We've just launched a partnership on Planet with interactive digital novel Inanimate Alice, a really cool tool for 21st century learning! You can find out more in the news story Inanimate Alice Lands on Planet.

Laura Fleming has been using Inanimate Alice with students for some time and has written the following article to help Planet members integrate it into their lessons.

Getting the Most out of Inanimate Alice – Laura Fleming


"It's not about what happens on the board. It's about what happens because of what happens on the board."
(Australian Educator Chris Betcher)

Want to get the most out of your Inanimate Alice experience? Then check out these useful tips to get you started.

I am a School Library Media Specialist working in an elementary school in New Jersey. I have been teaching for 14 years. During that time, I have also been a classroom teacher and a librarian in grades K–8. Over the years I have spent a lot of my time supporting staff and training them in the effective use of educational technologies within their classrooms.

My most transformational moment as a teacher occurred when my students and I experienced Inanimate Alice. It was that experience that led me to want to help others have the same revelatory journey that I did. As a result, I have compiled a list of suggestions to help you get the most out of your Inanimate Alice experience. Each of these tips can be used as starters or as plenary tasks.

  • By design, Inanimate Alice is a digital story that interacts with readers in new and exciting ways. With my own classes, the infusion of the interactive whiteboard immersed my students even deeper into the story. For students to get the most from their Inanimate Alice experience, I found that, as the teacher, I was most effective as the facilitator of student learning and the guide through the story.
  • Prior to viewing episode one, I immersed my students in "digital story" as a genre by taking time to view and discuss Alice's homepage. We previewed the text and pointed out the elements of story. I used the spotlight tool to focus my students' attention on just the screenshots of each episode. My students drew upon their knowledge of traditional fictional chapter books, and determined that the episodes were similar to chapters.

  • Also prior to viewing episode one, a brief introduction was given as to how to read the story. Students were told that they were going to get the chance to come up to the whiteboard and with the touch of their finger/pen, they were going to help the story unfold. Right away I could feel the excitement in the room!

  • Next, to stimulate my students' curiosity and to further pique their interest, I guided them through a "picture walk" of the episode. We navigated through the story one time without sound and without reading the words. Using the Magic Reveal tool, students viewed just the illustrations and made predictions about the plot. We predicted who Alice is as a character and recorded our thoughts into a t-chart on our whiteboard.
  • Following our picture walk, we viewed the episode with the sound on the whiteboard speakers. During the viewing, many students had a turn to come up to the whiteboard to participate in advancing the narrative by interacting with games and puzzles. They told me they would never forget the shivers down their spine they felt at the end of the episode.
  • After viewing the episode, we discussed how the element of sound contributed to the tone of the story and how it helped them learn about Alice as a character. We recorded our determinations onto the t-chart on our whiteboard that we began to fill in during our picture walk. This allowed us to easily compare and contrast our ideas.
  • Following the story, I taught a series of mini-lessons to my students. This was done effectively by using screenshots of the series to help us focus on specific scenes or events from the story. For one such mini-lesson, we focused on the scene in episode one in which Alice was looking out the Jeep window. We discussed how we could tell Alice's emotions from that scene and how it was a metaphor for how she felt about not being able to find her father. My students then chose one scene from their own personal narratives and we rethought them in terms of a digital story. Students drew that scene from a first person point of view, decided on the music and the sounds that would be playing during the scene, and then described what this scene tells us about themselves as a character in their story.

After our journey through episode one, and with the inclusion of our whiteboard, I felt my students truly understood how to read a digital novel and were connected to Alice as a character. In the words of one of my students:

"We have always been told that when we read, we should walk in the shoes of the main character and make movies in our minds as we read. I can honestly say that I didn't understand that until Inanimate Alice."

For even more immersion into and interaction with Alice, please visit the Inanimate Alice User Group and Inanimate Alice partner page on Promethean Planet. Here, you will find many helpful resources, including a flipchart that includes the use of ActivExpression devices. The ideas and lesson plans will further guide you in using the interactive whiteboard to enhance the Inanimate Alice experience.

References

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