Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

12.22.10 | We’ve written several posts recently about the future of the book, using transmedia storytelling in the classroom, and young teens using the web as a place to connect around literary content.

As NPR reports, children’s book publishers are working to take advantage of these trends with new multiplatform books that extend readers’ experiences beyond the printed page and into online games, interactive websites and even video.

Theses new efforts to combine old fashioned creativity with new technology are enticing young readers, especially those who in the past may have been much more likely to be found playing Wii than curled up with a novel.

In stories that involve historical figures such as Mozart, Benjamin Franklin and Amelia Earhart, readers of the popular scholastic series “39 Clues” must search for clues in the books and in a pack of cards included with each book, and by taking part in online missions that require them to talk with characters and solve puzzles.

Momi Garcia, who teaches at the Vista del Valle Elementary School in Claremont, Calif., told NPR that the books attracted kids in her school who weren’t usually inclined to read.

Though initially attracted by the cards and online missions, Garcia told her students, “You can’t do one without the other; you have to read the book to be able to understand what is going on in the Internet, and vice versa. They have to work together.”

One of the most interesting parts of this trend is that publishers are working to let young readers drive content and create the fiction they love to read.

Fourth Story Media, a company whose tagline is “we invite kids to participate in the stories they read,” is experimenting with this in “The Amanda Project”, a series of mystery novels and a companion website developed in partnership with HarperTeen publishers.

Teen girls can stay connected to the books on the series’ web page, where they can also create their own characters, and share their own series-inspired stories and art – all of which then provides material authors can draw from for future installments.

Watch more in the video below:

Plus, Picture Books Go Digital, Too: Publishers are also working to take advantage of the popularity of devices like Apple’s iPad and the Nook Color and their ability to display color illustrations in ways that the first-generation e-readers were not able to do.

The New York Times reports on a push to make popular children’s picture books available at Apple’s iBookstore, including such favorites as “Amelia Bedelia” and the “Olivia” series.

“It finally gives us the opportunity to have our picture books join the e-book revolution,” Jon Anderson, the publisher of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, told the Times.