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Blog/James Sigler
Hypertext stories as MMORPGs
I just learned about a new form of storytelling call Hypertext. I participated in a very intriguing discussion with Eastgate’s Mark Bernstean and Hypertextopia’s developer Jeremy Ashkenas on Teachers Teaching Teachers. Hypertext is a hyperlinked fiction story, that I find to be an interesting example of non-linear narrative. Stories, illustrations, sidetrips, websites, and videos are all linked off from a central, axial story. The hyperlinks takes the digital story to a new level of connections what cannot be done on paper. Elegantly rendered connections are represented as an interactive graphic organizer. . . kind of a semantic web narrative.
A review on the blog if:book thought the Hypertextopia looked great, but still boring. I tend to agree. It’s 21st century paint on a 20th century idea, Choose Your Own Adventure (personally, I loved CYOA books as a boy, plus they’re the only books I know written in 2nd person). However unlike blogs, I did not find the Hypertexts enthralling.
However, I think the structure has merit in another context: 3D simulations and games. I have tried virtual simulations like Second Life and Edusim 
I have also tested out several Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games including the hugely popular World of Warcraft. I am really like the non-linear storytelling in the games. You must talk to non-player characters in the game in order to get information on stories, start a quest, or complete a task. There are overaching goals and plots for storylines, but various stories overlap and branch out into new stories.
The complex overlap and tangents of stories creates a rich storytelling environment that can spur higher level thinking in an educational context. What is the students could participate in and then write their own stories with the characters in the virtual enviroment. You can create buildings and objects in simulations, and students could collaborate in create the virtual world.
But what if students could create a story by “teaching”(programming) the characters specific responses when an someone asks them about a certain topic. The character tells the student who to talk to next, where to go next, or what object to pick up next.
For example, students could be caught up in a mystery and must collect clues by visiting rooms in the house, talking to suspects, and examining objects.
Using Hypertextopia’s semantic web story map, the students could plan the story and then create the mystery within a MMOG environment. It would require an easy programming interface for student created content.
It’s not there yet. School 3.D is still in the future. School 2.0 is here. We need to use it well, so that when the future is ready, we will be, too.
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I was able to move my little rabbit avatar very easily around the environment.I could create, move, and resize 3D shapes, but I couldn’t change the colors or textures of the shapes. I could also add light sources and portals to other worlds. I could even browse the web in a Firefox window. It was slow, but cool.Lessons could be downloaded as prebuilt environments.I tried out the moon base enviroment. It looked neat, but I would have liked to create more structures that matched the ones there.
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