different types of NarMos (SC, PC,

CM)(including threads plus paths and thread links):

SC = Serial Container (sequential scenes, vertical)

PC = Parallel Container (alternatives, horizontal)

CM = Content Module (atomic narrative media unit).

The structure is written to a custom built XML

format for generic modular storytelling, which

contains links to the Content Modules as URL

references. For maximum exchangeability all CMs

are integrated in HTML files, although this is not

necessary if the player/editor can handle the various

multimedia content elements directly.

A typical HyMN offers at least one path with

short textual descriptions, supplemented and/or

augmented by alternative modules using different

media like audio, video sequences or interactively

explorable 3D scenes, more detailed substructures or

different viewpoints for transmitting the same

narrative content.

Given an interface that can easily change from

player to editor in an offline environment or a client-

server structure (such an interface is currently being

developed), every recipient can instantly switch

from recipient to author by producing additional

Narration Modules and placing them at the

appropriate point in the existing structure. Such an

environment offers the possibility for everyone to

contribute to a growing story universe within one’s

own skills and temporal limitations without the

overall story losing consistency.

3 EDUTAINMENT EXPERIMENT

3.1 Edutainment Concept

Students were asked to produce multimedia content

for narration modules extending an existing story

given by an exposé. The story was designed such

that topics related to the teaching content were

covered by essential stages of the plot, thus requiring

deeper investigation of the subject in order to tell the

story consistently. Different research topics were

distributed across several groups of students. The

research results were reported by these groups in

project-internal workshops, supplemented by

additional lectures and educational documents.

Visits and discussion with experts from cooperating

research institutes offered additional insight into the

topics.

For those students with less creative interest

there was a more technical work package devoted to

the development and improvement of the HyMN

platform itself.

Figure 2 shows a screenshot of the resulting

Hypermedia Novel “Butterfly Dreams”. The

structure is encoded in an XML file and the user

interface and CMs are rendered by a Flash plugin in

a frame-based HTML context using the most widely

spread platform for interactive multimedia

documents available. Work in progress replaces the

Flash plugin with JavaScript.

Figure 2: User interface with story structure navigation

view of the Hypermedia Novel “Butterfly Dreams”.

3.2 Teaching Content

The lecture subject “Advanced Hypermedia” (AHM)

included advanced hypermedia application

development and immersive virtual environments

(VE) as a special hypermedia interface.

3.2.1 Content units

The teaching content (in the VE area) was related to

several chapters of a science fiction story (“Butterfly

dreams”), covering the following aspects of VE

technology and research:

 Virtual TV studios (VTV)

 Immersive Virtual Environments (IVE)

 Human Perception and Simulators (HPS)

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The story was designed particularly for this

course and describes the quest of a journalist in the

year 2020 who suspects that a live transmission from

a manned mars exploration team might be a fake.

Looking for clues that may either support or

contradict his doubts, he investigates leading

research institutes (which really exist and have

supported the project) and learns about the

possibilities and limitations of virtual TV studios

and immersive virtual environments. Finally, testing

an ultimately convincing simulation environment he

finds out that all his earlier experiences have been

virtual. Eventually he seemingly manages to escape

from the simulation. But can he be sure?

For those who have become curious: The title

“Butterfly Dreams” refers to an ancient Chinese

poem of the Taoist philosopher Zhuangzi (370 to

301 BCE) where he uses the metaphor of a dream to

in a way question the nature of reality (Watson,

1968).

Supplementing the VE topic, students were required

to acquire knowledge from the following areas:

 Hypermedia technology, including XML,

compression formats for multimedia data, etc.

(HMT)

 Storytelling theory (STT)

 Cosmology and space travel (CST)

This sums up to six units of teaching content. The

distribution of content among the narrative and

practical area is displayed in Table 1.

Table 1: Teaching content.

Narrative

VTV

IVE

HPS

CST

Practical

STT

HMT

3.2.2 Teaching Channels

Teaching content was imparted through several

different channels:

 background research for narrative content,

including interviews with scientists at leading-

edge research institutes

 practical use of technology for production of

multimedia and hypermedia documents,

 seminaristic presentation of research results,

 supplemental information (demand-oriented) on

all topics via traditional lecturing,

 edutainment approach by interactive reception of

the produced Hypermedia Novel.

A visualization of the input and output from a

student’s point of view in terms of teaching channels

and student’s activity, respectively, is given in

Figure 3.

Figure 3: Input and output within a project cycle defined

by one study term.

Some topics were learned only on a theoretical basis,

through research, internal workshop presentations,

classical lectures, online material, and

demonstrations visiting research labs. Others were

handled more practically, working on improvements

of the HyMN platform software.

3.3 Observations

The test participants were a group of 16 computer

science (CS) students in their second last term, all

with the chosen major discipline “Media

Informatics”, plus 4 students from the technical

journalism (TJ) area. The latter group was assigned

to work on the project as a simulation of a

professional media production remittance work. For

the CS students it was a regular unit integrated with

the BSc curriculum of Computer Science at Bonn-

Rhein-Sieg

University of Applied Sciences.

At the end of the term the CS students had to

pass an oral exam. The results of this exam were

evaluated in comparison to another examination of

the same group of students within the same time

period and an identical amount of teaching time, also

in the media informatics domain (subject:

“Advanced Computer Graphics” – ACG). The

second exam was conducted by the same examiners

as an oral exam in a comparable style and at a

similar level of difficulty. For a comparative chart of

both exam results see Figure 4, showing the results

of 16 individuals. Marks range from 1.0 (excellent)

to 5.0 (fail). Figure 4(b) shows statistics with

average and standard deviation.

AN EDUTAINMENT APPROACH TO ACADEMIC TEACHING BASED ON STORYTELLING

129

0,0

1,0

2,0

3,0

4,0

5,0

AHM

ACG

(a)

(b)

Figure 4: Performance in Edutainment teaching AHM

(blue/left) vs. traditional teaching ACG (red/right).

The figure shows no significant difference in

average performance between both teaching

methods, indicating that traditional and HyMN

method work equally well.

Special consideration was given to the

preparation of the exam, e.g. whether a topic was

primarily learned through background research,

traditional teaching material, or from the resulting

HyMN. Each student was assigned to one work

package related to the teaching content units named

above (3.2.1). The six content units were assessed

separately, each one rated from 0 to 4 points. The

performance of the subjects in their area of expertise

(i.e. the topic on which they worked in their

particular work package) related to their overall

rating is given in Figure 5. Figure 5(b) again shows

statistics with mean value and standard deviation,

which favour the own research topic slightly, yet the

overall difference is not significant. It can be seen

that some students achieved the best rating in their

own research area, while most performed almost

equally well in all areas. Remarkably, two of the

participants performed significantly better outside

their work topic (which was not the same in both

cases).

own

other

(a)

(b)

Figure 5: Performance in own research area (blue/left)

vs. other topics (red/right).

3.4 Second Term Evaluation

The experiment was repeated with another group of

students as a follow-up project based on the results

and output of the first cycle. Overall results (again

compared to a parallel traditionally taught course)

support the observations described above.

As in this second cycle the HyMN product of the

first one – although in a prototypic state – was

available from the beginning as an additional

resource of learning content, now a focus was placed

on the evaluation of how students made use of the

different teaching channels.

When students were questioned which portion of

their preparation time for the exam was spent on

which source of information, they stated that the

provided lecture material was still most important,

while all other sources used for exam preparation

(including the edutainment product of the course

itself) had more or less equal parts. The average

evaluation results for the use of resources is

displayed in Figure 6.

Figure 6: Use of different information resources for exam

preparation. Lecture material covers almost 44%, followed

by active research (17%), HyMN (15%), and literature

(14%). About 10% of other resources have been used.

4 CONCLUSIONS

Although results from an evaluation with 16

participants in a single unit over one semester with 8

hours per week cannot be considered a

representative result (the second cycle has not yet

been analyzed completely), observations have been

made that allow preliminary conclusions. However,

further evaluation is desperately needed. In

particular future experiments will require a

comparative assessment of different teaching

methods with identical content rather than different

courses.

All participants (with one exception who was

uncertain because he had expected more from the

final product) expressed their preference in terms of

motivation for the described edutainment approach

to academic learning as compared to traditional

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lecture-and-practice units. The result indicates that

this form of teaching seems to perform equally well

as traditional academic teaching in terms of gaining

knowledge and skills on a technical level, with some

added value provided by the non-technical content

(e.g. storytelling theory) learned on the way together

with the training of soft skills through teamwork in a

project-oriented context. However, the expected

improvement of results, in particular for weaker

students, as a consequence of enhanced motivation,

could not be observed. Therefore, there is still much

potential for improvement. Probably the most

promising target is the improvement of the HyMN

story, which in its current state is not yet sufficient

as a learning platform for VE technology. It is,

however, one central element of the HyMN concept

to always remain open for modular expansion,

which is expected to take place in similar future

units. In this regard, we are currently working to

extend the present HyMN concept by means of two

immersive virtual environments (i.e. display systems

like CAVE™ (Cruz-Neira, 1993) or Immersion

Square (Hetmann et al., 2002)) that are connected

via the Internet. We strive to create a virtual

environment that can be explored together with

others. With this collaboration in an immersive 3d

environment we aim to foster collaborative learning

in groups, similar to how teenagers already solve

tasks in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing

Games like World of Warcraft, Lineage 2, Diablo 2,

etc.. With our approach we want students to

experience a topic, rather than routinely memorize

information.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Our thanks to the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent

Analysis and Information Systems (IAIS) and the

German Aerospace Center (DLR) for support in

interviews and excursions.

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