Convergence Culture's Impact on Learning and Entertainment

Brazilian high school hosts event on Transmedia Storytelling on August 22nd. 
Heroes and Smallville's associate producer Mark Warshaw will speak and the 
event will be live streamed.

Imagine a high school where students are not only allowed to use computers 
and gadgets but encouraged to learn to create software, electronic games, 
videos and programs for digital television, cell phones and the internet. 
Such a school is a reality in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and it's called NAVE 
(Ncleo Avanado em Educao - Advanced Education Center). NAVE is a 
public school that was adopted by Oi, one of the biggest telecom companies in 
the country. "I am very impressed with NAVE. They make a strong effort to 
integrate technology into education, a truly exceptional piece of work. It 
beats schools I've seen in the US." said Microsoft researcher Johnny Chung 
Lee during his visit to NAVE last year.

On August 22, NAVE will host Descolagem (read full description below), one of 
a series of events that brings together students, professionals and guest 
speakers to discuss technology-related themes. In this issue of Descolagem, 
Mark Warshaw, Geoffrey Long and Maurcio Mota will discuss the impact of the 
culture of convergence on education and entertainment.

Instead of just explaining the concept of Transmedia Storytelling, pioneered 
at MIT, the speakers will guide the audience through a true transmedia 
experience. The event will be livestreamed, and both the live and the online 
audiences will participate on an interactive SMS game.

On the same day, there will be the release of the Descolagem App, an 
application about the project that will be available for free on iTunes. This 
app has more resources than apps related to other technology events, such as 
TED (TED.com), and was developed by the startup Bitix.

All participants in the live event will be entered a prize drawing for a 
"dPod": a customized Apple iPod Touch loaded with text, videos and images 
generated during previous editions of Descolagem and, of course, with the 
Descolagem App.

Curator Beto Largman hopes the event's format will prove that transmedia 
storytelling is a resource storytellers, game designers and educators can use 
to develop strategies to reach out to their audiences and spread content in a 
unique way: using the best features of every platform but never forgetting 
the importance of a good story. Mass audiences are more and more willing to 
be engaged through different media, such as games, internet and the "old" 
media, both for learning and entertainment purposes.

The livestream will be available on Saturday, August 22nd, 11am PDT/2pm EDT, 
with Portuguese and English audio channels at http://nave.oi.com.br/webtv.

Speakers:

Mark Warshaw>>
Mark Warshaw is a writer, producer and director who produces interactive 
content, working on the edge between old and new media. His degree is in 
Journalism and Mass Media, and he has developed seven webseries. He joined 
Heroes in 2006 to help launch the series' transmedia department, which 
ultimately brought the "Outstanding Interactive Programming" Emmy to the 
Heroes Evolutions channel. Mark is also a graphic novel writer. Prior to 
joining Heroes, Warshaw spent six years on the TV show Smallville, overseeing 
all of its digital, DVD and integrated advertiser marketing initiatives. 
Recently, he has been involved in the first open-source television show 
Imagine This! (imaginethistv.com), a project that aims to bring people 
together to promote sustainability and the environment.

Geoffrey Long>> www.geoffreylong.com
Geoffrey Long is a media analyst, scholar, and creative consultant. He is 
currently a researcher and Communications Director for the Singapore-MIT 
GAMBIT Game Lab, a research project of the Comparative Media Studies program 
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also a writer, designer, 
musician, artist, filmmaker, and shameless media addict. His professional 
career includes a decade-long run as the editor-in-chief of the literature, 
culture and technology magazine Inkblots and co-founding the software 
collective Untyped, the film troupe Tohubohu Productions, and the creative 
consulting company Dreamsbay. Geoffrey is a frequent lecturer on narratives 
in different media, particularly transmedia storytelling, and his own 
storytelling has appeared in Polaris, Gothik, Hika and {fray}.

Maurcio Mota>>
Maurcio started his career as an entrepreneur at age 15, when he and writer 
Sonia Rodrigues developed a platform to transform stories into games and 
software. In two years it was applied in over 4,000 schools, sold in stores 
all over the country and is being used as an innovation and creativity tool 
by companies and institutions including the United Nations, Kraft Foods, Coke 
and local companies such as TV networks, studios, carriers and internet 
portals. Maurcio was the first Latin American to speak at MIT's Futures of 
Entertainment conference. He was judge at the Festival of Media in Valencia 
(Spain) and is part of the international board for the Medici Institute. For 
the past five years he has been involved in innovative projects for several 
clients, allying convergence to content development. He also launched the 
Portuguese version of Henry Jenkins' Convergence Culture: Where New and Old 
Media Collide.

Beto Largman>> www.feiramoderna.blog.br
Beto writes the blog Feira Moderna, for Globo Online. As a journalist 
specialized in technology, internet and design, he has managed several 
projects involving electronic media, art and culture; participated in various 
radio and tv shows; and edited magazines. He writes for weekly magazines and 
is a blogger for the portal Mundo Oi. Due to the success of his spot on the 
program "Qual a boa?" on Multishow, he was invited to narrate the show 
about games "Cybernet", on the same channel.

DESCOLAGEM
Descolagem is a partnership between journalist/blogger Beto Largman and Oi 
Futuro that aims to debate the impact of new technologies on the production 
and sharing of knowledge and information. A Descolagem event can be a talk, 
round table, movie, performance, workshop, course or whichever format is 
useful for the subject. Descolagem happens at NAVE, and intends to be a test 
tube to try new formats of interaction in a learning environment. Anyone can 
participate, because social networks such as Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and 
blogs are shown on screens around the room. The event can also be followed 
live online, through live streaming video. All content generated during 
Descolagem (videos, posts, presentations) is available online after the 
meetings, so the project generates research material that can be used by NAVE 
friends and the general public.

NAVE (ADVANCED EDUCATION CENTER) >> http://nave.oi.com.br/
NAVE is a partnership signed in October 2007 between the Brazilian 
telecommunications company Oi and the State Department of Education in Rio de 
Janeiro. It is a public school housed in an old telephone exchange building, 
an innovative space where high school students are trained for professions of 
the contemporary world: multimedia programming, image, audio, games and web 
scripts, content for digital television and IPTV. This program is part of the 
Digital Culture and Games Factory. A similar project began in Recife in 2006. 
The students at Ccero Dias Center of Experimental Education learn to create 
software, electronic games, videos and programs for digital television, 
mobile phones and the internet. NAVE wishes to transform high school into a 
more amusing and joyful step of students lives. More information and news 
can be found (in Portuguese) at NAVEs website.