Education in the Knowledge Society 22 (2021)

Motivating for Reading through Transmedia Storytelling: A Case Study with Students from a Middle School in the Médio Tejo Region

Motivación para la lectura a través de la narración transmedia: un estudio de caso con alumnos de una escuela media de la región del Médio Tajo

Ana Paula Faria Ferreiraa, Patrícia Ferreirab, Célio Gonçalo Marquesc

aCentro de Tecnologia, Restauro e Valorização das Artes (Techn&Art), Instituto Politécnico de Tomar (IPT), Tomar, Portugal

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0411-8917ana.paula.faria.ferreira@gmail.com

bMestrado em Design Editorial, Instituto Politécnico de Tomar (IPT), Tomar, Portugal

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6637-7914patf.ferreira@gmail.com

cCentro de Tecnologia, Restauro e Valorização das Artes (Techn&Art), Instituto Politécnico de Tomar (IPT), Tomar, Portugal

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1503-0363CelioMarques@ipt.pt

ABSTRACT

The evolution of information and communication technologies has changed the way we relate to each other and how we build our knowledge. This creates challenges for education systems, as school must provide all students with the educational experiences that will enable them to develop the skills reflected in the profile of the 21st-century student on completion of compulsory schooling. It is up to teachers to find new ways of teaching, making the most of the resources and digital tools made available by mobile technologies. Technology can make a significant contribution to increasing students' motivation because it is closer to what they like and use in their daily lives. And this introduction of technology into the classroom can promote student-oriented teaching, which contributes to the development of skills such as autonomy, critical thinking and self-esteem. One of the areas that can contribute to this paradigm shift is the creation of experiences in immersive learning environments such as Transmedia Storytelling. Immersive learning environments can favour the creation and implementation of projects that promote reading skills in schools. This is the focus of this article. The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of transmedia storytelling on the level of motivation of students and on the improvement of pedagogical practices implemented by the teachers involved. This case study was carried out in the subject of Portuguese in three 7th-grade classes of a school from the Médio Tejo region. The results obtained suggest a high level of motivation of students and teachers. The latter recognise that pedagogical routes using Transmedia Storytelling contribute to the motivation, autonomy and improvement of students' learning.

Keywords:
Transmedia Storytelling
Immersive Environments
Education
Motivation

RESUMEN

La evolución de las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación ha cambiado la forma de relacionarnos y de construir nuestro conocimiento. Esto supone un reto para los sistemas educativos, ya que la escuela debe proporcionar a todos los estudiantes las experiencias educativas que les permitan desarrollar las competencias que se reflejan en el perfil del alumno del siglo XXI al finalizar la enseñanza obligatoria. Corresponde a los profesores encontrar nuevas formas de enseñar, aprovechando los recursos y las herramientas digitales que ponen a su disposición las tecnologías móviles. La tecnología puede contribuir de forma significativa a aumentar la motivación de los estudiantes porque se acerca a lo que les gusta y utilizan en su vida cotidiana. Esta introducción de la tecnología en el aula puede promover una enseñanza orientada al estudiante, lo que contribuye al desarrollo de habilidades como la autonomía, el pensamiento crítico y la autoestima. Una de las áreas que puede contribuir a este cambio de paradigma es la creación de experiencias en entornos de aprendizaje inmersivos, como el Transmedia Storytelling. Los entornos de aprendizaje inmersivos pueden favorecer la creación y puesta en marcha de proyectos que promuevan las habilidades lectoras en las escuelas. Este es el objetivo de este artículo. El objetivo de este estudio es evaluar el impacto de la narración transmedia en el nivel de motivación de los estudiantes y en la mejora de las prácticas pedagógicas implementadas por los profesores implicados. Este estudio de caso se llevó a cabo en la asignatura de portugués en tres clases de 7º curso de una escuela de la región del Médio Tajo. Los resultados obtenidos sugieren un alto nivel de motivación de estudiantes y profesores. Estos últimos reconocen que las rutas pedagógicas que utilizan el Transmedia Storytelling contribuyen a la motivación, la autonomía y la mejora del aprendizaje de los estudiantes.

Palabras clave:
Narración transmedia
Entornos inmersivos
Educación
Motivación

1. Introduction

Reading has always been associated with successful students and is increasingly crucial to the exercise of active citizenship. However, traditional strategies for promoting reading in school have negative impacts on the motivation of students who are increasingly familiar with the technology and who are looking for digital reading environments available on their mobile devices. The school cannot remain unaware of this reality and must seek to diversify the ways and means of access to reading, taking advantage of the numerous solutions available on mobile devices that, due to their potential, make learning increasingly immersive. Immersion is understood here as "the subjective impression that one is participating in a comprehensive, realistic experience" (Dede, 2019, p. 66).

It is therefore essential to bring the school closer to the daily practices of our students, integrating new educational forms in the classroom, taking advantage of mobile devices and their processing and storage capacity - features that, combined with their portability and multimedia capabilities, make them excellent working tools and unveil enormous opportunities for teaching and learning (Ferreira et al., 2016) providing new immersive learning environments (ILEs).

“As contextualisation in the educational process mediated by technologies is broadened and technological convergence is understood as a cultural transformation that goes beyond the integration of technical devices, it is important to reflect on the implications of this new scenario in education. This is precisely the scenario that opens up the possibility to introduce transmedia narrative in education” (Lima et al., 2015, p. 4).

The creation of reading experiences using transmedia storytelling can contribute significantly to students' motivation as it allows them to explore, create and recreate stories and be part of them, thus transforming the act of reading into an immersive experience that creates senses and encourages the pleasure of reading, thus producing inquisitive and thoughtful readers.

Prensky (2001) refers to young people as "Digital Natives". Current students are native speakers of digital language - the language of technology. The rest of us who were not born in the digital age, but who adopted many of the new technologies later in life, are referred to by the author as "Digital Immigrants”.

“Our students have changed radically. Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach” (Prensky, 2001, p. 1).

According to Prensky (2001), today's young people represent the generations that grew up surrounded by technology, something that was reinforced by Pereira et al. (2018) in the study “Media uses and production practices: case study with teens from Portugal, Spain and Italy” which shows that about 90% of young people had access to television, computers, mobile phones, Internet, game consoles and cameras. Prensky (2001) says that "Digital Immigrants" who speak an old-fashioned language - that of the pre-digital era - are having difficulties teaching young people who speak a new language completely different from their own.

This reality makes it urgent for teachers to prepare themselves to change their teaching methodology. It is necessary to integrate the different media and technologies in a classroom context.

According to Paiva et al. (2002), a school that does not adopt the new technologies may become obsolete, since information technologies should be used as didactic tools for teachers and students.

The term transmedia was first used in 1991 by Kinder in his book Playing with Power in Movies, Television and Video Games: From Muppet Babies to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: “Thus, even before children go to the cinema, they learn that movies make a vital contribution to an ever-expanding supersystem of entertainment, one marked by transmedia intertextuality” (Kinder, n.d.).

But the transmedia storytelling concept was first used in 2003 by Henry Jenkins:

In the ideal form of Transmedia Storytelling, each medium does what it does best-so that a story might be introduced in a film, expanded through television, novels, and comics, and its world might be explored and experienced through game play. Each franchise entry needs to be self-contained enough to enable autonomous consumption. That is, you don’t need to have seen the film to enjoy the game and vice-versa (Jenkins, 2003).

Jenkins says that a story can be told through several platforms and each platform will add new elements to the narrative, that is, what is seen in the film is not the same as what exists in the book or the game. Each of the platforms will contribute to the total construction of the narrative.

Transmedia Storytelling design entails the development of character (interaction and personas), story (narrative and scenarios), worldbuilding (place), and audience (participation and emergent culture). In addition to these elements, in the case of a Transmedia learning experience, it is also necessary to ground a learning framework. Taking into account the goals of a blended learning project, the framework of a specific storyworld must support the construction of knowledge via manipulation of the digital resources scattered through the platforms and integrate interaction triggers that can ultimately lead to an authentic learning experience (Bidarra & Rodrigues, 2018, p. 5).

As an educational resource, transmedia storytelling can contribute to a paradigm shift in schools and to changing the way reading is promoted, favouring innovative pedagogical practices that foster the development of students' reading competence and a love for reading.

Thus, the diversification of strategies in a classroom context is reinforced with technology and the media, which will have implications not only in student motivation, but also in their learning, because they will become producers of knowledge and will have the opportunity to use digital tools and develop their learning in a cooperative way, working in groups, discussing problems and evaluating results.

2. Immersive learning environments

The potential of immersive learning is huge, as Pagano says “The future of technology-enabled learning is immersive. Immersive in the sense that I am "in" the learning experience and I am practicing doing the things that I need to do better” (Pagano, 2013, p. 3). When we talk about reading, and in view of the decrease in the number of readers at middle and high school level, the creation of new reading experiences supported by various channels and the multiplicity of languages is of utmost importance. “The future of technology-enabled learning is mobile, augmented, visual, location-based, kinetic, and story-line driven” (Fleming, 2013b, p. 3).

The creation of educational pathways using transmedia storytelling can be the starting point for the development of new narratives that can contribute significantly to the motivation, autonomy and improvement of students' learning.

A transmedia pedagogy uses technology in an integrated way that allows learners and content to flow seamlessly across media platforms. Education across multiple media allows for great continuity in learning. Every piece of the puzzle works to engage the learner. Transmedia techniques, when responsibly and effectively applied in an educational context, immerse students in their own learning and, as a happy corollary, advance media literacy education for all (Jenkins, 2007, p. 371).

A transmedia narrative does not just give information, it also provides a set of roles and goals that readers can take on by recreating the story through their daily lives, which will bring great advantages to the students and, consequently, to the work of the teachers.

According to Pratten (2015), transmedia storytelling consists in telling a story through several platforms, preferably allowing the involvement of the audience. The aim is for each platform to create a new experience and to increase the enjoyment of the audience, that is, to take users on an emotional journey that goes from moment-to-moment of the narrative and that is the combination of a story and an experience.

According to Jenkins (2007), transmedia storytelling represents a process in which elements of a fiction are systematically dispersed through different distribution channels with the aim of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience where each of these channels makes its contribution to the unfolding of the story. Unlike what happens with crossmedia, which is the reproduction of the same story on different platforms in the same way without adding any new information.

The transmedia approach can have a huge potential when adapted to education, reorienting the focus of the educational process on the student and their perceptions, and placing the teacher as mediator, as a guide to learning. With this approach, the teacher would assume the task of helping the student to collect information, relate it, organise it, manipulate it and discuss it with his colleagues, with the teacher and with other people (inter learning), until he produces a knowledge that is meaningful to him - knowledge that is incorporated into his intellectual and experiential world and that helps him to understand his human and social reality and even to interfere in it (Masetto, 2000, quoted by Falcão, 2011).

Students have the opportunity to use these tools and develop their learning, work in groups, discuss problems and evaluate results, interacting effectively, which can contribute significantly to improving the quality of learning.

Increasingly, young people depend on digital platforms for social interaction. Bringing this paradigm into the classroom can benefit not only students, but also the work of teachers. Students will feel more motivated as they have the opportunity to work with something that accompanies them on a daily basis, and there is also the promotion of mobility, which means that learning does not need to end when the school bell rings. If schools promote greater freedom in the way content is implemented, with resources to various digital platforms that make teaching content available, students can access the activities proposed by teachers anytime and anywhere.

It is also possible to make students content producers by using technology to develop attractive projects, making them more confident and more critical, improving their communication and writing skills.

The traditional teaching method which characterises the Portuguese school is not succeeding in motivating young people, who simply assume the role of mere receptors of information. They need more stimulation, a methodology that can hold their interest.

Before a child starts school, he has already experienced some educational processes, especially those he has learned from his family, but also those he has got to know through digital media. A child learns to inform himself, to feel, to fantasise, to relax when watching/listening to the characters on the TV screen (Moran 2007).

Upon arriving at school, the child can already read complex stories like a soap opera with more than thirty different characters and scenarios. These skills are practically ignored by the school, which at most uses the image and music as support to facilitate the understanding of spoken and written language, but not for their intrinsic value (Moran, 2007, p. 5).

Moran also says that change is needed. It is not possible to teach a class in the same way to different students, to groups with different motivations, it is necessary to adapt the methodology developed in a classroom context, it is necessary to have a participative and interactive educational context. It is not possible to continue teaching students in an authoritarian way, teacher-student communication techniques have to be adapted to current reality.

There has been a resistance to change in current educational methodologies. Teaching models remain practically the same as they were twenty years ago, despite the technological advances that have taken place to date.

Today we force students to go to a place to learn. At certain times that's a non-sense […] Students like online communication, instant search, everything that happens just in time, at that moment. Classrooms need to be equipped with Internet access to quickly show the result of a real-time search in the classroom. Students need more connected labs, especially those who do not have this access at home. For students with Internet access, it is possible to perform part of the distance/connected learning process. And students without this access could do these same activities in the labs (Moran, 2013, p. 2).

Jenkins (2010) defined the seven basic principles of transmedia storytelling presented below:

1-The first principle, potential for sharing versus depth, refers to the way the content can be shared and the spectator's ability to actively engage in the dissemination of the content (Sharing Potential) and Depth, which is the spectator's ability to explore the narrative.

2-The second principle is related to seriality, that is, the narrative is unfolded in various platforms.

3-The third principle, the construction of the universe, refers to those elements that may not be directly related to the main narrative, but that end up providing a more elaborate description of the universe.

4-The fourth principle, subjectivity, is related to the multiplicity of perspectives, that is, the possibility of showing the perspective of secondary characters of the narrative.

5-The fifth principle, immersion versus extraction, refers to the way the spectator enters the universe of the narrative, such as theme parks (immersion) and extraction that is related to the fact that the spectator takes with him objects of the narrative such as miniatures of characters or props.

6-The sixth principle, continuity versus multiplicity, refers to the existence of a continuous coherence in the content (continuity) and the multiplicity that refers to the existence of alternative versions of the characters or parallel universes.

7-Finally, performance and participation, that is, the possibility of the spectator being engaged in the narrative.

A transmedia narrative does not just give information, but ultimately gives the user a set of roles and goals that readers can take on by expanding the story through their daily lives. This is observable with characters, which lead people to create their own narratives about them or even in today's Role Playing Games which lead people to dive into the world of fiction.

Transmedia storytelling not only develops creativity, but helps people to be more critical, to understand in a more detailed way what is presented to them, and to be able to address problems more quickly.

Transmedia storytelling exemplifies learning in the 21st century by merging the concept of storytelling with that of the listener-learner and the resulting emotional engagement with the pervasiveness of media. We might define transmedia learning as: the application of storytelling techniques combined with the use of multiple platforms to create an immersive learning landscape which enables multivarious entry and exit points for learning and teaching (Fleming, 2013a, p. 371).

When applied to education, transmedia storytelling can bring several advantages such as new forms of creative expression where students can work in groups in order to develop work in different platforms, reinforcing the educational methodologies with the use of technology and the media making them producers of their own learning.

By using technology, students can become creators of video, audio or text content so as to complement the techniques currently used in the classroom context, and this can be a very positive supplement to today's education.

The use of platforms such as websites, blogs, television, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Picasa and devices such as the mobile phone, computer and tablet can help educators to develop methodological strategies capable of better meeting the needs of students, precisely because they adapt to their context, promote mobility, allow the production of content and writing on common websites, to be platforms of greater dissemination and also consider the various stages of student learning, their particularities and interests (Porto-Renó, Versuti, Moraes-Gonçalves & Gosciola, 2011, quoted by Branco & Costa, 2013).

The strategies to promote reading used in classrooms must go through these new types of representation characterised by multimodality because digital is increasingly important for achieving the school's mission – that all students should have acquired the 21st-century skills by the time they finish compulsory schooling. In this way, the conditions will be created to promote school as a space of innovation that welcomes and integrates the complexity that characterises our world and that develops in the students the willingness to commit to lifelong learning. “Students no longer want to just listen to the teacher, they want to speak, they want to be heard, they want to be more participative […] it is necessary to allow and encourage them to express themselves during classes” (Santos, 2003, cited by Morales and Alves, 2016, p. 6).

Schools have found it difficult to adapt to this socio-technological condition, since the lives of young people revolve around technology - social networks and mobile phones - and “these practices are very different from those provided for in the curricula and syllabi of educational institutions” (Scolari, 2018, p. 9). “[…] the traditional model of school and education has become outdated, or at least insufficient, to ensure good levels of attention from an audience increasingly digitalised and accustomed to media convergence” (Falcão, 2011).

Falcão (2011) argues that the difficulty of using technologies in an educational context has already been investigated in several studies and that the main difficulty pointed out is not the lack of technology in schools, but the lack of digital literacy of teachers.

Most students feel great resistance in devoting their time to their studies. In fact, using books or notebooks is becoming more and more a reason for discouragement, students prefer the mobile phone or tablet. Faced with this scenario, the educational concept must be able to bring the students' attention back to the classroom and cannot continue with the old-fashioned concept of blackboard and expository classes, it is necessary to introduce digital platforms in classes and look for new ways to integrate devices in the school activities of their students (Cruz, Porto & Benia, 2019).

Students are so involved in the media that the traditional school model no longer draws their attention and prefer to pay attention to what's going on in the world of their cell phones than in class. Instead of taking the platform away from the student, the school should adapt itself to these platforms, drawing their attention and inviting them to interact with it (Cruz, Porto & Benia, 2019, p.5).

3. Description and objectives of the study

This research work aims to describe in detail how transmedia can contribute to increase students' motivation and improve pedagogical practices.

The following objectives have therefore been defined:

-To contribute to the creation of pathways that value student participation and motivate them to learn.

-To contribute to the reinforcement of the role of the student, not only as a consumer, but also as a producer of content.

-To analyse the interest of teachers and students in transmedia narratives.

-To describe the current scenario of schools and check the constraints and limitations in using transmedia storytelling in a classroom context.

This case study involved three 7th-grade classes (a total of 39 students) from a school in the Médio Tejo region and their respective Portuguese teachers.

This research explored the potential of transmedia storytelling when applied in a classroom context. For the implementation of the study, physical and digital resources have been created to support the activities.

The project was implemented in four phases:

-The first phase consisted of handling the printed book and reading QR codes to access excerpts from Disney's film Alice in Wonderland. Students were then asked to identify the characters by chapter.

-The second phase consisted of consulting the e-book with narrative pathways that allowed students to change the sequence of the story without changing its meaning.

-In the third phase the students accessed a website created for the purpose and had the opportunity to play, get information about the author's life and work, access an image gallery of the illustrator John Tenniel, recreate the story with creative writing proposals, access links to websites of interest about the work and listen to a podcast of the story.

-Finally, in the fourth phase, the questionnaires were applied in electronic format.

For the last phase, two types of questionnaire have been created, one closed-ended for students and the other open-ended for teachers. At the end of each session, which took place in Portuguese classes, the students were asked to fill in the questionnaire, which had the purpose of knowing their preferences over the consumption of fictional products.

The second questionnaire (open-ended) was distributed to teachers in order to understand whether teachers would be receptive to the use of transmitted pathways in approaching a literary work through the adaptation of a narrative text with resources to multiple channels in an educational environment. It was also intended to assess the importance and appropriateness of this project to the discipline of Portuguese.

4. Methodology

The aim of this work is to contribute to research on the educational potential of the use of transmedia pathways in an educational context, thus filling a large gap in the study of this subject in Portugal.

This research explored the potential of transmedia storytelling when applied in a classroom context in 7th-grade classes based on the study of an independent reading work - Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

For the application in classroom context, physical and digital resources were created to support the activities promoted during the classes.

These resources included:

1. A book containing the story of Alice in Wonderland with a QR code per chapter, which gave access to an excerpt of Alice's Disney film that corresponded to the text.

2. A website on the Wordpress platform (created by the researcher and available at https://transmediapt.wordpress.com), which provided various resources for students and teachers, including the ebook, educational games about the story and creative writing proposals.

For the last phase, two types of questionnaires were created, one for students and the other for teachers. Students were asked to fill in their questionnaire, which was intended to find out their preferences over the consumption of fictional products. The questionnaire had 7 questions, with students answering on a Likert scale, and was designed taking into account the seven basic principles of transmedia storytelling defined by Jenkins (2010):

1. Sharing Potential x Depth.

2. Seriality.

3. Universe-building.

4. Subjectivity.

5. Immersion x Extraction.

6. Continuity x Multiplicity.

7. Performance and Participation.

The second questionnaire, distributed to teachers in the classes where the study was applied, aimed to understand how receptive teachers are to the adequacy of a narrative work with resources to multiple channels in an educational environment.

The questionnaires were prepared taking into account the suitability of a narrative work for an educational environment, as mentioned by Kalogeras, 2014 (quoted by Rodrigues & Bidarra, 2016, p. 59).

“The learning framework takes into account the following set of questions to assess the appropriateness of a narrative work for an educational setting, in this case, in reference to an e-module” (Kalogeras, 2014, p. 178):

1. Can the story be integrated into an existing curriculum?

2. Is the story engaging, and can it help make learning more effective?

3. Does the story contain subject matter that is relevant to the module?

4. Do the hyperlinks found in the story provide valuable information in keeping with learning objectives and outcomes?

5. Can additional learning extensions be created by subject-matter experts/producers?

6. Can the students create stories extensions via digital stories to provide educational value?

The study took place in a School Grouping from the Médio Tejo region. The choice of the school where the study was applied was based on two main criteria: the location, which was favourable to the researcher because it was close to her place of work, and her degree of innovation, since she is one of the few Groupings at national level that implemented the Pilot Project on Pedagogical Innovation.

The choice of the 7th grade was due to the fact that the work “Alice in Wonderland" is one of the works proposed for this level of education for independent reading. The choice of teachers was based on the subjects where this study could be applied. Since this is a literary work, it made sense for it to be applied to Portuguese subjects.

5. Study results

The study took place in the third term of the school year 2018/2019 and included 3 sessions. During the sessions, it was possible to observe how the students interacted with the material provided. At the beginning of the session, the class was divided into groups, the printed book was distributed, and a chapter of the story was given to each group. The book had a QR code per chapter and as students scanned the code, they had the opportunity to view an excerpt of "Alice in Wonderland" which corresponded to the text they were reading.

The integration of the technology into the traditional media went quite smoothly and it could even be said that it was a success, as the students read their chapters using the technology without any difficulty. The students then used the tablet to access the digital tool Mentimeter, which allowed the creation of a word cloud, as they were asked to write down the names of all the characters, they found in the chapter they were reading, in order to create a moment of discussion in a large group. They were then asked to read the ebook. At this point it was remarkable, in all the sessions, the students' willingness to read the story, the room was silent, and the students read the story quite calmly. After reading the ebook, the students had the opportunity to access the website and test the educational games that were created for the activity on the story (developed on the Educaplay platform), a tool that combined a moment of teaching with leisure.

The feedback from students and teachers was unanimous on the impact that transmedia narratives can play in motivating students. All were satisfied and even asked to repeat classes with the literary works they were currently working on in Portuguese, a request reinforced by the teachers, who commented that it was with this type of projects that one could reach the students, because they ended up feeling more motivated when using tablets and computers.

When asked "Is this story captivating? And can it make learning more effective?", the teachers’ answered in a very positive way, one of the answers was "Yes. The students are more interested and participatory.

It should be noted that in the first question from the students' questionnaire, "I try, in the different media (traditional and digital), to deepen my knowledge about my favourite books" it was found that 87.2% of the students agree or fully agree. Using the media, students try to deepen their knowledge about their favourite books.

In the second question from the students' questionnaire, "I like linear narratives - with beginning, middle and end - even when the stories are told through different media", it was found that 77% of the students answered ‘agree’ or ‘fully agree’, which shows that students like to read a narrative using different platforms. After the implementation of the project, it was found that the students naturally changed the platform of the narrative, using all the tools with extreme ease.

In the third question from the students' questionnaire, “I like stories that have alternative versions of the characters and their universes, offering new perspectives”, 92.3% of responses range from ‘agree’ to ‘fully agree’. Students find it quite interesting to know more about certain characters or even the universes of the stories.

In the question “I like to get different perspectives of a fiction story through secondary characters or through websites or books”, 84.7% of students agree or fully agree with the statement. Students like to explore more about their favourite stories, having mentioned that they like to know more about the characters.

In the end, students participated in a creative writing activity using the tablet to create a text related to the story, always showing themselves to be very receptive. The proposals were related to the initial chapter they had read. The interaction of the groups was very interesting to observe, the students worked in harmony and always showed interest.

The answers to the question “Can students create extensions of the story to give additional educational value?” were all positive, but one of the answers was "Yes, they can use fantasy to create new situations" (Teacher 1).

In question number 4 on the students' questionnaire, “I like to share, on social networks, content related to my favourite fiction content”, the answers were dispersed. 25.6% of respondents replied that they did not agree with the statement and 74.4% agreed. This phenomenon may be due to the sort of sharing students like to make in their social networks. According to Sampaio (2018), young people use their mobile phones to communicate with colleagues and friends and also to access social networks.

In question number 5 on the students' questionnaire, “I like to buy items of my favourite stories such as miniatures of characters, props and costumes and merchandising (pens, posters, etc.)”, 84.7% of the respondents replied that they agreed with the statement. When asked about this type of purchase, some students mentioned that they usually buy miniatures of the characters from their favourite stories.

In the question “I value fiction content (books, series or films) that allows me to participate in the narrative”, 89.8% of students agreed with the statement. This type of interaction with the public brings numerous advantages, namely the fact that it is possible to interact with the narrative thus motivating the students through interactivity.

The questionnaires show that there is a great deal of receptivity on the part of the students with regard to the implementation of transmedia narratives in an educational context. The data obtained suggest a desire to know more about their favourite stories, so that there is greater knowledge about characters and universes of the stories.

In the sessions it was possible to observe some constraints regarding the use of the Internet, as not all students were able to view the excerpts from the film by photographing the QR code and it was necessary to go through the groups with the mobile phone and use the mobile data to read.

6. Conclusions

The data obtained in this study indicate the great potential of the use of Transmedia routes in the context of reading. In fact, as stated by Pratten (2015), transmedia storytelling consists in telling a story through several platforms, preferably allowing the participation of the audience. The aim is for each platform to create a new experience and increase the enjoyment of the audience, i.e., to take users on an emotional journey that goes from moment to moment and is the combination of a story and an experience. And it was this combination of different experiences, using different media that aroused the interest and commitment of the students involved in this study.

Complementing the existing methodology with the integration of transmedia narratives may bring numerous advantages. This was visible throughout the sessions, especially when students were reading the story in the printed book and used the tablet to read the QR codes. Teachers also recognised that by using these tools students felt more motivated and interested in what they were reading.

Schools may not be prepared to use these resources because not all schools are equipped with enough computers and/or tablets. In the case of the school where the study was carried out, it was found that the Internet was insufficient for regular browsing, for students to be able to access the researcher's website, a situation that should be taken into account when implementing projects of this nature.

Despite the constraints, education on various platforms can allow for continuity in young people's learning. We are at a time when digital content is increasingly important, and the educational methodology needs to be improved in order to include technology in an educational context.

Moran (2000) argues that students have the possibility to use these tools in order to develop their cooperative learning, interacting effectively, which can contribute significantly to improving the quality of learning. The creation of transmedia pathways not only develops students' creativity, but also helps them to be more critical, to understand in a more detailed way what is presented to them and to be able to address problems more quickly.

In view of the results obtained and taking into account the opinion of students and teachers, which was very satisfactory, it is intended in future research to extend the scope of action to other years of schooling and possibly to other schools, in order to assess the impact of the use of transmedia learning contexts on learning and on changing practices in schools.

References

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