2.1. Transmedia and Transmedia Learning
The first usage of the term transmedia, as we understand it here, can be found in the reflections of Henry Jenkins from the 1990s onwards, born within the context of fan culture and the emergence of a media cultural phenomena in which consumers change into participants in processes that are highly mediated by technology. All this flow gives rise to the concepts of media convergence and participatory culture (
Jenkins 2006); the former points to a context of overlapping and alternating digital media, neither linear nor pre-established, but multi-branched and varied; the latter, to the possibility for users to intervene in digital creation (thanks to the popularization of devices and the development of Web 2.0), which translates into processes of contribution, creation and dissemination of content and, consequently, into users’ cultural practices (precisely with the converging media available to them). On the one hand, individuals go from being consumers to creators, and this creation is produced in a communal, not individual way (although with personal, not predefined paths) and on the other hand, cultural phenomena are conveyed in different media (so that the person who participates must be able to navigate between them, and in several of them, to be able to follow the flows of creation in which they participate and which they feed and not only consume).
Starting from this reference, in the educational field there are different approaches to transmedia, in which the axis is always a story or a narrative, which is developed through different media and with different participants. Therefore, sometimes a product is evoked that is transmedia because in it the sequentiality of the media is a core element, and of which the 2.0 version of the Cinderella story (Cinderella 2.0. Transmedia storytelling) can be an exemplary version (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP-zOCl5md0, last accessed on 4 May 2021) (
Chung 2014;
Fleming 2013). It can also be a set of skills (knowledge and skills already acquired or to be developed) that the subject must mobilise across media in order to be able to contribute to the advancement of the story (for instance, looking for new information in the Internet, and elaborating on some materials to be part of a common digital project, also in the cloud), thereby participating in the shared and collective creative process (
Benedict et al. 2013;
Wiklund-Engblom et al. 2013). Alternatively, and this is what interests us most now, it can be a learning strategy (with a didactic approach of storytelling or not), in which the learner must develop a narrative or story with different educational objectives and in which, among others, they must mobilize in an integrated way the competences already acquired (writing, painting, looking for information) or develop new ones (content curation, dissemination, some digital development) (
Benedict et al. 2013;
Dickinson-Delaporte et al. 2020).
In this sense, as with the notion of transmedia itself, we cannot find a single definition of transmedia learning either. Broadly speaking, transmedia learning rests on two pillars:
Jenkins’s (
2006) ideas of participatory culture and media convergence, which provide the cultural framework; and the key ideas of Vygotskian socioconstructivism (
Biggs 1996;
Shepard 2006) and
Siemens’s (
2006) connectivism, which provide the pedagogical framework. With all this, we can propose learning experiences motivated by the need for the person to develop a story, with the resources available and preferred (analogue and digital, together or alternated; in some cases, videos, or podcasts, or text in a blog, or even more classical materials, developed on paper or in a face-to-face meeting) and in a community context (with their learning peers), in which there is no other way of proceeding (and learning) than collaborating with them for reaching a common goal. These are not small elements, no doubt, but neither are they unimportant. Although it is not a new conception of learning, and although as a didactic model it is lax because it is indeterminate, it does imply a novel and potentially interesting way of approaching learning. Apart from these premises, or rather to finish expanding on them, the literature identifies more elements: connections with enactivism (
Campalans 2015), ludic elements (
Barreneche et al. 2018), a link with foreign language learning (
Rodrigues and Bidarra 2015,
2019). As an opportunity (but also as a limitation), transmedia learning is permeable and under construction in terms of the contexts in which it develops, namely, within the school, but also outside it (with direct relation to what happens in the classroom, as a complement to it; independently of the school), with various agents involved (families, educators in the informal sphere), and all educational levels (from early childhood education to university studies or professional military training). It shares, then, a common root (media convergence, collaboration, narrative), but assumes to a certain extent the characteristics of the context in which it occurs (
Amador 2013). They are, therefore, processes of media convergence that encourage the active participation of users, considered (pro)sumers (creators and consumers) of the story, narrative or cultural content, who are moved by a particular interest or passion and move through the different media platforms to contribute to that story (
Raybourn 2014;
Raybourn et al. 2019).
In particular, the opportunities of transmedia learning arise precisely from its ability to concretize pedagogical principles. These are not always easy to articulate (constructivism, connectivism) in motivating experiences (engagement), nor customizable (the narrative allows layers, ramifications, recurring points of connection), coherent (with the digital context we live in but also free of pressure from specific technologies and compatible with the analogical, from which we must not flee), or finally, proposals that make it possible to leap the limits of formal learning (in the broad sense) and of educational institutions (in particular), which is particularly interesting in relation to the need to update the school in Italy (
Buonauro and Domenici 2020), and throughout the world.
2.2. Media Education, Digital Competence and Transmedia Literacy
Before considering the details of transmedia learning proposals, we must consider the nature of the subject who learns (in any context). As we have said, an important part of these reflections, when situated in the educational sphere, focuses on the conditions (characteristics, knowledge, skills, attitudes) of the subject who participates in transmedia experiences (
Alper 2013a;
Anderson 2014). In fact, it is something very close to the concept we talked about before, a kind of transmedia literacy, which allows the subject to participate actively and productively in the participatory and convergent culture that
Jenkins (
2006) talked about, and which is also yet to be defined and contextualized within the general panorama of digital skills.
Up to a point, it seems clear that participation in all areas of the Knowledge Society in the 21st century requires the mobilisation of different digital literacies (
van Dijk 2017), as media education has been responsible for highlighting in the context of the varied and wide-ranging reflections on digital competence–one of the key competences of citizenship in our time (
Sánchez-Caballé et al. 2020). The different forms that the digital divide can take undoubtedly threaten the empowerment of the students we serve in the education system of the Western world (physical gaps in access, competence and use, according to
van Dijk 2017), especially in a society characterised by media convergence and participatory culture (
Jenkins 2006), in which participation means not only consuming, but also actively producing, contributing to a media and multidirectional cultural flow in which it is not only necessary to know how to read digital content, but also how to write, navigate and jump between these contents and formats. Education systems, such as those in Italy and Spain, for example, have essentially taken on two main strategic lines to meet this challenge: making children and adolescents literate (enabling them to develop the necessary levels of digital skills) and digitising schools (providing them with technological resources and training teachers to introduce technologies into the teaching–learning processes (
Gremigni 2019;
Ugolini 2016); however, digital divides continue to exist, partly because of their diversity, heterogeneity and the multiplicity of forms they take (
van Dijk 2017). Among them, we must consider specially the digital gender divide (
Clark and Gorski 2002), which not only has repercussions on the low rates of female vocations in the scientific–technological field, but also perpetuates the differences between women and men, from childhood onwards, including in terms of how they feel capable and skilled in the technological field or how we use technology for our personal and professional purposes.
At this point, for the sake of economy of space, we refrain from a wide-ranging reflection on the nature of the new citizens in the coordinates of the Knowledge Society, as interesting as it may be. For the same reason, we do not develop the interesting field of media literacy (
Livingstone 2004;
Pérez Cervi et al. 2010), where the new media literacies approach comes from, since our reflection focuses more on that part of digital literacies that link with transmedia learning (as we will see in the next section). In this sense, the literature has already abounded in the difference between the relationships that young subjects have with technology in their personal and academic spheres (
Bullen et al. 2011;
Gallardo Echenique 2012); and some literature is also beginning to be found on the differences when learning is formal or informal (
Cappello 2019;
Scarcelli and Riva 2016); however, it is necessary to define minimally what we mean by digital competence and what is different about this from transliteracy. In this sense, if we start from the concept of media literacy, we will understand in the Italian context the ability to use digital media and languages (
Buonauro and Domenici 2020), to which is added, in a presidential way, the need to increase the skills of analysis, evaluation and critical reflection (
Ranieri 2019). In the background, we can recognize an important myriad of reference frameworks and concepts of digital skills not always well aligned (
Sánchez-Caballé et al. 2020).
In accordance with the above and considering the infinite number of approaches and definitions that have been made on the concept of digital competence (DC), a good starting point to understand the evolution of this competence is the year 2006, when the European
Commission (
2006) listed it among a group of key competences essential for lifelong learning. At that time, DC was understood as the confident and critical use of information society technologies in various areas of citizens’ daily lives (in work, leisure and communication). In 2018, the same organization went a step further and considered this competence as one of the essential ones for any citizen of the 21st century; however, at this point the question is: what is necessary to be a digitally competent citizen?
Obviously, this is a question that can be solved in many ways, given that there are countless frameworks and models that seek to answer it and, obviously, the references chosen may vary slightly. If we follow the DigComp model, which is currently in its 2.1 version and is one of the most recognized at the European level, a digitally competent citizen is one who has technical cognitive and application skills in relation to digital technologies. More specifically, he or she has such skills in relation to: (1) information and data literacy; (2) communication; (3) content creation and development; (4) device security and safety; and (5) technical troubleshooting.
Nevertheless, beyond these conceptions, if we consider that this new media ecology generates new ways of learning, we should also consider that there is a special competence, or set of skills necessary to successfully transit between these media platforms and, at the same time, follow the thread of the construction of the story, a transmedia literacy (transmedia literacy, or transliteracy) (
Alper 2013b;
Fraiberg 2017;
González-Martínez et al. 2018;
Kline 2010), the components of which are yet to be developed.
Again, although quite a few years have passed since the first documented use of the term transmedia literacy (
Kline 2010), neither do we find a canonical definition of the concept nor, as derived from the above, can we expect logical operationalization in the form of relevant characteristics (
González-Martínez et al. 2018); however, some skills involved in the new demands of teaching and learning in the 21st century have been identified. In that sense, within the new media literacies approach, different important skills are identified to live the new digital cultural coordinates: transmedia navigation, game, performance, simulation, appropriation, multitasking, distributed cognition, collective intelligence, judgment, transmedia navigation, networking and negotiation (
Jenkins et al. 2009). Beyond this enumeration, no prioritization is offered among them, nor is their special incidence from an educational perspective explored in depth. Therefore, we take as a reference the contribution of
González-Martínez et al. (
2018), who reviews the literature and identifies particularly important elements, such as transmedia navigation, the leap from simple consumption to the alternation between media consumption and production, the necessary collaboration and interaction between peers and finally, the critical ability to analyse and evaluate information.
2.3. Transmedia Learning, (Possible) Bridge between Two Worlds
In recent years, part of the educational literature on ICT has devoted considerable effort to highlighting and decrying the gap between the literacy and informal learning practices of adolescents and young people (e.g., video games, social networks, fan groups), and the formal learning processes within the school as an institution (
Bender and Peppler 2019;
Esteban-Guitart 2016;
Gee and Esteban-Guitart 2019;
Jenkins et al. 2009). This gap tells us partially how young people learn (in many cases via digital devices) in situations where they are the ones who decide what to learn and why to learn it (
Esteban-Guitart 2016;
Pereira and Pedro 2019), and those in which it is the teacher who formulates the learning proposal with a much more institutionalized vision (
Buonauro and Domenici 2020), which does not necessarily manage to translate their efforts into meaningful learning (
Esteban-Guitart 2016).
In any case, schools must prepare for life and, therefore, for the exercise of digital citizenship (
Fabiano 2020), in line with the European recommendations we mentioned in the introduction. It is therefore important to start from the digital (and transmedia) skills of Italian students, especially if we consider that transmedia learning can be an opportunity to effectively address some of the challenges ahead. In that sense, the digital profile we have of Italian teenagers is diffuse: they are the most constantly connected population cohort, with a complex and not necessarily uniform variety of digital consumption (
Gremigni 2019), which does not always translate into a greater capacity or an advantage from the point of view of social participation. In addition, we find an entrenchment between the personal, family and school worlds (and flows), the latter two of which, as far as the digital is concerned, are vertical (from parents and teachers to adolescents) and unidirectional (not from adolescents to their adults); as opposed to the personal and technological worlds, which develop between peers (
Scarcelli and Riva 2016).
On the other hand, from an inclusive education perspective, schools face the challenge of proposing learning experiences aligned with the principles of universal design for learning (
Alba Pastor 2016;
Castro and Rodríguez 2017;
Rapp 2014). The UD-L proposes that teachers, when planning learning activities, in general terms comply with three main principles, which are easy to state but not so easy to put into practice–offering multiple forms of representation, involvement and action. Although the UD-L philosophy is not strictly linked to the field of disability but to inclusive education, there is no doubt that also in the field of formal education that UD-L proposals with technology have been associated with this traditional view of special education (precisely which the UD-L wants to reverse) (
Mangiatordi 2017;
Savia 2015,
2018), with a clear commitment that links the use of digital technologies with access to the curriculum in the broad sense (
Pieri 2011) or with the necessary accessibility as a desirable property of technologies that allow the transition to accessible and inclusive digital didactics (
Avalle et al. 2012;
Blackall 2007;
Midoro 2015). Consequently, the design and implementation of real educational proposals that comply with the UD-L principle (
one size fits all), that at the same time not only allow the acquisition of the digital competences necessary for the 21st century, but that can also contribute to dissolving or reducing the digital divide (including the gender divide) under an umbrella of inclusive education, remains a pending challenge. All of this, a priori, is at odds with the possibilities of transmedia learning.
Transmedia learning, as we have seen, proposes to a certain extent to disrupt this order, in line with the objectives that the school has been proposing for some time (in line with the PNSD) without substantial progress. For this reason, it may be an opportunity to leap the walls of the school and to involve in a more cohesive way all the elements that make up the ecosystem of adolescents. It can also be a way to revitalize disciplinary areas such as classical culture, which often arouse more interest spontaneously in the informal than in the formal sphere (
Catafalmo 2020); however, in order to do this, we first need to know the media (and transmedia) profile of the students who can participate in it, about whom we know little in particular.
Therefore, the objectives of this study are, on the one hand, to identify the competences and transmedia profile of selected Italian students of the licei classici, based on different instruments (digital literacy, multitasking, transmedia profile, attitudes towards ICT), and on the other hand, to determine which elements of these profiles favour or hinder the implementation of transmedia learning strategies.