Leading Investigator: Teresa Colomer

Other investigadors: Brenda Bellorín, Martina Fittipaldi, Mireia Manresa, Ana María Margallo, Neus Real, Lara Reyes, Núria Vilà.

Duration period: 2012-2014.

Endowment of a scholarship FIP

Project funding from Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación: 93.654,00€

Project description:

This project aims to explore possible effects of digital literature in literary education, an aspect that it has not been so far considered, for researchers. Therefore, the project starts, firstly, with the research on multimodal story as a new kind of fiction that incorporates digital resources and encourages new ways of reading and texts interpretation. Secondly, as the project wants to determine readers uses and skills required by children and youth digital storytelling, we will have to explore the use of new technologies for teaching literary reading in the classroom. Thus, the objectives of the research are divided in those relating to the text, to the readers and to teaching strategies.

For the objectives related to the text, the project aims to establish the types of digital fiction for children and young people developed so far in the domestic and international markets. Moreover, we will try to analyse the relationship between digital literature and nowadays literature directed to children and adolescents, paying attention to visual resources (picture books), oral (audiovisual, audio books, or books that involve the orality) and, specially, interactive (pop-up books, games, etc). These comparisons will be based on the innovation produced in various constituent elements of the narrative and the expansion of the interactive space that represent the new formats.

For the reader related objectives, the project aims to explore the differences between the reception of printed works, digitalised works and digital works, specially in terms of motivation, understanding, interpretation, metaliterary and metafictional competence of children and young readers in free or guided reading situations. The objective is to see if digital works generates an enriched reading experience and understanding by interplaying content and collaboration.

Regarding educational purposes, the project aims to observe the response to this new educational challenge produced by the didactic reflection and literary practices in the classroom. We will also observe how the new digital production might cause an effect in active forms at school work( autonomous and cooperative), and we will also observe if they contribute to enhance the educational forms that have been proved more appropriate for reading and literary education. We will also consider the reading advantages and limitations observed in the current use of new technologies in the school context.

The results of the project have to define new teaching proposals to integrate existing digital production and the use of technology in classrooms to develop effective school literary education.