Education Narrative Technologies and Digital Learning 1St Ed Edition Tony Hall Full Chapter PDF

Education, Narrative Technologies and
Digital Learning 1st ed. Edition Tony

Hall
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/education-narrative-technologies-and-digital-learning-
1st-ed-edition-tony-hall/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...
Changing Digital Geographies: Technologies,

Environments and People 1st ed. 2020 Edition Jessica
Mclean
https://ebookmass.com/product/changing-digital-geographies-
technologies-environments-and-people-1st-ed-2020-edition-jessica-
mclean/
Stuart Hall, Conjunctural Analysis and Cultural

Criminology: A Missed Moment 1st Edition Tony Jefferson
https://ebookmass.com/product/stuart-hall-conjunctural-analysis-
and-cultural-criminology-a-missed-moment-1st-edition-tony-
jefferson/
Higher Education Design: Big Deal Partnerships,

Technologies and Capabilities 1st ed. Edition Hamish
Coates
https://ebookmass.com/product/higher-education-design-big-deal-
partnerships-technologies-and-capabilities-1st-ed-edition-hamish-
coates/
Teaching Narrative 1st ed. Edition Richard Jacobs
https://ebookmass.com/product/teaching-narrative-1st-ed-edition-
richard-jacobs/
Transforming Perspectives in Lifelong Learning and
Adult Education: A Dialogue 1st ed. Edition Laura
Formenti
https://ebookmass.com/product/transforming-perspectives-in-
lifelong-learning-and-adult-education-a-dialogue-1st-ed-edition-
laura-formenti/
Narrative Policy Analysis 1st ed. Edition R.A.W Rhodes
https://ebookmass.com/product/narrative-policy-analysis-1st-ed-
edition-r-a-w-rhodes/
Digital Humanism: A Human-Centric Approach to Digital

Technologies Marta Bertolaso
https://ebookmass.com/product/digital-humanism-a-human-centric-
approach-to-digital-technologies-marta-bertolaso/
Narrative and History 2nd ed. Edition Munslow
https://ebookmass.com/product/narrative-and-history-2nd-ed-
edition-munslow/
Teaching and Learning for Social Justice and Equity in

Higher Education: Foundations 1st ed. Edition Laura
Parson
https://ebookmass.com/product/teaching-and-learning-for-social-
justice-and-equity-in-higher-education-foundations-1st-ed-
edition-laura-parson/
DIGITAL
EDUCATION
AND LEARNING
EDUCATION, NARRATIVE
TECHNOLOGIES AND
DIGITAL LEARNING
DESIGNING STORYTELLING FOR
CREATIVITY WITH COMPUTING
TONY HALL
Digital Education and Learning
Series Editors
Michael Thomas
University of Central Lancashire
Preston, UK
John Palfrey
Phillips Academy
Andover, MA, USA
Mark Warschauer
University of California
Irvine, USA
Much has been written during the first decade of the new millennium
about the potential of digital technologies to produce a transformation of
education. Digital technologies are portrayed as tools that will enhance
learner collaboration and motivation and develop new multimodal liter-
acy skills. Accompanying this has been the move from understanding
literacy on the cognitive level to an appreciation of the sociocultural
forces shaping learner development. Responding to these claims, the
Digital Education and Learning Series explores the pedagogical potential
and realities of digital technologies in a wide range of disciplinary con-
texts across the educational spectrum both in and outside of class.
Focusing on local and global perspectives, the series responds to the shift-
ing landscape of education, the way digital technologies are being used in
different educational and cultural contexts, and examines the differences
that lie behind the generalizations of the digital age. Incorporating cut-
ting edge volumes with theoretical perspectives and case studies (single
authored and edited collections), the series provides an accessible and
valuable resource for academic researchers, teacher trainers, administra-
tors and students interested in interdisciplinary studies of education and
new and emerging technologies.
More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14952
Tony Hall
Education, Narrative
Technologies and
Digital Learning
Designing Storytelling for
Creativity with Computing
Tony Hall
School of Education
National University of Ireland Galway
Galway, Ireland
Digital Education and Learning

ISBN 978-1-137-32007-0 ISBN 978-1-137-32008-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-32008-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018938393
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identified as the author(s) of this work in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and trans-
mission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Cover illustration: almagami / Alamy Stock Vector
Printed on acid-free paper
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Macmillan Publishers Ltd. part
of Springer Nature.
The registered company address is: The Campus, 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW, United Kingdom
Contents
1 The Age of Autobiography and Narrative Technology 1
2 Educational Design with a Capital D 25
3 The Pestalozzi Principle 53
4 Narrative Technology and the ‘Third Teacher’ 107
5 Evaluating Narrative Technology Design 135
6 SCÉAL Design-Based Research Framework 171
References 181
Index 201
v
List of Figures
Fig. 2.1 Clearing the ground for innovation: developing an initial, pro-
totype design model 35
Fig. 4.1 The final setup for the interactive desk (left) and trunk (right) 125
Fig. 4.2 The interactive radio in the Study Room (left), and close-up of
radio (right) showing the dial for selecting objects and the four
frequency channels representing the four mystery artefacts 125
Fig. 4.3 A new opinion (bottom left) is added to the larger vortex of
visitors’ collected opinions 126
Fig. 4.4 View of the Room of Opinion from the Study Room door 127
Fig. 4.5 The replica Stone Ball artefact on its plinth in the Room of
Opinion127
Fig. 4.6 Virtual models of the four mysterious artefacts as displayed in
the Virtual Touch Machine 129
Fig. 4.7 The Virtual Touch Machine in place in the exhibition 130
Fig. 4.8 The final version of the RFID-tagged key-card; this one repre-
sents the Dodecahedron object 130
Fig. 4.9 RFID card collection point: the shelf from which visitors took
tagged key-cards on entering the exhibition 131
Fig. 4.10 From prototype to final design: an early desk design (left) and
(right) the interactive desk in place in the Study Room 131
Fig. 4.11 Student creating her sketch of the Room of Opinion during a
post-visit session in class 133
vii
1
The Age of Autobiography
and Narrative Technology
Introduction
Increasingly, technology seems to be used narratively in society, for exam-
ple, the storying of self through social media. This chapter locates the
research outlined in the book in the contemporary and prevailing, socio-
narrative context, or Age of Autobiography. The chapter provides a defi-
nition of narrative and outlines its foundational role in education,
drawing on key contemporary debates and themes concerning the
salience of storytelling in learning and teaching. This discussion leads
into an introduction to narrative technology, which is defined according
to two broad types: intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic narrative technology
can be used to refer to digital tools created with a bespoke storytelling
purpose, for example, animation, micro-blogging and social media.
Extrinsic narrative technology describes those digital tools that—although
perhaps not expressly originally designed for storytelling—can be appro-
priated or repurposed to support engaging and powerful narrative design
of learning. The chapter illustrates narrative technology in action, and
how it can be deployed in different learning contexts to enhance learner
engagement and creativity.
© The Author(s) 2018 1

T. Hall, Education, Narrative Technologies and Digital Learning, Digital Education
and Learning, https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-32008-7_1
2 T. Hall
he Creative Educational Potential

T
of Narrative and Storytelling
In a book concerned with creativity, storytelling, technology and educa-
tional design, a good point at which to start is consideration of one of the
foundational tenets of our discussion: narrative and its essential and pow-
erful role in education. And where better to start, perhaps, than a story
about narrative in the classroom.
In his brilliant autobiographical novel, Teacher Man: A Memoir (2005),
wherein he recounted his career as a teacher in America, the writer Frank
McCourt reprised humorous and insightful memories of his time in the
classroom, including his often-inspired efforts to motivate his students
and maintain their interest. Many teachers will be able to relate to
McCourt’s narrative, owing to its universality; every teacher faces the
challenge, every day, of trying to engage their students with the subject
they are teaching, despite students sometimes (or frequently) not want-
ing to engage, often with topics or subjects they might consider unre-
lated, and thus unimportant in their prevailing discourse and everyday
lives. However, as well as the relatable, universal qualities of McCourt’s
classroom stories, we also find them humorous and engaging, precisely
because they surprise and delight us. In addition to being conventional
and thus recognisable by any teacher, the narrative of McCourt’s class-
room is—as we will presently discuss—exceptional and entertaining, and
represents instruction that is different from that which teachers might
normatively do in their classrooms.
We will return to this central theme in the book—what we might call
the Brunerian perspective, predicated on the ideas and writings of the late
educational psychologist, Jerome Bruner (1915–2016), particularly his
conceptualisation of the educational potential of narrative and storytell-
ing. The Brunerian perspective posits that narrative mediates our creativ-
ity by dually affording a common and shared, known structure for human
experience—bestowing a sense of the commonplace and everyday—
while concomitantly affording potential for exceptionality and particu-
larity. This dynamic—between ordinariness and exception—is an
inherently powerful aspect of narrative, which can serve to evoke, exercise
and excite our imagination and creativity.
The Age of Autobiography and Narrative Technology 3
Returning for the moment to Frank McCourt’s classroom: during his

career as a teacher after the Second World War, McCourt taught in dif-
ferent types of schools, including those where very challenging socio-
economic conditions predominated. Typically, in the latter, education
was not valorised outside the formal pedagogical setting of the
classroom.
McCourt found it especially difficult to teach the key skills of writing;
indeed, it traditionally represents one of the toughest areas—of any ele-
ments in the syllabus—for teachers and their pupils to engage with.
However, as we know, writing represents one of the four key activities
underlying all literacy and language learning. It is thus a crucial dimen-
sion of any classroom, and indeed of any educational setting where lan-
guage and literature are being taught.
McCourt was finding it a challenge, if not impossible, to encourage his
students to undertake written tasks, indeed to write anything at all.
Further, it was not only during class-time that students were reluctant to
engage. His pupils very rarely, if ever, completed and turned in the home-
work assigned to them. Indeed, to avoid doing homework, students
would contrive and offer all kinds of imaginative stories, often written up
as forged excuse notes. Passed off as authored by their parents, they would
even claim in these excuse notes that some major catastrophe had befallen
them, which had resulted in the destruction of what would otherwise
have been complete and perfect homework. Of course, these were invari-
ably fictions intended to distract the teacher and avoid, at all costs, the
apparent drudgery of homework. Nonetheless, in composing these narra-
tive artefacts, students were evidencing creativity.
On a more fundamental level, they were writing creatively—exactly
the activity that McCourt was finding hard to encourage and support
through more traditional teaching methods in the classroom.
McCourt’s pupils would produce the most wonderful, creative and
imaginative excuse notes so that they did not have to turn in homework:
“How could I have ignored this treasure trove, these gems of fiction and
fantasy? Here was American high school writing at its best—raw, real,
urgent, lucid, brief, and lying” (McCourt, 2005, p. 85).
For example, one of the fanciful excuse notes read: “Her big brother
got mad at her and threw her essay out the window and it flew away all
4 T. Hall
over Staten Island which is not a good thing because people will read it
and get the wrong impression unless they read the ending which explains
everything” (McCourt, 2005, pp. 85–86). Another of the notes implied
that homework composition, bravely attempted under serious duress,
had potentially created risk of deprivation of liberty: “We were evicted
from our apartment and the mean sheriff said if my son kept yelling for
his notebook he’d have us all arrested” (McCourt, 2005, p. 86).
Comedy, literariness and fictional ingenuity, all evidenced in the excuse
notes produced by his students, who were otherwise struggling to write
and express themselves creatively: “I was having an epiphany. Isn’t it
remarkable, I thought, how the students whined and said it was hard put-
ting 200 words together on any subject? But when they forged excuse
notes, they were brilliant. The notes I had could be turned into an anthol-
ogy of Great American Excuses. They were samples of talent never men-
tioned in song, story or study” (McCourt, 2005, pp. 84–85).
The idea thus occurred to McCourt that perhaps excuse notes could be
used as a pedagogical stratagem—in class—to encourage his pupils to
write, engage and be creative. What if this traditionally ‘anti-educational’
narrative artefact could be used productively for educational purposes?
Consequently, he had his students write excuse notes for famous charac-
ters in history.
The strategy works well pedagogically because a natural location for a
sequel to any literary or historical tragedy would be a courtroom, where
the plaintiff and defendant’s stories are heard, adjudged and sentence
duly passed.
Indeed, a suggested modern method for teaching dramatic texts, for
example, Shakespeare and other areas of the English curriculum—espe-
cially those with a strong narrative design, for example, novel, short story,
is to simulate a courtroom, where the protagonist and antagonist stand
trial, and must answer for the consequences and implications of their
fateful actions. It is suggested as an interactive and critical way to
explore—with students—key literary issues like the Shakespearean
‘Tragic Flaw’, natural and tragic justice, and the moral implications of
characters’ respective decisions and actions.
The simulated courtroom and its accusatory-excusatory dyadic provide
a creative context to promote and represent the student voice, in which
connections can be drawn between the opinions and views of pupils and
the moral of the stories and morality of the characters on trial.
Combining his students’ avowed creativity as authors of elaborate
excuse notes with the need to find ways to engage them more effectively
in class, the idea to encourage his student’s written creativity through
composing excuse notes was an especially innovative and—at the time,
reflecting on it now—a prescient approach to teaching English.
As well as engaging his pupils more effectively, creatively and imagina-
tively in writing, indeed in encouraging them to write anything at all, the
innovation also highlighted the importance and potential of narrative
and storytelling in education, learning and teaching.
Although imaginary and purposefully fictitious, Frank McCourt’s
pupils were making meaningful connections between an autobiographi-
cal and creative narrative format that was familiar in their own lived expe-
rience, and which they had become conversant at—the forged excuse
note—and areas of the curriculum that probably, previously seemed inac-
cessible and irrelevant to them.
In our highly mediated and networked world today, the narrative
mode of autobiography has emerged as a principal communicative and
creative aspect of how we engage with technology. Many of the technolo-
gies we use in our homes and schools are predicated fundamentally on
narrative and autobiography. The ‘storying of self ’ has become a de facto
means by which people use technology to collaborate and communicate
in contemporary society.
A prime example is Facebook, which is a socially mediated, collabora-
tive technology based fundamentally on autobiography—a means for
people to author and narrate digitally their own stories, interests and
perspectives.
Many of the features of Facebook are expressly autobiographical, for
example: the bespoke Your Story button and functionality. Indeed, it is
interesting to note also the recent redesign of Facebook, which aims to
augment the technology’s autobiographical design by focusing more on
personal stories, rather than news items, in users’ news feeds (The
New York Times, 2018).
Micro-blogging is also autobiographical in design, often used for the
expression and sharing of personal moments and perspectives.
6 T. Hall
In the 1950s, Frank McCourt drew on the potential of the autobio-

graphical narrative artefact of the excuse note to support creative writing
among his pupils, and today we use autobiographical, social media tools,
for example, Facebook and Twitter, to communicate ourselves and our
identities, and to connect with others.
As McCourt utilised the potential of the excuse note, we can also cre-
atively deploy narrative and autobiographical technologies in education
today, to support collaboration, communication and creativity.
So, what are the implications for educational technology design in this
apparent Age of Autobiography? Further, how can we utilise the bio-
graphical and narrative potential of new technologies for learning, teach-
ing and assessment, in a spirit of educational innovation akin to that
demonstrated by Frank McCourt in his contemporary use of the excuse
note?
In this opening chapter, we will clear the ground for looking at the
design of narrative technology in education by first considering the salient
features of narrative and how it effects and maintains a profound impact
as a foundational conceptual and communicative construct in education,
learning and teaching.
Education as Narrative Process and Product

Why is it that narrative and storytelling are so important in education,
throughout all aspects of learning, teaching and assessment?
What are the key features of narrative that define and illustrate its edu-
cational potential and purpose?
In this exposition of narrative as a salient educational construct, we
will engage with a range of converging and contrasting views of the edu-
cational import of storytelling, especially as it is construed and applied in
the fields of educational psychology, educational philosophy and narra-
tive theory.
Before exploring the literature relating to narrative as a construct that
is fundamentally central to education, it might be helpful to define what
we mean by narrative and how it compares and contrasts with concepts
of story and storytelling.
Thus, what is our epistemology of narrative? What are its distinctive

characteristics and features as an area of importance and potential for
human creativity and learning? And what is narrative’s epistemic relation
to story and storytelling?
Etymologically, narrative ostensibly emerged from the Latin word nar-
rativus—‘telling a story’; narrative is thus originally connoted with ‘story’
as an abridgement of, and a move to personalise, the word ‘history’.
However, the origins of narrative and storytelling are still more ancient.
Fisher (1985, p. 5) noted the original, historical importance of narra-
tive in the earliest emergence and development of human civilisation: “In
the beginning was the word, or more accurately, the logos. And in the
beginning, logos meant story, reason, rationale, conception, discourse,
and/or thought.” Furthermore, Fisher highlighted the epochal ubiquity
of narrative across human endeavour and enterprise, activities and experi-
ences: “All forms of human expression and communication-from epic to
architecture, from biblical narrative to statuary-came within its
purview.”
Fisher’s seminal work on narrative exemplifies how our crafting of nar-
ratives and sharing of these stories has traditionally been synonymous
with how we mediate and understand our culture and technology—with
the very foundations of human thought and creativity. This theme reso-
nates in educational psychology and philosophy today. A key theme of
education today, and of educational philosophy and psychology in par-
ticular, is wellbeing or flourishing (Seligman, 2011). Narrative represents
a significant part of contemporary discourses and research on mental
health and wellbeing—indeed narrative methods are frequently employed
as a principal form of modern psychotherapy (White & Epston, 1990).
Taking up and expanding further the point about narrative and mental
wellbeing, a very significant contemporary development in psychology,
particularly mental health and the therapies, is the emergence of positive
psychology. One of the most popular framings of positive psychology
today is Seligman’s PERMA (2011) framework, which defines positive
disposition and wellbeing as founded on five key pillars: positive emotion,
relationships, accomplishment, engagement and meaning. These five salient
areas of life are considered mutually interdependent in individual and
collective happiness.
8 T. Hall
One of the founding developments in the origins of this important

field of psychotherapeutic practice and research was the work of Viktor
Frankl, an Austrian doctor and Holocaust survivor. The need for mean-
ingful pedagogy, which contributes to positive self-narrative and ideas of
our worth and capabilities, is particularly important in the current edu-
cational context and society, where mental health issues and the impera-
tive to address them effectively are of urgent concern.
An example is the recent reform of the Junior Cycle (12–15 years)
Curriculum at post-primary level in Ireland, which places the student’s
wellness at the heart of a new, revised syllabus. This reform of the entire
junior school approach at secondary level aims to promote learning and
skills that are more oriented to what young people need to be well-
adjusted and successful in life; an attempt to de-privilege the historical
overemphasis on rote learning for summative, terminal state examina-
tions. Subjects such as social, personal and health education and physical
education have been integrated together to try to foreground and provide
a more coherent and sustained approach to young people’s emotional and
social wellbeing.
Some of the highly influential early works on positive stories of self or
noögenic narrative originated with Frankl’s magnum opus, Man’s Search
for Meaning, originally published in 1946.
Viktor Frankl’s research and writing emerged to international acclaim
after the Second World War, and achieved particular prominence in the
1960s, during times of significant social change and tumult in the US
and internationally.
Frankl’s central concern in his work was to answer the question, what
is the meaning of our life-story, our ontogenetic narrative? Does it have a
meaning, a purpose, a creative orientation? Also, when inevitable dis-
junctures and tensions arise in that narrative, what are we to do? How can
we deal with the inevitable failures and frustrations of life—the plot
breakdowns in our autobiography, which upset the cogence and coher-
ence of our life-narrative?
Frankl asserted that challenges, difficulties and problems are all inevi-
table in life. He did not mean to argue that we should necessarily seek out
hardship for ourselves, but when it unavoidably arises, our attitude is key.
Frankl’s particular area of interest in framing a positive psychology of life
was existential crisis: when the narrative of our life seems only to evoke
hopelessness, what he termed noögenic neurosis.
Frankl asserted that psychic trauma and concomitant noögenic neuro-
sis arise due to fractures in the logos of our lives, or our logocentric sense
of self, that is, a loss of meaning (logos/narrative) and feelings of hope-
lessness that can accompany this. Frankl argued that even in moments of
total despair and apparent hopelessness, there is still meaning. He con-
tended that even in our moments of greatest challenge, it is our funda-
mental, defining and shared characteristic to choose our attitude to our
fate—our unique human quality to turn a tragedy into a triumph.
For Frankl, the key role of the therapist is not to narrate or tell the
patient the meaning of their lives, but rather to help them to uncover it
for themselves, potentially using alternative narratives and points of view,
including humour to help the person experiencing noögenic neurosis to
find the idiosyncratic, unique meaning of their life-story; as Frankl would
say, to help the patient—in a clinical setting—to see the meaningfulness
of their lives, even when they are experiencing trauma or living through
a difficult or challenging, even seemingly intractable, problem or situa-
tion. Life is thus conceived of as a noögenic narrative—an incontrovert-
ibly purposeful autobiography—where meaning is omnipresent, even
when we are faced with the most difficult of challenges or potentially
unresolvable issues. Frankl argued that even when the conditions or cir-
cumstances we find ourselves in appear hopeless, there is always meaning.
We just need to seek and to see it; and the right narrative, at the right
time, can be crucial in all this.
Frankl proposed a positive-oriented, narrative approach to life and
education, which he called Logotherapy, and which focused on seeking
meaningfulness, even when we are faced with the most difficult or dire
situations in life. As we will presently explore in the next chapter, the
contemporary design of educational innovations and technologies nor-
matively has two outcomes or impacts—proximal and distal (McKenney
& Reeves, 2012).
Firstly, a design or innovation effects impact on a local or proximal
level, evidenced by the narrative or story of an educational experience
over time, which enumerates a process of learning and illustrates for the
reader how this process unfolded; how it affected learners and impacted
10 T. Hall
positively on their learning and how it and might be repeated and/or

replicated. The contribution of the design with educational technology—
its story and impact on learners over time—is a significant research con-
tribution as it provides a detailed narrative blueprint for others who
would like to develop educational technology to achieve similarly inno-
vative impacts in their respective contexts of learning.
Secondly, in educational design research (EDR), by reflecting on our
local achievements with educational technology in the broader theoreti-
cal context, we attempt to make an ontological contribution to the
advancement of the broad ‘science of learning’—corroborating or chal-
lenging extant concepts and theories of learning through critical analysis
of the data emerging from our local innovations and interventions. This
is the distal contribution of EDR, and typically results in the develop-
ment of bespoke models or frameworks for the principled design and
evaluation of technology-enhanced learning.
As we will discuss in Chap. 2, these frameworks are typically com-
prised of criteria, guidelines and principles to help orient and inform
ensuing or subsequent research with similar educational technologies in
cognate contexts. EDR achieves its contribution to research in educa-
tional technology by providing detailed examples of innovations and
their local impact on learners (proximal) alongside broader, ontological
or theoretical insights into learning with technology in context (distal).
Frankl’s book represents a significant contribution along the two planes
of impact, as construed in EDR: the proximal (practical) and the distal
(theoretical).
The book is broken into two parts: the first, a compelling narrative of
his experiences as a doctor in pre-war Austria and his deportation to the
death camps; the second, his theorisation of meaningful existence and
noögenic narrative, even when we are faced with the most problematic of
speed bumps and roadblocks, which life will inevitably throw in our
path.
If we construe or see life as a story or narrative—with different charac-
ters, themes, dramatic tensions, dénouements, emplotments and so
forth—then what is the meaning of that story? Frankl outlined three
ways in which we can find meaning and purpose in life, even when our
circumstances appear utterly hopeless:
1. through accomplishment/achievement—by completing a task or

doing a deed;
2. through recognising another person’s or other people’s unique poten-
tial and helping them to realise that potential; and
3. perhaps most crucially, through the attitude we take towards unavoid-
able suffering.
Alongside contemporary narrative conceptions of life and meaningful

existence, including noögenic narrative, storytelling and narrative meth-
ods are among the most popular means of helping people experiencing
what Frankl would term existential crisis or noögenic neurosis.
Bruner (2002), one of the key thinkers in the narrative psychology of
mind, human development and learning, echoed Frankl, particularly in
respect of the importance of a positive attitude to life. He noted the risks
of narrative therapy, if therapeutic practice, especially our stories of self
become caught in, and reflect a negative conception of selfhood. When
this happens, rather than providing a help to us, narrative therapy—when
the story of self and our lives becomes subsumed in circular, self-
proliferating and overly critical and negative rhetoric—can actually prove
unhelpful, even damaging. It can in fact cause deeper, more prolonged
anguish, rather than helping us to find acceptance and appreciate the
meaning of our human suffering. Therefore, the positive framing of the
life-story as a coherent, noögenic narrative can be crucially important in
helping us to find meaning when life challenges us with its unavoidable
failures and frustrations.
Beyond its importance to the education and wellbeing of the individ-
ual, educational designers and researchers are deploying narrative meth-
ods to involve key stakeholders inclusively and meaningfully in all areas
of educational change and innovation, including school building design
and the architecting and building of innovative physical environments
for learning and teaching. Recent research has employed storytelling—
biographical and auto-ethnographical methods—to elicit and frame
teachers’ experience of their classrooms and changes to these learning
spaces over time, and how this particularly has impacted upon their
teaching practices and their pupils’ educational experiences (Tondeur,
Herman, De Buck, & Triquet, 2017). The rich data elicited from these
12 T. Hall
stories spanning teachers’ entire careers in classrooms are being used to

inform conceptualisation of the design of innovative contemporary
school buildings and physical learning spaces. What is furthermore inter-
esting about this use of narrative is that it highlights how storytelling is
ubiquitous as a tool for research and development in education, from the
immediate local educational experience and wellbeing of the individual
pupil right up to how we architect and build the physical environments
in which their learning takes place.
Narrative is fundamentally central to education; as Kieran Egan’s
(1989) ground-breaking work on the subject outlines, good teaching is
good storytelling. Egan contends that we can augment our design of our
lessons and teaching by directly drawing on the dramatic potential of
storytelling. Egan argues that in each subject domain in the curriculum,
there are dramatic questions, and teachers can effectively engage learners’
imaginations by tapping into and utilising this narrative potential that is
extant in each and every subject in the curriculum. The teacher’s role, in
engaging their students, can be made much easier if they can identify and
make use of this storytelling potential throughout their lessons. Frank
McCourt exploited the creative potential of storytelling through using
the narrative innovation of the excuse note as a strategy to create engage-
ment and facilitate creative writing by his students.
In respect of narrative research more broadly, Speedy (2008) has
described how researchers are developing new genres of research that seek
to make ordinarily silenced, unspoken or contested knowledge visible,
and thus actionable and transformative. Consequently and importantly,
narrative research can entail alternative and creative conceptions of
research methodology, including poetical, performative and processual
approaches that offer the potential of novel insights, including the trans-
gressive and emancipatory. This is centrally important, for, as Riessman
(2008) outlined, subjectivity is inherently dynamical and fluid, and
mediated through the stories and narratives people tell themselves, and
others, about who they are. Crucially, salient and essential aspects of
human subjectivity are often latent in our silences, as well as explicated in
our shared expressions. Narrative methodologies—including artistic and
poetical modalities—can help to surface and highlight key dimensions of
the subjective self (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000), and thus support us to
challenge prevailing and problematic hegemonies.
In education, the import of narrative, and the stories we construct and

share has recently become further highlighted in the tension between so-
called small and big data concerning pupil learning, numeracy and liter-
acy in schools internationally. Aggregated and large data sets, for example,
PISA and TIMSS, typically receive significant political and media atten-
tion; however, the stories of success at the level of the local can often be
glossed over and underreported/underrepresented. There is so much
indispensable knowledge to glean about educational innovation and
achievement through the local narratives of classrooms and schools,
which has led key educationists to note the imperative that we balance
the big data with these so-called small data (Sahlberg & Hasak, 2016);
not to do so entails we miss out on understanding what truly constitutes
excellent educational practice.
The Narrative Mode of Thought

Therefore, when we consider its primordial origins and importance across
human intellectual and social endeavour, how are we to construe what
narrative entails, and how might we interpret its meaning for our pur-
poses in defining and exploring the conceptualisation, design and evalu-
ation of narrative technology in education?
For the purposes of this book, we will consider narrative to be gener-
ally synonymous with story and its gerund, storytelling. Further, in com-
mon parlance today, we also have the transitive verbal form of narrative:
to narrativise, and to story (or storify), which means to create a narrative
or story—to place experiences and event(s) in narrative or story-form.
An additional term in modern usage, mostly in the academic commu-
nity, is narratology, which can be defined as the systematic study of
story/storytelling in different fields, for example, education, psychology,
the health and therapeutic sciences, and literature.
This book aims to make a contribution to the narratology of design for
educational storytelling, particularly the conceptualisation, design,
deployment and evaluation of narrative technologies in different contexts
of learning, formal and informal.
14 T. Hall
The contiguity of chronology, sequence and time are central in story-

telling. When we conceive of narrative or story, it typically has a norma-
tive or archetypal logic and structure.
There is a beginning and, or backstory, a context in which happenings
will be suggested, described and located. There usually ensues further
exposition of the initial setting or suggestion of context, which adds fur-
ther detail to the development of the story, which then ultimately leads
to a climax and/or denouement of conflicts, issues or tensions. Even
when we are being told an emotive story by someone who is upset, where
they struggle to convey what has happened, we might ask them for some
context, to go back to the beginning. We are attuned to, and highly
familiar with, a normative structure in narrative/story—the beginning,
middle and end.
In film and screenwriting, in concert with the mise-en-scène, the phys-
ical features and location, which add so much colour and feeling to the
filmic story, three-part narrative is a common story structure. This funda-
mental story architecture encompasses a ternary of interdependent ele-
ments or stages: (1) the setup, (2) the confrontation and (3) the
resolution.
Therefore, narrative is normatively chronological and sequential—
including when it is emplotted in a non-linear fashion. There is an inher-
ent time-ordered structure and sequence that—to borrow the language of
film—temporally frames the story.
For example, when relating a narrative or story of an event, a story that
reprises an event that happened last week, the narrator will typically out-
line the location, time, sequence of events, their actions and/or those of
others—the apparent ordering and unfolding of things.
Even where the story of past events is related in a discordant or disor-
dered fashion, there is a notional temporal arrangement to proceedings;
the time and sequence of related matters, and their expression, are canon-
ically essential to narrative and storytelling.
As Fisher outlined, the original development and use of story was for
meaning—the mediation of the logos.
Interestingly, modern thinking on the nature of meaning in human
learning and psychology, particularly in relation to mental health (e.g.
Frankl), has reaffirmed, or returned to, the fundamental concept of the
logos, or meaning. Furthermore, a strong conception of the logos or

meaning—in self-narrative and the story of our own lives—is highlighted
as centrally important to our mental health and wellbeing.
Therefore, since the earliest understandings of how we conceptualise
and think about our world, narrative and story have been seen as essen-
tially meaningful processes of ascribing or assigning explanations and
rationalisations to others’ experiences and ours.
Furthermore, all learning is predicated on meaning-making, which
underscores the importance of narrative—as a conduit for personal and
shared understanding—in education, learning and teaching.
For the educational psychologist, the late Jerome Bruner—one of the
leading thinkers and writers on narrative in psychology, education and
law, narrative is a prevailing means by which we create, communicate and
collaborate. Bruner ascribed such importance to narrative that he even
asserted it entailed its own particular conceptualisation and branch of
educational inquiry, particularly as pertains to the psychology of learn-
ing—that which Bruner termed the narrative mode of thought. The
Brunerian perspective is that narrative represents a predominant, if not the
most important, means by which we make sense of the world and our
place in it. We use narrative and storytelling to communicate, express and
define ourselves. Bruner posited that the influence of narrative extends
throughout our lives. As children, we are even compelled to develop our
linguistic competencies in an order of priority such that we can produc-
tively partake in the narrative and story-suffused culture of our parents and
peers. For Bruner, the very sequence of linguistic development is deter-
mined by the imperative to engage narratively in the storytelling practices
that are ubiquitous in our social contexts and physical environs. Following
from the famous works of Aristotle, particularly his concept of peripeteia—
‘the twist in the tale’—and latterly the Russian Formalist poets and writers
of the early twentieth century, and their concept of Ostranie (estrange-
ment), Bruner (2007) saw narrative as having a dyadic, tensive structure—
serving a dual purpose of bestowing both ordinariness and exceptionality
on our human experiences. Bruner (2007) argued that narratives and
stories help us to ascribe a canonical ordinariness to our everyday and
lived experiences. They provide us with a structure to make sense of what
might otherwise be intractably complex phenomena. At the same time,
16 T. Hall
we use stories to explore beyond the everyday, to create, envision, engage

with, understand and reflect on exceptional moments in our lives, and in
the dramatic stories we read in books and watch on both the small and
big screen. This is what compels us about great literature and writing—
the movement between the everyday and the extraordinary. According to
Bruner, it is precisely this dynamic tension between the everyday and the
exceptional in storytelling that makes it so humanly and educationally
powerful, infusing learning and life with creative possibility.
For example, we can see this dynamic interplay of the everyday and the
exceptional if we apply Bruner’s Aristotelian theorisation of narrative to
arguably the most famous bildungsroman (educational novel) series in
literary history: Harry Potter. The main protagonist is an ordinary child—
representative of children all over the world—yet he has exceptional tal-
ents and experiences. The story is compelling for us because of its dual
everydayness and exceptionalness. The Russian Formalist writers saw in
the exceptionality of creative narrative the important potential of
estrangement from the blithe, unconsidered acceptance of reality—what
they termed Ostranie (estrangement). For Viktor Shklovsky and his con-
temporaries, the crucial importance of metaphor, poetry and literature is
to make us pause and reflect, to help us to see things differently and criti-
cally, reminding us of the intrinsic strangeness of existence. Aristotle
referred to the instructional potential of narrative as the coda or moral of
the story—the lesson we can learn from the experiences and fate of a
story’s characters. Furthermore, as well as mobilising and inspiring our
creativity, the interplay of the everyday and the exceptional in narrative is
inherently instructional—what I call auto-pedagogical.
For example, some of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies are intended
to teach the audience what/what not to do and think, especially in rela-
tion to authority and monarchy. In both Macbeth and Hamlet, for exam-
ple, the consequences of murdering the king are dire, both for the
individuals directly involved and for the nation state as a whole. These
plays sound a warning that regicide can only lead to destruction and is a
quick route to chaos—personal and societal. At the conclusion of
Macbeth, both the main character and his wife are dead, while in Hamlet
the country ends up in servitude to a foreign power.
For Bruner, narrative is foundational and ubiquitous in the develop-
ment of our identity—our sense of the world, of ourselves and of our
fellow human beings: “It is our preferred, perhaps even our obligatory
medium for expressing human aspirations and their vicissitudes, our own
and those of others. Our stories also impose a structure, a compelling
reality on what we experience, even a philosophical stance” (2002, p. 89).
According to Bruner, life itself is autobiographical—we are each the
protagonist, the main character in our own, ontogenetic narrative.
Furthermore, narrative helps our culture and society to cohere, persist
and grow; stories provide an “enormous amount of unification within a
society” (Bruner, 2007).
Our guiding philosophy of narrative in this book is predicated on key
research and writing in the field, inspired principally by Bruner’s narra-
tive theory of the mind, human development and education. Bruner’s is
sometimes called the functional approach to narrative; such is the funda-
mental importance he attached to storytelling in helping us to function,
both educationally and experientially.
Bruner posited that the influence of narrative extends throughout our
lives, bestowing meaning and structure on what we experience. He fur-
thermore provided us with three fundamental narrative principles for
education:
1. Multiplicity: there are many possible ways of knowing;

2. Perspectival: our interpretation of anything is shaped by our world-
view, which challenges the verifiability of human understanding;
3. Comparative: the scope of our understanding is affected by the exis-
tence of alternative ways of knowing or seeing the world.
The aim of education should be to support learners to move towards

attaining Bruner’s three principles so that they can: (1) be creative, visu-
alise and engage with many possible ways of knowing; (2) come to
understand better their own weltanschauung (worldview)—become criti-
cal thinkers and (3) be broadly informed and draw on alternative ways of
knowing or seeing the world, themselves and others.
However, as well as the narratological position that holds that narrative
is an essential aspect of education, life and human experience generally,
there are contradistinct views concerning the educational importance of
narrative.
18 T. Hall
In Against Narrativity (2004), Strawson critiqued and refuted what he

has defined as the two key aspects of the prevailing narratological view in
education. Firstly, he argued against the psychological Narrativity thesis:
the view that narrative is the principal means by which people live in, and
make sense of their world. Strawson contended that we do not necessarily
need a strong narrative conception of life and our role in the world. We
can get along absolutely well without a narrative structure for our lives.
Secondly, he problematised and refuted the ethical Narrativity thesis, the
normative position that narrative is essential to leading an ethical and
productive existence: the good life.
Although such important critical insights are emerging from counter-
vailing positions in relation to narratology in education, pointing to
potential limitations of narrative and storytelling in human experience
and ontogenetic development, the view that inspires and undergirds this
book is that narrative is a foundational and powerful mediating tool in
the development of human understanding, culture and society.
Consequently, in education, a key goal for innovative information and
communications technology (ICT) should be to augment learners’ cre-
ativity through storytelling. Furthermore, digital convergence and the
innovative and sophisticated storytelling potential of new technologies
are enabling new possibilities to enhance narrative pedagogical practice
in classrooms, schools and other educational environments, for example,
exploratoria and museums.
Bruner (2007) would go as far as to contend: “There is no culture in the
world without stories.” Schank (1990, p. 16) defines human intelligence
specifically by its relation to narrative: “All we have are experiences—but
all we can effectively tell others are stories. Knowledge is experiences and
stories, and intelligence is the apt use of experience and the creation and
telling of stories.” For Bruner, narrative and storytelling are so innately a
part of human experience that we are born to structure the world narrato-
logically—in story-form; to the extent that it formatively and intrinsically
shapes our nascent literacy: “One of the most ubiquitous and powerful
discourse forms in human communication is narrative. Narrative struc-
ture is even inherent in the praxis of social interaction before it achieves
linguistic expression; it is a ‘push’ to construct narrative that determines
the order of priority in which grammatical forms are mastered by the
young child” (1990, p. 77).
Narrative Technology
In recent years, technology has emerged that potentially creates new pos-
sibilities for narrativity, creativity and creative education. The research
informing this book aims to explore innovative possibilities for education
by combining potentially powerful human storytelling processes and new
and emerging ICTs. How might the synergy of storytelling and comput-
ing—what we define as narrative technology—create new potential for
education, learning, teaching and assessment?
Having considered the broad philosophical importance of narrative
and storytelling in education, life, human discourse and development, we
will now focus in on how technology can be used to augment storytelling
in education. In particular, we will outline two innovative uses of what
we term intrinsic narrative technology, using ICTs specifically designed
to support creativity with storytelling.
Intrinsic Narrative Technology

In this section we consider two simple but creative uses of narrative tech-
nology in education. The first focuses on the use of the intrinsic narrative
technology of stop-frame animation software by groups of intergenera-
tional learners (retired citizens in the community, school children and
teachers, working together with artists and writers) to develop collabora-
tive animations based on famous epic tales drawn from Celtic Mythology.
The second looks at the use of micro-blogging technology, Twitter spe-
cifically, to support and enhance teachers’ simple but effective use of tech-
nology to mediate creative engagement with Shakespeare.
Pádraig Pearse, the Irish educator, educational innovator and revolu-
tionary, argued the central importance of storytelling in education. In
the ‘Back to the Sagas’ section of his seminal educational tract, The
Murder Machine, he famously wrote: “A heroic tale is more essentially a
factor in education than a proposition in Euclid” (1916). The first
example of narrative technology outlined is the use of simple stop-frame
animation software to support intergenerational groups of learners to
develop imaginative animated retellings of classic, heroic tales from
20 T. Hall
Celtic and Irish Mythology. The overall goal of the project, entitled
Living Scenes 3 (LS3), was to foster intergenerational learning—differ-
ent ages learning and working creatively together—by orchestrating the
groups to take key excerpts/moments from the heroic tales of Fionn mac
Cumhaill and the Fianna—and render and narrate them in animated
form using the bespoke intrinsic narrative technology of stop-motion
technology. LS3 was so called because there had been two previous
intergenerational projects; however, this was the first with a focus spe-
cifically on storytelling and technology with animation.
Working with local artists and writers, the first stage in the process
entailed the groups of children and retired citizens developing scripts for
their animated tales, including a narrative for the voice-over and the main
characters in the story. Alongside their written scripts, the groups also
had to develop storyboards illustrating how the stories were to unfold
and the different scenes in their animations. Once the intergenerational
groups had developed their script and storyboard, they implemented
their narrative design using easy-to-use stop-motion technology. While
LS3 used Kudlian Software’s I Can Animate proprietary, stop-frame ani-
mation software for the digital stories, any animation or digital video
editing software could have been used. In general, stop-frame animation
software is easy to comprehend and work with; the fundamental princi-
ple of animation means that most digital image capture and editing tech-
nology can be used to create animated narratives. It simply entails learners
taking single still images of an object, moving the object(s) while keeping
the digital camera in a fixed position, and subsequently piecing the images
together—as seamlessly as possible—into a coherent narrative sequence.
This duly renders the effect of motion. The learner can then take the raw
animated movie file and import it into easy-to-use video editing software
and add in sound effects, music, voice-over and so on.
Supported by the local artists and writers, the intergenerational groups
developed collaboratively characters/figurines from plasticine; coordinated
the movement and animation of their miniature figures, representing the
key protagonists in their stories; recorded voice-overs for narrator and dia-
logue between characters; and selected and integrated appropriate music
and sound effects. Facilitated by the well-known local writers and artists,
they creatively developed their scripts into stop-frame animations, which
re-imagined the story of Fionn, including a contemporary interpretation

of this famous Irish narrative.
This project demonstrated the educational potential of intrinsic narra-
tive technology, such as animation software—technology that is purpose-
fully developed to enhance and support creativity through storytelling.
The second project involving intrinsic narrative technology centred on
the use of social media and micro-blogging, Twitter in particular, to sup-
port creative engagement and storytelling in relation to Shakespeare and
specifically his tragedy, Macbeth. In a sense, the role of the teacher in the
classroom is that of an animator and entertainer. The teacher must imbue
their subject with life, make it sentient and interesting for pupils, includ-
ing using humour to promote engagement and interest. Frank McCourt
achieved this excellently, using his students’ avowed creativity in forged
excused notes to explore the school curriculum in ways that were engag-
ing and relevant to them.
Technologies that can intrinsically afford narrative creativity, such as ani-
mation and social media (e.g. Twitter), can help teachers to engage creatively
with their subject and/or specialist area of the curriculum, thereby explor-
ing creative ways to communicate a topic(s) engagingly to their pupils.
The use of Twitter in the classroom involved students developing
tweets to summarise Macbeth, aspects of its plot structure and characteri-
sation. The potential of Twitter emerges from the challenging but creative
structure one must work within. It provides us a narrative frame—there
is a nascent ‘grammar’ or structure we must work within, but we can also
infuse this with our own inventiveness. Brevity and concision are crucial,
because one is constrained by 140 characters; however, the possibility of
using creative hashtags, for example, can generate potential for imagina-
tive expression. The task set for the students asked them literally to pro-
vide a précis of Macbeth in a 140-character tweet, drawing on popular
culture for ideas. In November 2017, the length limit for tweets was
expanded to 280 characters.
The use of the intrinsic narrative technology of Twitter mediated
creative engagement with Shakespeare’s Macbeth. It provided the stu-
dents and teachers a way into engaging with and representing the plot
and characters of the play, within a concise but creative storytelling
framework.
22 T. Hall
Conclusion
In this chapter we have reviewed salient literature, thinkers and writers on
the importance of narrative and storytelling in culture, education and
society, and we have posited the idea of narrative technology: the conver-
gence of traditionally powerful storytelling and new ICTs. We can classify
this convergence of narrative and technology as intrinsic and extrinsic.
Intrinsic narrative technology refers to digital tools created with a
bespoke storytelling purpose, for example, animation, micro-blogging
and social media. Extrinsic narrative technology describes those digital
tools that—although perhaps not expressly originally designed for story-
telling—can be appropriated or repurposed to support engaging and
powerful narrative design of learning.
Building on from this initial chapter, we will now focus on the design
of extrinsic narrative technology, where this entailed the development of
a whole interactive physical learning environment. However, before enu-
merating the design of this innovative computer-enhanced (built) physi-
cal learning space, we will in the next chapter first outline the importance
of educational design and design-based research (DBR). In particular, we
explore in detail the importance of genuinely principled and participa-
tory ‘design with a capital D’, in the contemporary context of educational
change and complexity. Collaborative and systematic design is warranted
to try to ensure that high-potential, innovative technology is utilised
optimally in educational settings. EDR can provide us a creative frame-
work so we are well positioned to conceptualise, design, implement and
evaluate educational technologies in an effective and bespoke fashion,
with and for learners. This next chapter outlines a particular approach to
DBR, illustrated with insights, vignettes and practical tips for we can
design effectively our design of creative narrative technology, to help
ensure impact on learning, teaching and assessment.
References
Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of Meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bruner, J. (2002). Making Stories: Law, Literature, Life. New York: Farrar Straus
& Giroux.
Bruner, J. (2007, March 13). Cultivating the Possible. Public Lecture, Oxford
University. Retrieved from http://www.education.ox.ac.uk/about-us/
video-archive/
Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative Inquiry: Experience and
Story in Qualitative Research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Egan, K. (1989). Teaching as Story Telling: An Alternative Approach to Teaching
and Curriculum in the Elementary School. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Fisher, W. R. (1985). The Narrative Paradigm: In the Beginning. Journal of
Communication, 35(4), 74–89.
McCourt, F. (2005). Teacher Man: A Memoir. New York: Scribner.
McKenney, S., & Reeves, T. (2012). Conducting Educational Design Research.
London: Routledge.
Pearse, P. (1916). The Murder Machine. Retrieved December 20, 2017, from
https://celt.ucc.ie//published/E900007-001/
Riessman, C. K. (2008). Narrative Methods for the Human Sciences. Thousand
Oaks: SAGE Publications.
Sahlberg, P., & Hasak, J. (2016). ‘Big data’ Was Supposed to Fix Education. It
didn’t. It’s Time for ‘Small Data’. Retrieved February 4, 2018, from https://
www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/05/09/big-data-
was-supposed-to-fix-education-it-didnt-its-time-for-small-data/?utm_
term=.cc21d70abc13
Schank, R. (1990). Tell Me a Story: Narrative and Intelligence. Evanston:
Northwestern University Press.
Seligman, M. (2011). Flourish: A New Understanding of Happiness and Well-
Being—And How to Achieve Them. Boston: Nicholas Brealey Publishing.
Speedy, J. (2008). Narrative Inquiry and Psychotherapy. Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Strawson, G. (2004). Against Narrativity. Retrieved January 12, 2018, from
http://lchc.ucsd.edu/mca/Paper/against_narrativity.pdf
The New York Times. (2018). Facebook Overhauls News Feed to Focus on What
Friends and Family Share. Retrieved January 29, 2018, from https://www.
nytimes.com/2018/01/11/technology/facebook-news-feed.html
Tondeur, J., Herman, F., De Buck, M., & Triquet, K. (2017). Classroom
Biographies: Teaching and Learning in Evolving Material Landscapes (c.
1960–2015). European Journal of Education, 52, 280–294. https://doi.
org/10.1111/ejed.12228
White, M., & Epston, D. (1990). Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends.
New York: Norton.
2
Educational Design with a Capital D
Introduction
Mobilising educational change and innovation, especially with tech-
nology, can be very complex, contingent on many different actors and
factors (Heppell, 2016). Therefore, the effective deployment and use of
narrative technology in education necessitates genuinely principled
and participatory engagement by learners and/or users as co-designers,
collaboratively exploring and realising the potential of digital media
and storytelling in context. Further, educational innovation is typically
emergent and evolutionary, which requires a sustainable and system-
atic strategy. Practice-based research and in particular educational
design and DBR can be usefully appropriated and very helpful in this
exacting context. This chapter emphasises the key role that design can
play in helping to ensure the successful adoption and adaption of edu-
cational technology in learning settings that are inherently complex
and diverse.
It identifies the key features of successful DBR, and posits a rigorous
DBR approach to the design and evaluation of innovations with educational
© The Author(s) 2018 25

T. Hall, Education, Narrative Technologies and Digital Learning, Digital Education
and Learning, https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-32008-7_2
26 T. Hall
technology. Alongside ontological and theoretical insights, the chapter also

provides practical hints and tips to support the implementation of DBR in
context.
haracterising the Challenge of Educational

C
Technology Design
The principal research and development question that this book is con-
cerned with is how can novel computing, particularly narrative technol-
ogy, be designed to enhance education? A key word in the aforesaid
question is the interrogator: how.
Consequently, the challenge is to try to better understand the practical
design, the how to of creating novel narrative technology to augment
learning, teaching and assessment. A significant part of the focus of this
book and its contribution is therefore to design practice. However, while
aiming to support the everyday, ‘real-world’ practice of developing inno-
vative educational technology—realising practical benefits for learners, in
specific, situated contexts—this book also aspires to contribute ontologi-
cally to the broader ‘science of learning’, by supporting adoptable and
adaptable frameworks for similar innovation in cognate education
contexts.
Yet, does there exist a research methodology that can enable us to do
this—to develop a successful experience for learners with educational
technology, situated within a specific context with its particular con-
straints, exigencies and possibilities, while at the same time generating
reusable frameworks, principles and tools that other innovators and
researchers can adopt into their own, distinct and diverse educational
settings?
It would seem to create a paradox—can we develop a technology-
enhanced learning innovation locally while contributing to general ideas
of education technology, which others will find useful beyond the imme-
diate context? McKenney (2018, p. 2) notes how “specific innovations
may have the potential to yield deep learning or facilitate meaningful
social experiences but will fail to reach many learners if they are not ren-
dered practical for implementation”.
Educational Design with a Capital D 27
EDR, which can have different methodological variations, including

DBR, endeavours to address this apparent paradox.
It aims to support the development of effective local interventions
with educational technology while concomitantly producing robust,
reusable and repurposable guidelines, principles and resources, which
others can adopt and adapt to achieve similarly innovative effects in their
own contexts of learning, potentially reaching many more learners than
in the initial (original) design.
McKenney (2018, p. 2) outlines the significant challenges educational
design researchers encounter in seeking to effect and sustain impactful
change and innovation: “Those who support change (including research-
ers, developers, and educational leaders) are faced with an extreme chal-
lenge to create innovations within the zone of proximal
implementation—that is, targeting what districts, schools, and teachers
can implement realistically with sustainable amounts of guidance or col-
laboration (McKenney, 2013)”.
Furthermore, there are always finite resources, and specific and local
exigencies that constrain what might be possible, particularly in respect of
designing for diversity, in situ: “And they must do so in ways that address
their highly varied needs and circumstances as well as the diverse levels of
human and material resources available (McKenney, 2018, p. 2)”.
Reeves has discussed this specific challenge of researching educational
technology, highlighting perhaps the too-often, limited impact of media
comparison studies, which arguably do not provide reusable or repurpos-
able resources or toolkits that can be adopted and adapted by others to
support innovation in their respective contexts. Contrariwise, for Reeves,
EDR allows those interested in educational technology and innovation to
achieve practical impact in the local context while contributing to educa-
tion generally through the production and sharing of reusable design sen-
sitivities (Ciolfi & Bannon, 2003): “With the all too often repeated media
comparison studies, no significant differences is a common result, or alter-
natively, numerous studies that have conflicting results (Clark, 1983)”.
For Reeves, EDR can exemplify how innovation practically unfolds and
works in context, while generating transposable guidelines and resources
for design, which can help to inform similar innovation in other, cognate
contexts. This means that with design-oriented educational research we
28 T. Hall
can benefit from what I term a dual design dividend; as Reeves describes:
“EDR, on the other hand, has the potential to enable educationally sig-
nificant differences through the development and refinement of robust
interventions while at the same time yielding reusable design principles
(McKenney & Reeves, 2013). Simply put, EDR is a win-win proposi-
tion” (2015, p. 617).
We have considered two examples of narrative technology using ani-
mation and social media—what we might term intrinsic narrative tech-
nology, where the ICTs have been developed specifically to mediate and
support storytelling. The book will now focus in detail on the application
and appropriation of extrinsic narrative technology, where computing
that is not necessarily, originally created for storytelling (e.g. Radio
Frequency Identification [RFID]) is purposed and designed to support
creative storytelling in education.
A complex EDR question is thus posed, intersecting and synthesising
innovative ubiquitous computing, children’s education, museum learning
and participatory and principled DBR methodology. The focus of develop-
ment is an entire interactive learning space, where the narrative technology is
the educational environment itself, augmented by ubiquitous computing.
Increasingly, the physical (built) learning environment is garnering
increased attention as a key area of focus for research and development in
education, particularly the use of participatory and principled design to
involve stakeholders in the design of learning environments and spaces that
potentially offer something more engaging and inclusive, beyond the limi-
tations and problems of the ‘traditional classroom’. Robinson (2010) has
suggested that the classroom and school—“modelled along factory lines”,
relics of a bygone Industrial Age—are outmoded in the contemporary edu-
cational context, where technology pervades and impacts upon all aspects
of education and society; “Our children are living in the most intensely
stimulating period in the history of the earth.” New approaches to, and
models of learning space design are thus warranted, especially to inform
our emerging understanding of how the physical build and architecture of
innovative educational environments and new technologies—mobile and
ubiquitous—might be creatively and optimally combined and interleaved.
Further, what role does narrative play in this process, and how specifically
can it aid us in the design of interactive educational environments?
In the Reggio Emilia Schools in Italy, the physical learning environ-

ment is considered so central and influential in terms of the learning
experience that it is conceived of as the third teacher (Strong-Wilson &
Ellis, 2007). Alongside the third teacher, the prevailing philosophy of the
Reggio approach is that the learner should be the active protagonist, pro-
tegazzione in their own education. The Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD)’s Centre for Effective Learning
Environments (2011) has consistently emphasised the need to design and
develop schools and educational environments that are fit for purpose for
the twenty-first century, and that align more cogently and coherently
with our developing understanding of pedagogy, learning, teaching and
assessment. There is the imperative in education today to de-privilege the
traditional classroom as the predominant or exclusive site of instruction,
and seek greater creativity and flexibility in the physical layout and design
of learning spaces (Rigolon, 2010).
The particular setting and design process that are now described and
enumerated entailed the principled and participatory design of narrative
technology for children’s learning in museums. We will look in detail at
the design and implementation of a specific DBR process while consider-
ing the implications for educational technology and technology-enhanced
learning environments in general. In particular, we will consider how we
can effectively design innovative learning where the narrative technology
becomes the educational environment itself.
esearch and Development Methodological

R
Requirements
In selecting a methodology, an approach was required that would help to
address a number of key issues related to the practical research question.
The methodology would have to be suitable for an educational setting,
given the research was based in a museum. Furthermore, it would have
to help address what would be a complex or ‘intractable’ research chal-
lenge. In laboratory studies, one typically selects one or two hypotheses
to test. However, research shows that there are many complex factors or
multiple dependent variables affecting the success of innovative technical
30 T. Hall
interventions designed to enhance children’s education (e.g. Lingnau,

Hoppe, & Mannhaupt, 2003; Marti et al., 2000; Luckin et al., 2003;
Stanton & Neale, 2003). These variables include, for example, children’s
developmental level, gender factors, the physical environment, social
interaction, narrative, scaffolding and technology. Therefore, the method
chosen would have to help with designing for the complexity of chil-
dren’s interaction in the naturalistic, ‘real-world’ learning context.
In reflecting on the importance and potential of EDR, in providing us
with reusable models of innovation, Reeves (2015) quoted Phillips’
astute insight regarding the intrinsic complexity of educational processes
and interactions: “Learning is a phenomenon that involves real people
who live in real, complex social contexts from which they cannot be
abstracted in any meaningful way.” Phillips furthermore emphasises the
multiple dependent variables that can matter in educational research,
implying the challenge for the educational researcher in dealing with,
understanding and interpreting the inherent complexity of educational
phenomena: “Difficult as it is for researchers to deal with (especially if
they are suffering from physics envy), learners are contextualized. They
do have a gender, a sexual orientation, a socioeconomic status, an eth-
nicity, a home culture; they have interests—and things that bore them/
the problem is that in education, just about all the variables are relevant,
and controlling them (even if possible let alone desirable) yields results
that are difficult or impossible to generalize to the other almost infinite
number of settings where these variables do, indeed, vary” (2015,
pp. 10–11).
Therefore, in education, there are many contiguities and variables that
matter, and the methodology for designing narrative technology in the
museum would have to be able to address the complexity of the EDR and
development challenge.
Furthermore, considering this was the first study of its kind, utilising
innovative narrative technology in this way, the final outcome or result of
our innovation would, most probably, not be initially evident; it would
emerge in the process of investigating how new computing could be
designed to enhance the museum educational experience for children. A
flexible research framework would enable the study to begin with a revis-
able set of concerns and ideas and, as they arose in the research, explore
emerging insightful and promising possibilities. This would be particu-

larly important in studying children’s interaction in the museum setting
because an inflexible or more ‘traditional’ framework, ‘measuring learn-
ing’ through test scores or the number of historical facts recalled, for
example, would not encompass the deeper sorts of connectivity that chil-
dren can experience in museums. Silverman (2002, p. 4) argues that
museum learning includes experiences that have been largely left uncon-
sidered in ‘formal’ or ‘traditional’ museum education research: “Think of
all the things that we know can happen for people in museums. Is remi-
niscence ‘learning’? Is making a new friend ‘learning’? Is relaxation ‘learn-
ing’? Is spiritual connection ‘learning’? Maybe, to some people. Surely
these and other human experiences are connected to and interwoven
with learning. But I have never felt comfortable using the word learning
to encapsulate all of the valuable and valued possibilities that can and do
arise when people encounter artefacts in museums.”
An adaptive framework, rather than an inflexible and unresponsive
view of ‘learning’, would help ensure that factors, crucial to the enhance-
ment of children’s educational experience, would not be overlooked or
disregarded.
Having novel narrative technology in the design was going to further
complexify the research challenge; as Stevens notes: “The sophistication of
our technologies—in the new and hybrid practices they make possible—far
outpaces the sophistication of our analyses” (Stevens, 2002, p. 271).
The methodological approach adopted would have to align practice
and theory closely. It would not only have to be well-informed, from an
ontological or theoretical perspective, but also sensitive and adaptable to
the local complexities and issues affecting the educational context and the
use of novel technology by children therein. The method would have to
change successfully as the trajectory of the research unfolded, but it
would still need to provide direction and guidance. A methodological
approach that would closely align practice with theory would help to
ensure the success of the designed innovation. Stevens notes how ‘tradi-
tional’ and inflexible analytic frameworks, where practice is detached
from theory, have created problems in restricting educational technology
design research: “We have inherited divisions of academic labour among
assessment, technology, curriculum, and close studies of practice.”
32 T. Hall
(Stevens, 2002, p. 272) Consequently, Stevens notes how we need to

explore new approaches, configurations and emerging, possible synergies
in our educational technology research methodologies, especially those
with a design orientation. And although this may not always prove to be
fruitful, we will at least demonstrate due regard for the intrinsic chal-
lenges and complexities that characterise educational change and innova-
tion: “What we seem to need now is articulation work that draws these
pieces together (remaking each in unexpected ways no doubt). I think the
need for this articulation work is especially true of designers of educa-
tional things and researchers who look very closely (and critically) at what
happens when these things are used. And although I have no false opti-
mism about the results (Cuban, 1993), at the end of our day we may at
least know that we have taken the complexity of education’s phenomena
… seriously” (Stevens, 2002, p. 272).
The research question, with its focus on the “how to” of computing
design for enhancing children’s learning experience in museums, created
a practical challenge. Richards (2018) makes the very good point that our
main first question in educational technology research and development
is (or should be) more immediate: what is the technology? What does it
do? How is it changing our educational and social interactions? Perhaps,
too often, we focus on the latest technology as a fetish or faddish tool—
with attendant hyperbolic claims for its transformational capabilities in
education and society—without first deeply understanding exactly what
the new tool signifies and means, and relatedly how it might potentially
impact education. New learning technologies are emerging and changing
so rapidly that this presents quite a challenge to all interested in deploy-
ing technology to improve educational processes and outcomes.
Arguably, reflecting Richards’ insight, in any project to design educa-
tional technology, there are two foundational, essential and salient ques-
tions that motivate our research and development endeavours. Firstly,
does the new technology, or technologies, afford or create new potential
to enhance learning? Secondly, as a corollary, having demonstrated the
potential of new technology to augment education, we ask how we can
best design the technology—as an integral part of a wider educational
experience—to exploit optimally the new potential offered by the inte-
gration of computing. Thus, as we will presently see, one of the key
subsidiary research questions of the extrinsic technology design case in

this book centres on whether novel, ubiquitous computing does—in the
first instance—create new possibilities to enhance children’s education in
museums. In addition to providing a model for how to design innovative
technology to augment the museum learning experience for children, a
significant part of this research was to illustrate some of the possibilities
of the narrative technology by actually creating an innovative computer-
augmented museum educational experience for children.
Kelly (2004, p. 116) argues that for design research to be effective and
relevant, one must actually design something. Furthermore, the designed
innovation should ideally be adoptable and adaptable by others, interested
to improve and augment the learning experience in their respective educa-
tional context: “Design remains a transitive verb. In my opinion, design
studies should produce an artifact that outlasts the study and can be
adopted, adapted, and used by others (e.g., either researchers or teachers);
otherwise, the fact that the study used an iterative process simply charac-
terises the procedures that were followed” (Kelly, 2004, p. 116). Therefore,
the method that would be needed to successfully carry forward the research
would have to help to improve continuously design practice, and ulti-
mately help to build an intervention that would utilise novel computer
technology to enhance children’s experience in the naturalistic, ‘real-
world’ educational context. In addition, it should result in outcomes that
can serve to guide and help other educational designers and researchers.
While the methodology selected would have to help with creating an
effective practical intervention in the museum, an integral part of the
research was to provide principles or guidelines to assist other researchers,
museum educators, exhibition designers, curators and so on in effectively
designing novel narrative technology to enhance children’s learning expe-
rience in museums and other educational settings. This is a core part of
this book’s research contribution because there existed no such guidelines
to assist exhibition designers, museums curators, educators and so on.
Therefore, in addition to improving design practice, the method adopted
would also have to support the refinement of the research’s theoretical
position and the production of sharable and reusable guidelines, specifi-
cally for designing innovative narrative technology to augment children’s
learning experience in museums.
34 T. Hall
ationale for Selection of Design-Based

R
Research Approach
To try to address the EDR challenge effectively, a number of possible
methodological approaches were considered. However, it was decided to
adopt an approach predicated on DBR methods and principles. The pre-
dominant reason for the selection of a DBR approach was that it could
potentially fulfil the aforesaid methodological requirements, in both a
participatory and principled fashion, involving key stakeholders; in sum,
it would enable ‘design with a capital D’.
here Do We Begin in Design-Based

W
Research? Conceptualising a Design
Faced with a complex educational design brief or challenge, a salient
question arises for the educational technologist: where do I start? While
there can be many points of entry into a design process, I would typically
recommend the scoping out of an initial or nascent concept design, usu-
ally informed by a set of key activities, and predicated on a set of key
themes. These themes can then be used to generate an acronym for the
project. Developing an acronym can provide a very useful tool for the
educational technologist as their design innovation emerges, coheres and
develops. It can serve a crucial function as both a conceptual and evalua-
tive aide memoire; as the designer evaluates the impact of their innova-
tion, an acronym foregrounds the key foci of the design: what are we
trying to achieve, and what are the main, hoped-for outcomes of the
design? An acronym also provides a cogent set of headings when it comes
to developing, enumerating and organising the design guidelines and
principles that emerge from analysis of and reflection on the impact of
the specific learning design, in situ. Furthermore, a creative acronym can
also help to position and market one’s EDR, potentially affording one’s
design model a unique intellectual identity and profile.
For example, in research undertaken to examine and explore the
potential of digital storytelling as a process to enhance pre-service teachers’
reflection on their practice learning in schools, Bonnie Thompson
Long and the author developed the R-NEST model for designing and
evaluating digital storytelling for reflection (Thompson Long & Hall,
2015, 2017, 2018). The model emerged from practical design interven-
tion work, undertaken alongside and critically informed by theoretical
reflection. As we will see, the interaction of practice and theory in educa-
tional design and DBR is crucial, both to enhance the robustness of the
design locally and also to contribute critically to the broader, ontological
discourse on educational technology design and innovation. The key
themes emerging in our DBR to advance digital storytelling as a reflective
technology were reflection, narrative, engagement, sociality and technol-
ogy. These were the key areas that we hoped to augment through engag-
ing our pre-service teachers in developing digital narrative artefacts.
R-NEST furthermore fits metaphorically as it suggests ‘a nest’ or ‘our
nest’—and we might liken pre-service teachers to fledgling teachers leav-
ing the nest of the university teacher education programme. An acronym
can be useful in EDR and DBR. This initial ideation stage of the design
process represents the ground-clearing aspect, identifying the questions
and focus, including relevant literature, key stakeholders and so on.
Figure 2.1 outlines the early stages of design conceptualisation centred
on a thematised prototype design framework. This early stage of the
Fig. 2.1 Clearing the ground for innovation: developing an initial, prototype
design model
36 T. Hall
design process typically comprises a number of interpenetrating, reflec-

tive activities and processes. An acronym can provide a tentative, working-
aide memoire, which we can revise and refine as our educational designs
develop and take shape; it can afford us a mediating, conceptual artefact
to focus our design work, enabling us to mitigate—in a systematic fash-
ion—the necessarily complex nature of this endeavour.
Crucially, and as arguably applies in all social sciences research, the
biographical motivation of the researcher(s) and situational/needs anal-
ysis of the setting for innovation represent the original impetus for the
research. This is subsequently augmented by deep consideration of the
aspect of learning that is the focus of the design; review of extant, rele-
vant policy and technology literatures and concurrently, theories of
education. As we will discuss in the next chapter, the multi-ontological
theorisation of learning in DBR should follow the Pestalozzi Principle
of ‘minds-on, hearts-on and hands-on’, where learning is broadly and
inclusively conceptualised as a complex intellectual, emotional and
physical process.
Therefore, in the ground-clearing phase of conceptualising the design
of narrative technology in the museum, these key activities were under-
taken to inform critically the DBR process. As we will see presently in the
book, design emerges and takes shape as we move through what we might
call the four i’s of effective design innovation: ideate, intervene, investigate
and iterate. DBR is usually characterised by accretive and interconnected
cycles of conceptualisation, design, deployment, evaluation and redesign.
Each cycle of the design process builds upon and augments its preceding
iteration.
Normally, I would recommend three significant design-based inter-
ventions and evaluations, commencing with a pilot implementation as a
part of or consolidating the ground-clearing phase.
The initial theorisation aspect of the design is thus crucially important.
A principled and ontologically sound initial thematic model for the
design (often accompanied by a useful, mnemonic acronym, e.g.
R-NEST) provides a useful, even indispensable conceptual framework to
support and inform our understanding of a design, and how it is impact-
ing on learning as it emerges and evolves.
ontribution to Design Knowledge

C
and Practice
In a review of the literature, several studies of exhibition design for chil-
dren in museums were examined. While it was found that there are no
studies of the type proposed in the research exampled in this book, and
there is a dearth of systematic design research in computer technology for
children in museums, all the museums reviewed were using innovative
interpretive and interactive techniques (many of which are low tech and
do not use computers) in order to augment children’s learning experience
(e.g. Alvarez, 2002; Franklin, 2002; Simpson, 2003; Zervos, 2002). It
was furthermore shown in the literature review that the type of challenge
that the designers of these interactive exhibits and exhibitions face is sim-
ilar to this book’s research challenge, they face a ‘how to’ problem. Their
concern is to apprehend and understand better the practical design of
interactive installations in their respective educational settings.
Prototyping, formative evaluation and refinement of design concepts and
constructs are methods by which these designers endeavour to improve
their exhibits and exhibitions. Reflective practice, through activities like
prototyping and formative evaluation, constitutes a key aspect of their
educational design work.
Therefore, as was found in the literature review, reflective practice
(learning and improving by doing and appraising) is a recommended
and proven approach to museum exhibition design and the continuing
professional development of museum designers and educators. In dis-
cussing guidelines for successful exhibition design for children’s muse-
ums and science centres, Steiner (2002, p. 21) recommended: “Make
sure no-one does exhibit-making; take advice and suggestions, but cre-
ate the exhibits yourself.” Of course, Steiner does not preclude collabo-
ration between museum curators, educators and so on and external,
contracted exhibition designers but, Steiner (op. cit.) argues, curators
and educators should always be closely involved in design, both to
inform and to learn from the process. The museum interventions that
were reviewed were also principled, typically predicated on some theory
of learning, for example, Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple
38 T. Hall
Intelligences (1993a), which emphasises the importance of developing

children’s myriad intelligences: intrapersonal, linguistic, logical-mathe-
matical and so forth.
One of the principal reasons that it was decided to adopt DBR meth-
ods is that DBR is an emerging and promising paradigm for educational
inquiry, and the context of this extrinsic narrative technology design was
the museum, a “casual” or “informal” educational setting (Falk &
Dierking, 2000). Furthermore, DBR aims to synthesise practice and the-
ory. The literature review showed how a number of exhibition designs
successfully integrated practice and theory. DBR provides a framework
for bringing theory and practice together effectively to achieve practical
design goals, while at the same time potentially helping to advance scien-
tific understanding of how interactive educational artefacts and environ-
ments can be successfully designed. It is concerned with actually building
an intervention, guided and informed by an orienting ontology or theo-
retical framework, and determining what can be learnt from the evalua-
tion of that intervention and applied to design in general. Within DBR,
there is a commitment, concomitantly to improve design practice and
also to enhance scientific understanding of how design affects learning:
“Prototypically, design experiments entail both ‘engineering’ particular
forms of learning and systematically studying those forms of learning
within the context defined by the means of supporting them” (Barab &
Squire, 2004, p. 9).
Part of the goal of this research was to create and build an educational
design for extrinsic narrative technology, which used novel computing
and which enhanced children’s learning experience in the museum, and,
furthermore, to learn from that process and make a significant ontologi-
cal contribution to design research. The DBR Collective, one of the fron-
tier, leading and most prominent groups of DBR researchers in the
Learning Sciences and Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning
(CSCL) communities, describe how: “Design-based research, by ground-
ing itself in the needs, constraints, and interactions of local practice, can
provide a lens for understanding how theoretical claims about teaching
and learning can be transformed into effective learning in educational
settings” (2003, p. 8).
Characterising Educational Complexity

Given the complexity of the book’s research questions, one of the key
methodological requirements was to try to address the multiple depen-
dent variables that affect the success of a technological intervention
within education. It was found in the literature review that there are mul-
tiple factors that influence how computing is used by learners: these can
include interest and motivational factors, the physical learning environ-
ment, the type of technology used and so forth.
DBR would provide an effective research activity framework because,
as a methodological heuristic, it endeavours to account for educational
complexity. Barab and Squire (2004, p. 4) describe how DBR “involves
multiple dependent variables, including climate variables (e.g., collabora-
tion among learners, available resources), outcome variables (e.g., learn-
ing of content, transfer) and system variables (e.g., dissemination,
sustainability)” and how it “focuses on characterising the situation in all
its complexity, much of which is not now a priori”. DBR is context-based
and endeavours to improve an intervention or the use of a technology in
the actual learning setting that is under study. This contrasts DBR with
more limited, controlled experimental designs: “If one believes that con-
text matters in terms of learning and cognition, research paradigms that
simply examine these processes as isolated variables within laboratory or
other impoverished contexts of participation will necessarily lead to an
incomplete understanding of their relevance in more naturalistic settings”
(Barab & Squire, 2004, p. 1).
Barab and Squire (2004) also discuss how DBR may very well utilise
lab-based experiments to highlight and further investigate a particular
variable(s), but this will not define the approach. Collins et al. (2004,
p. 20) note how: “In most psychological experiments there is one depen-
dent variable, such as the number of items recalled or the percent correct
on a test of some kind. In design experiments there are many dependent
variables that matter.”
Collins et al. (2004, p. 21) furthermore discuss how Ann Brown (1992),
one of the original pioneers of the DBR approach, valued laboratory stud-
ies but “going into complex settings” remained a principal concern:
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
SCENE II.
The Palace of Dreaming, in the city of Infantlonia. King Hector and
Sanctimonious, Ardrigh of Saxscober, are seated alone in the
King’s Audience Chamber. It is the afternoon of a June day.
Sanctimonious (earnestly). “Sire, he is dangerous to Church and
State, He seeks to fling defiance at us both; He would o’erturn our
laws and ancient faith, And he possesses much the rabble’s love.
This last concoction, called Humanity, Dares to exalt and glorify
his name, And cast opprobrium on my saintly self, Because I
represent the ancient creed— The creed I learnt upon my mother’s
knee, From nurse and tutor, pastor and divine, Until at length I
grew to think it true. Of course between us, Sire, and these four
walls, I do not now believe it honestly, Nor more than you do,
Sire, or anyone, Who thinks the matter out. Ne’erless ’tis best To
steadfastly proclaim its sanctity, And force its worship on our
youth and men, Especially our women folk, for these Are Church’s
most devoted friends. Its foes Are more amongst the men, and yet
methinks Queen Isola has opened Woman’s eyes To a degree
disastrous, dangerous. Sire, I would pray your august Majesty To
lay your strict commands upon the Queen That she abstain and
instantly from this. Her precepts are the Evolutionists’. My chief
of Peerers secretly reports, That Isola devotes her privy purse To
bolster up these revolutionaries. I warn you, Sire, their principles
will sap The privileges of the Church and State, And tumble them
about our startled forms. Though Vergli is your son, he bastard is,
But strenuously resists this law of ours. And now he has a
powerful ally, Who will support him in the House of Bores, Isola’s
brother, Prince of Bernia.”
King Hector (starting). “What Bernia dead? What Sanctimonious?”
Sanctimonious. “So says the Chief of Peerers, Sire, to-day, He bore
me secret news. Fear not, ere long It will be quite officially
confirmed. Shafto is now the Prince of Bernia, An evolutionist in
heart and soul, Spit of Isola and of self-same mood, Indomitable
and outspoken too.”
King Hector (smiling sadly). “And honest I suppose, but as you say
This is not part of your concocted creed, Whose tenets we must
own, though in our hearts We scorn them and the lie they bolster
up. My part is one most difficult to play, I would be honest, yet
may not be so. The influence of poor, dead Merani Surrounds my
soul and whispers in my heart. Merani dead? If so, her spirit lives,
For day and night I hear it whispering, It tells me to be fair and to
be just, To clear her name of that unjust reproach, Which falsely
termed religious laws ordain Shall be hurled at the Woman who
declines To take the marriage vows ordained by them. And in my
heart, Ardrigh, I must confess I look on Merani as my true wife,
And Vergli as the rightful, royal heir. Isola did not love me. All her
heart Was given to the noble Escanior. Yet Arco, Prince of Bernia,
her stern sire, Slew him and forced her to become my Queen. But
in my heart, and in your own you know That she is nothing but a
prostitute, A slave, leased to me by unnatural laws Whom I
dishonour, calling her my wife! And now I must coerce her to
obey! You call on me to bid this toy of mine, This royalized and
legalized machine, This Queen in name, but not in deed, this
slave! To bend her neck and bow to bearing rein, That cruel goad
and foe of Nature’s form, Nature, so fair when undeformed by
man. ’Tis a hard part to play, Ardrigh, indeed. My humblest
subject need not envy me, I’d rather far be honest yokel man Than
a false Monarch of Saxscober land.”
Sanctimonious. “Sentiment, Sire; nothing but sentiment. Monarchs
must not allow so soft a thing To take possession of their hearts.
You reign. You are a King, and being such, must rule And shape
your conduct by Saxscober’s laws.”
King Hector. “A sorry fate to have been born a King, Or rather, I
should say, ‘the shade of one!’ My dullest Bores may vote, but I am
mute, The gilded Puppet of a huge machine! Isola is my slave, but
I am worse, I am the slave of an Automaton. But lo! I hear Isola’s
voice outside, She comes to tell me of fierce Arco’s death, And of
her brother Shafto’s accession, What——”
Sanctimonious (rising hurriedly). “Excuse the interruption, Sire,
the Queen Loves not the presence of the Chief Ardrigh; Her
tongue is cutting, though ’tis courteous, And I would fain escape
its moral sting. With your permission, Sire, I will retire Through
the aperture or the secret door, Which leads from here into the
private room, Where you conduct your personal affairs, And
correspondence intimate. But, Sire, Remember to admonish Isola,
Bear in your mind that you are still The King, And sink all
individuality; Be true to Church and State, uphold their laws, And
force the Queen to humbly bow to them.”
[He retires hurriedly through the secret door.
Enter Isola, saying: “Hector, I thought old Sanctimonious Filled up
the Audience Chamber’s narrow space; Is he not here? Whither
has he vanished? Into that Heaven, where I am denied The right
of entry, being Infidel? Or has he gone to Purgatory, where
Repentant souls are burning off their sins? Or—dare I say it,
Hector? To that Hell, Which God, the God of Sanctimonious, Has
made to torture wicked infidels, And all such carrion, though of
his Creation?”
Hector (sternly): “Isola, thou art over bold. Conform, And yield
respect to our religious faith. What matters it if thou art infidel,
And worship Nature’s God? Thou art my Queen, My Consort, my
annointed property, My Co-mate on the throne of Saxscober.
Now, understand that thou art this indeed, And must, as Queen,
obey the laws of Church, As well as those of State. Defy me not. By
those same laws I am thy master, girl, And will enforce
submission. Yield it now. Goad me not to Coercion. I would fain
Reign with thee peacefully and happily.”
Isola (passionately). “Hector, by an opponent law of Truth, I am
your queen and slave, a consort queen, A gilded, dressed-up slave,
not reigning, Sire, But just a sort of bauble, like a crown, A State-
kept mother of your progeny, Each one of whom is given right to
reign According to succession, while I am Declared to be a cast off
‘Dowager’! Is this right, Hector? No, ’tis infamy. A consort’s fate is
pitiable indeed, Whatever be the sex of the Misshape, But of the
two, the female one is most, Because Maternal rights are not her
own. Mind you not, Hector, of that male consort, Of Queen
Magenta, Prince of Citron called? He would not be her gilded
bauble sire, But shared with her the right to reign as King, As I
should share that right with you indeed, Were I your lawful Queen
and wedded wife, And you my lawful mate, which I deny, Because
by Nature’s law, poor Merani, Before you stole me from my
Escanior, Was your true Queen, and Vergli your true heir, She
having lived with you as wife, although She would not take those
church-made marriage vows, Born of the creed preached by the
great Saint Saul! Nor did you ask her to, because by law E’en had
she wedded you by Saint Saul’s creed, A rotten civil law denies to
her The right to take the title of the Queen. Because she was not a
princess before She mated with you! Out on all such laws! Fruits
of a creed the child of Selfishness, Mated with ill-omened
Superstition. No, Hector; Isola will not conform, She treats with
scorn such laws of Church and State, Nature’s true laws alone will
she obey, She will not own a creed which is a lie, She will not
practise laws which are unjust; Your slave she is, but most
unwillingly. She casts defiance on unnatural law, Isola is an
‘Evolutionist’—”
Hector (aside). “And I, too, in a way; for although reared And dosed
with selfish and ignoble tenets, Deep in my heart I feel Isola right,
And that her dauntless spirit pleads for this. She is not Man’s
opponent, but his friend, His true Co-mate, loving Companion,
Who only asks of him Justice and Truth. Oh! sorry fate, that I
must strive with her, And force submission where ’tis now
withheld. Yet must I do so. ’Tis my Kingly fate To be a tyrant and
to act the Sham.”
To Isola. “Isola, cease thy sentimental moans, Our age demands not
feeling, but a Show; Give it a pageant, be it royal Pomp, Or a
procession of dressed-up divines, And it will cheer them lustily
and long. I am a ruling Puppet, thou my Queen, Our business is to
play our sep’rate roles, I as the Public’s slave, and thou as mine. It
is the Law and Custom of our land; We are bound by them. Them
we must obey.”
(Pauses and then continues): “Understand this. Thou must obey our
laws, Both civil and ecclesiastical. Thou must not be an
Evolutionist, Thou must be what thou art, my Consort Queen.
And play thy part upon the royal stage. Defy me not, Isola, bear in
mind I am thy King, thy Master by the law.”
Isola (defiantly). “No need to tell me, for I know it well. But I defy
you, Hector, and your law. A fig for all such false authority. I never
sought to be your slave, nor asked To dangle at your side a bauble
toy. Do as you will, but I will not conform, Nor bow to sham
conventionality. Arco is dead, Shafto is Bernia’s prince, Let me
return to Bernia’s hills and dales, Give me my freedom once again,
I pray— If not, I’ll take it, Hector. Ponder well. Do as I ask; if not, I
warn you, King. I will not act the part of decked out slave.”
[Retires.
SCENE III.
A rambling Castle, situated high up on the hillside of Rostraveen
Mountain, overlooking the Lakes of Killareen. It is the Castle of
Killareen, the Highland home of the Princes of Bernia. Shafto,
Prince of that name, is at this time occupying it, and from his eyrie
stronghold has defied the orders of his liege lord and King, to
yield up to the latter, Isola, who has fled from Saxa Isle and
claimed the protection of her brother, in consequence of having
refused to act the part of a Consort Queen to King Hector, or to
acknowledge her child by him as the Prince of Scota, averring that
Vergli is the rightful heir. She has refused to act the part of Queen
Consort on the principle that no reigning rights are attached to
the dignity making of her a mere nonentity, such a principle being
contrary to the Evolutionary principles of the Evolutionist Party,
of which Vergli, Member of Privilege for Stairway, is the leader,
Isola being a member thereof. Divorce proceedings have, in
consequence, been commenced against her.
Isola (leaning on the stone parapet of the Castle ramparts,
overlooking the lakes below, sings to herself): “Is there a fate on
ev’ry life Which weaves o’er each its darksome thread? Is there a
bosom free from strife? Is there a heart that has not bled? There
are in life some gleams of joy, But Sorrow’s darker shadows fall,
And tho’ sweet moments we enjoy, Pain lays its cruel grasp on all.”
Enter Vulnar. “A sad song, Lady Isola, methinks! Come, let me
cheer your heart with lighter lay. Laughter and joy should shine in
eyes so clear, And smiles oblige the pearly teeth to show; It is not
good to mourn, and Life is young, Laugh while you can, and cast
aside despair, A sorry imp to irritate your heart; Oh! Lady Isola,
chase it away. [Sings
Love the enchanter Hovers all near, Longing to cheer thee But full
of fear, Fear of offending What it loves best, Pining to give thee
Joy’s perfect rest. ‘Wilt thou not love me?’ Love whispers low, ‘Let
my caresses, On thee bestow Dreams of allurement, Visions of
bliss, May not my fond lips Give thine one kiss?’ Hearts were not
made sure, To pine alone? Drive away sorrow, Mourning begone!
Call up love once more, He will respond, Lady tie once more
Heaven’s sweet bond.”
Isola. “Vulnar, your voice is beautiful and rare, Where is the heart to
whom you sing these words? Oh! yes, the bond of love is Heaven’s
tie, Yet, when ’tis snapped, Hell’s chasms yawn below. ’Tis a fair
world, and all might be so gay, Laughter and song, playing with
gentle love, Were it not for bad laws and customs vile, And evil
teaching meted out to youth. How happy had my lot been but for
these. Nature gave me a birthright passing fair, First Life, then
health, the power to love and feel, The opportunity to taste of
each. Had Nature had her way, my path all strewn With fragrant
flow’rs, would have been smooth indeed! But human selfishness
makes mock of Truth, And rules life with one endless, searing lie.
Thus it swooped down upon Isola’s path And makes the way,
indeed, all stones and crags. Your song is sweet, Vulnar, but mine
more true, I simply sang of stern reality.”
Vulnar. “Lady Isola, Hector claims divorce, And, doubtless, will
obtain it speedily. Thus will the laws which bind you as his wife,
Release you from the union you abhor. Freedom will then be
yours. Ah! may I hope That you will love Vulnar as he loves you?
Lady Isola, I have loved you long, Loved you all secretly, more
than my life, Loved you since I was but a boy in years, Loved you
in silence when Escanior Found favour in your eyes and won your
heart. He was my friend, and your joy my whole life. I would not
try to steal your love from him. But he is gone, passed to the Great
Unknown, Passed o’er the boundless Ocean of Life’s space.
Whither? Who knows? Beyond our mortal ken. Will you not try to
give Vulnar your love? He would not force it on you, Isola, But be
content to wait and hope for it. At any rate, his whole love would
be yours, His heart no other Woman’s property.”
Isola. “Kind Vulnar, Nature’s Nobleman indeed. Ah! if such as you
ask for were but there, It would go forth from my poor heart to
you. But, Vulnar, what you seek no longer hides Its coy head in
Life’s throbbing mechanism. Isola’s heart held love for one alone,
That love went roving with Escanior, When the cold dagger drove
him from the side Of Isola beneath the Ocean wave. I cannot give
you what is mine no more, Vulnar, ’tis gone. It is with Escanior,
Wedded with his, all indissoluble, Part of his being, as his was of
mine. His love lives with me, ’tis imperishable; ’Twill guide me to
the Great Unknown some day, There to unite with my own love
again. Vulnar, your heart so noble and so kind Will understand
and feel with Isola.”
Vulnar. “Lady Isola, if the love I seek Has passed away to rove with
Escanior, Will you not give Vulnar the right he craves, The right to
love you and to live for you? He will not ask for that which cannot
be, Nor would he steal such love from Escanior, But give him just
the right to care for you, To be with you through Life’s lone
Pilgrimage. Ah! do not drive me from your side, I pray, I only ask
to be with you. No more.”
Isola. “No, Vulnar, ’tis impossible, I say; To mate where love is not
is Hell enough, But then at least, indifference can dull And make
one callous and like frigid stone. But no true Woman could treat
thus, a man So noble and so kind as you, Vulnar. Men such as you
are not so numerous, Hearts such as yours are jewels scarce and
rare. Isola would not wrong you as you ask; No, Vulnar, seek a
fitter mate than me. And yet, if you will give her Friendship’s aid,
She’ll cherish it as the most precious gift Which Vulnar’s
Generosity can give, The dearest treasure left to her on earth.”
Vulnar. “’Tis yours, Isola, given heart and soul, Nothing you asked
of me could I refuse; At least I ask but one return for it, It is that,
though you cannot love Vulnar, He may be licensed to love Isola,
All silently as in the past he’s loved, Loved with a love he feels can
never die, A love which, unobtrusive, yet shall stand The test of
time, faithful unto the end.”
Isola. “Brave heart, so tender and so true, pure soul, If gratitude for
love so infinite Will give you solace, then indeed ’tis yours, Isola’s
heart is grateful to Vulnar.”
Enter the Prince of Bernia, exclaiming: “What, Vulnar here?
Vulnar, news just to hand apprises me That Vergli is arrested,
charged with Crime, The Crime, conspiring against Church and
State. ’Twas in the House of Privilege he cast Defiance at their
laws and pleaded hard For a reform of both, which he declared
Must be both sweeping and far-reaching too. The overturning of
his Labour Bill— Wherein Co-operation is enforced Upon
employers who amass large hoards, By taking all the profits of
men’s toil, Giving but wages in return, instead Of that which is the
toiler’s rightful due, A share of Toil’s returns—aroused his ire.
Because, I’m told when this same Bill was lost, Defeated by a large
majority, The sneers and jeers, and cheers which hailed the fall Of
his much-cherished infant, maddened him. He rose, and in
impassioned accents, hurled The vials of his wrath on Church and
State, So that men shouted ‘Treason!’ Wonder reigned, And all
agape, demanded his arrest. This has been done, and Vergli is in
gaol, A bad look-out for Evolutionism.”
Vulnar. “’Tis that, indeed, a cause has oft been lost By shutting up
the brains that nurtured it, And closing lips that told it how to act.
Vergli had power, his words were all inspired, They rose upon his
lips like Heaven’s dew, And fell from them in show’rs of sparkling
rain. He said they were Merani’s whisperings, A Woman’s voice,
of which his was the echo; I doubt it not, believing, as I do That
Woman, disinherited by laws As false as they are wrong and
execrable, Has Mission, greater than to be a slave, That Mission to
be Man’s true comforter By guiding him along the path of Truth,
Not grovelling and fawning at his feet. Let her rise up and speak
aloud that Truth, Let her assault base Superstition’s lie; ’Tis
Superstition which has made her slave, The hideous lie of
teachings orthodox. ’Tis they who have brought sorrow upon Man,
Degrading Womanhood, in whose downfall Is swaddled up
Humanity’s drear woes. [Sings.
“Behold! thy handiwork, Oh! man, The outcome of thy cursed laws,
He who that wreck unmoved can scan, No friend of Woman is.
Her cause Shivers and writhes within thy grasp, Thou death-
importing, human asp; Thou who would’st seal her fate, I charge
thee with her bitter woe, ’Tis thou who thus hast dragged her low,
Hast doomed her to this state.
“Look at her in her form divine, A triumph of fair Nature’s art; Look
at her in those clothes of thine Condemned to play the monkey’s
part. Alas! from girlhood’s wasted days Base Superstition’s cruel
ways Hold her in slavery! One aim in life consumes her soul, It is
her one and only role, To grovel at thy knee.
“Where are her rights? She boasts of none, She is thy slave, by
priests controlled; And as the Sculptor moulds his stone, So
mouldest thou her soul. Look at that soul, caged and confined,
Bound helpless where it long has pined, A dreary sight forlorn.
With future empty, cramped and void, No hope to keep her spirit
buoy’d, A toy which men adorn!
“Oh! Woman, wake. Behold the dawn Rising from out that bank of
clouds. No longer grovel, cringe or fawn To Superstition, which
enshrouds Thy liberty. Awake! Awake! I bid thee for thine own
dear sake Cast off these cruel chains. Rise from thy many
thousand years Of degradation. Wipe thy tears, Truth’s golden
Dawn remains.”
Isola. “Vulnar, your invocation is not vain, Have I not half fulfilled it
hitherto? See, I will act as you invoke, indeed. Vergli in prison! I
will take his place, And carry on the War for Right and Truth.
Shafto, go prove your title to be Prince, Speak out the truth unto
your fellow Bores, Arouse the gilded chamber where it sleeps, And
shake those dressed-up tyrants called divines. Make
Sanctimonious tremble in his shoes, Shiver the awful Serpent they
have raised And bid them practise Sacrilege no more. Brave
Vulnar, you will stand by me, I know. Vergli in prison! Echoes of
Merani! Your whisperings shall play upon my lips, I’ll shout them
loudly into deafened ears, And make them ring throughout our
wide wide Erth. Dear Erth, so beautiful, and yet how wronged By
Superstition’s monster-featured creed.”
Shafto and Vulnar. “Agreed, agreed! Both of us are agreed!”
End of Act II.

ACT THIRD.
SCENE I.
A small room, sparsely furnished, in the Prison of Grillaway. The
room is the cell of a first class misdemeanant. The windows are
barred and look out on to exercising ground, which is surrounded
by high walls. The cell in question is that of Vergli, who is
confined therein.
Vergli, Solus: “Saxscober a free country? No, indeed! A slave of
mummified and ancient laws, Created by the undeveloped brains
Of men emerging from the feudal state. Must Evolutionism be
controlled By relics of a past barbaric age, When human beings
had no right to think And fashioned rules to suit their daily needs?
What right have dead men to control us now? Must we be
governed by their narrow vision? Shall rotten laws be solely the
support Of an increasing substance, whose new needs Require the
nourishment of true reform? Oh! prison bars, ye gaolers mute and
dumb, Guess ye the torture which consumes my soul, Longing for
freedom, longing for the pow’r To strike to earth Injustice and
Untruth, And raise upon their ruins fairer scenes? Alas! for
Evolutionism, who Will keep our party solid? Who will lead, Now
I am a caged pris’ner in this hole? Scrutus and Verita will do their
best, Good faithful hearts, yet lacking influence, And minus that
great pow’r which can enthuse And weld together diff’rent
characters. Well, I must seek to use the pow’r of Thought, And
draw towards me that which my heart loves, Isola, can I make
thee think of me? Can I enthuse thee to take Vergli’s place? The
people love thee, thou can’st lead them well, If thou wilt take the
lead, I have no fear. Isola, thou whom this lone heart adores,
Although thou can’st not love me in return, Thy heart being
wedded to Escanior, Wilt thou not fill the place I cannot fill? See, I
will waft to thee intense desire, And by the force of thought fill up
thy soul With the ambitions influencing me.”
He seats himself as he speaks, and leaning his head in his hand,
seeks to attract Isola to think of him and take up his cause by
stepping into the breach which he has been forced to abandon.
Suddenly he looks up, and intense relief is in his face as he
exclaims: “A great calm fills my soul. I seem to hear The whisper
of an inward voice, which says: ‘Vergli, fear not, Isola fills the
breach And will uphold your cause till you are free.’ Is it a dream
or glad reality? I feel it is the latter. As my thought Has sped into
the mind of Isola, So has hers come to mine and brought me
cheer, And filled my spirit with intense relief. Oh! Thought so
wonderful, which has evolved A mind from matter and, endowed
with life By this same matter, can magnetic-like Attract to us
flashes of hidden things, As thou increasest in us, wilt thou not
Vibrate into us knowledge now unknown, Knowledge of space and
of infinity, Of what has been, and of what is to be, By some
attractive force whose law is vague And still quite undeveloped in
our minds, Yet, all the same, a law as positive As that great law
which rules the Universe? If this attractive law can magnetise
Mind unto mind, will it not magnetise Those hidden facts which,
still unknown, ne’erless Are facts which Thought will some day
penetrate And draw into our minds, thus fashioning A knowledge
now unrealised, unknown. Yes, mighty, energetic, living Force—
Give it what name you will, it matters not— Thy pow’r will wax so
great within our brains As to attract to us that which we seek. As
Thought meets Thought, or draws it from afar, As I have drawn
the thought of Isola, So shall this unseen, veiled, but true reality
Conquer the secrets of the Universe And give Materialists the light
they need. Develop it, all scientific men! It is as much a substance,
though unseen, As any of the unseen substances Which influence
Creation’s mighty laws. Have you not studied much those things
we see, And drawn conclusions from the truths unveiled? Go,
study now the Unseen, cultivate That undeveloped faculty, whose
sight Will penetrate the mysteries of Life And open up the mists
enshrouding death. Oh! learned men, how unlearned yet ye are.
‘What! Thought a substance?’ sneeringly you ask. ‘I think it is,’ all
humbly I reply, ‘It is a thing which, though unseen, vibrates With
delicate pulsation all its own. Thought is the substance which shall
solve the past And open wide the future to our eyes.’ Yes, Isola, my
soul no longer fears, I feel that thou, attracted by this force, Wilt
do as I desire and do it well. A woman who has buried
Superstition And scorned to make herself the slave of Man, Albeit
she is his loving friend and mate, Can lead and will lead on
Humanity To win its freedom, and to recreate Noble conditions,
elevating all By evolutionary principles. I feel thy answer to my
mute appeal Circling around me like a soft, soft wind, Caressing
with kind kiss my anxious brain And soothing it as sleep lulls tired
thought. For thought being real and not imaginary, A substance
not a shadow, form unseen Of ethereal property, can tire and
hang Limp and all unemotional at times, Or dulled by over-use of
its great pow’r Which sleep and rest restore unfailingly. My thanks
Isola. From afar thy thoughts Have come to cheer me in my prison
cell, My soul’s at peace. I hear thy whispered words ‘I come,
Vergli, fear not, All shall be well.’”
Enter a Warder. “Your pardon, Sir, your lawyer’s clerk is here, He
bears an order of admittance, too— Is it your pleasure I should
show him in? He bade me say his mission was of note, Requiring
your immediate attention.”
Vergli. “Pray show him in, my friend; I’ll see him now, ’Tis not so
lively here that I should shun Or shirk communion with a fellow
man, Even although it be a lawyer’s clerk, Whose visits mean a bill
of long proportions, When that which he may do, or may not do,
Is done or left undone. Oft’ner the last! Methinks if we paid by
results, the Clique Known as solicitors and barristers Would find
their present lucrative profession, Somewhat the contrary! ‘No
fish; no pay,’ Would make these gentlemen a bit more keen And
less inclined to pile up the expenses! Poor Vergli! But for thee,
kind Isola, He could not have engaged the services Of one of these
noteworthy gentlemen, To pick his pocket so to line his own!
However, here he comes. I will attend And learn the purport of his
mission here. Good evening, Sir. Vergli you wish to see? He am I,
and the Prince of Scota, too.”
[Enter Maxim disguised as a Solicitor’s Clerk.
Warder. “I’ll leave you to yourselves. A Trinity Is rarely company,
and often breeds That most ungainly infant, Controversy. Ring,
when you have adjusted your affairs.”
Maxim. “Hist! Vergli; I am Maxim. Have a care. Ears are awake and
eyes wide open, too. Secrets are not well kept in prison walls,
There are too many listeners about. In a few days your trial will
take place, Counsel is offered by the Government; Your grave
Solicitor refused, howe’er, And said that ‘Vergli would defend
himself.’ I just think that he will, and rightly, too; For one speech
from his lips is worth ten score Of speeches from the windbags of
the bar, Who set much store upon their oratory— Pricing it highly,
changing briefs to gold And turning inside out their clients’
pockets.”
Vergli (laughing): “’Tis true, young clerk. Society’s odd ways Are
manifold; but, all drift down the tide Whereon the bark of Might
o’er-rides poor Right Seated in her frail skiff, and runs her down.
‘Out of my Way!’ cries Might. ‘Am I not large? Are you not frail
and of no consequence? The weak should die, the strong alone
prevail And Might rule over Right.’ This is the law, Or rather as it
is administered. And how can it be ever otherwise, Until to Earth
we strike the selfish creed, Which prating loud a few great Moral
Truths, Forthwith defies them, and sets up a reign Of Superstition
and of Mummery? Then, when men like myself would strike it
down And change those civil laws which owe their birth To
priestcraft and religious tyranny, Who in the past were Sires of
many sins, They are cast into prison instantly And doomed
therein to waste Life’s precious days. Oh! when will Man learn to
be kind to Man And practise brotherhood throughout the world?”
Maxim. “Not yet awhile; but some day it will come, As sure as Night
comes after Day, and Day Follows on Night, ever unerringly. But,
Vergli, you’ll prepare your own defence, Although I fear nothing
will clear your crime; The Ardrigh knows acquittal means his
doom, And ev’ry influence which he commands Will be exerted to
o’erthrow your cause And bolster up his own. Alas! I fear That
nothing will avert your punishment. Think, Vergli, of the Pow’rs
that you oppose, Think of the forces all arrayed in line Ready to
crush you to the earth, to kill. ’Tis an unequal fight. Oh! Vergli,
pause! Think of the future, think of liberty, Think of the horrid
doom which will be yours. Be wise and claim King Hector’s
clemency, Humble yourself to say the word ‘Forgive’; Plead guilty,
crave his Mercy, quit the Cause Of which you have so rashly made
adoption.”
Vergli. “Hush! Maxim. Hush! ‘Never!’ is my reply, I mean to fight
the Ogre Superstition, I mean to cry aloud the Woes of Man Born
of that ancient and insensate lie, I mean to ask for Justice. If I fall
Others will rise to fill the breach I quit. I war not against law and
order, or Against the King and Government. I fight Against
oppressive customs and beliefs, And social tyrannies which weigh
men down, Making both men and women common slaves—
Especially the latter. What I seek Is to give all Life’s opportunity. I
prate not of the word Equality I know, that until Man attains
Perfection, Equality is quite impossible; But give to all that
pressing human right, The right to live, to work and to enjoy The
recompense which is the due of toil, And opportunity to claim it,
too. No, Maxim, tempt me not; my mind’s made up, I fight for all
the disinherited.” [Rings.
Enter Warder: “You rang, Sir. Have you finished with your clerk?”
Vergli. “Yes, thank you, warder. Business is arranged, To-morrow
follows my Solicitor.” (To Maxim) “Remember to enjoin on him to
come.”
Maxim. “I will not fail. He’ll come assuredly.”
[Exit Maxim.
SCENE II.
A small villa standing in a pretty garden, surrounded by a high wall,
in a quiet part of the suburbs of Elsington, and not far from the
public gardens and the King’s Palace of that name. In a sitting
room in the villa, seated at an escritoire, is Isola. She is no longer
Queen of the Saxscober people, King Hector having obtained a
divorce; and she is secretly engaged in carrying on the
evolutionary agitation of which Vergli, before his arrest, was the
leader. It is the day of his trial on a charge of conspiring against
the Church and State laws of the Kingdom of Saxscober. Isola is
dressed in male attire; her long hair has been cut off and now
curls about her head in short tresses. Her disguise is complete and
her appearance that of a slight youth.
Enter Verita (similarly disguised). She closes the door and says:
“The trial is proceeding. Vergli’s speech Was something too
magnificent for words, It held the Court enthralled, spellbound
and mute; A dropping pin might have been heard, indeed, So still
sat silence on the list’ning crowd. Truly he rose unto the great
occasion And looked the Prince of Scota ev’ry inch. Majestic wrath
fell from his scornful lips And bitter and sarcastic were his words.
He seemed inspired. Thought flowed like running stream,
Sparkling his wit, full of convulsing humour; Then pathos and
hard-headed Fact spoke out And touched and forced conviction
each in turn. If eloquence and truth could save Vergli, ’Twould not
be long before our chief was free; And yet, Oh! Lady Isola, I feel
That he is doomed. The verdict will be ‘Guilty.’”
Isola. “Hush, Verita, you must not name me thus; Remember I am
‘Fortunatus’ now. Yes Fortunatus, evolutionist, Deputed by Vergli
to lead his cause. What matter if the wise men find him Guilty?
We’ll save him e’er he reaches Grillaway. All is arranged, Vulnar is
on the spot; The prison van goes down a quiet street Ere entering
the crowded thoroughfare; A carriage and fleet-footed horses
wait, And Vergli will be many miles away When they are searching
for him in the town, Making conjecture as to where he is! Hasten
now, Verita, back to the Court, Tell Scrutus that I go to join
Vulnar, Bid him apprize us of the verdict quick, He knows where
we will be. Ready, Waiting; He knows full well the part he has to
play, Now go. Heav’n grant the Verdict will be fair.”
[Exit Verita.
SCENE III.
In the High Court of Justice. The Judge has completed his summing
up. The jury, after a brief delay, have found the prisoner guilty of
conspiring against the Church and State, a crime in Saxscober
punishable with death. The usual question has been put “Say,
prisoner at the bar, have you any reason to give why sentence
should not be passed upon you?” and Vergli, who has been
standing with folded arms, unfolds them and bows his head
slightly in assent. The hum of voices in the Court, which had
broken out when the foreman of the jury had uttered the word
“Guilty,” at once subsides and a great silence falls as Vergli begins
to speak.
Vergli. “Reason to give against my murder? Yes. For Murder it will
be assuredly. What right have you to take from me God’s breath,
Because I seek to see His laws prevail? What is my crime? To have
demanded Truth? Truth in religion in the place of Sham? Yes, I
have asked for that and pleaded, too, For a vast Revolution in the
laws. I claim to be King Hector’s eldest son, The heir apparent to
the Monarchy; I am the Prince of Scota, Prince Bernis By Natural
law is not the King’s wife’s son. I claim that my dear Mother was
that wife, I claim that she with Hector should have reigned,
Reigned as a reigning not a Consort Queen; I claim the parents’
right, of either sex, To reign before their children. Out on laws
Which make a child usurp its Mother’s place, Or, if a female be an
elder child, Ousts her from heirship on account of sex! Imbecile
law! Worthy of priestly craft, Worthy of Superstition and Saint
Saul, Of men bedridden with such mistresses As are these soulless
and unnatural laws. All law is bad which Nature has not framed,
Be it of Civil or Religious sex, And all Religion is a cursèd lie
Whose God is otherwise than Nature’s form. Away with your man-
shaped and cruel God, In whose own image you declare you’re
made, Faith! He must be an ugly Barbary Ape, If the majority of
men reflect His Godlike features in their ill-formed masks. But
here I fling to Earth the Monster creed With which you mystify
our early years, Distort our reason, warp our faculties; And make
that fatal transformation scene In Human character, which would
be kind And sensible and brotherly in love, Were it not for the
Orthodox tirade That moulds it with false teachings and precepts
Throughput the whole of Life’s sad Pilgrimage. What right have
you to make of Life a hell? To disinherit men of their just rights?
Follow out Nature. To the fittest give The right to lead, to rule, to
fashion law. The fittest should survive, the unfit pass Into the
force that can evolve anew A better Life from Mediocrity. Men
should not starve while others feast and laugh. By what Almighty
Law of Nature’s God Do men step into Life outcasts and slaves?
Why? Yes, why? I ask; for Opportunity Is Man’s inherent right.
Sex should not be The disability you’ve made of it. Give all an
equal opportunity, The fittest will arise and lead and rule, And
make this world a heaven where now ’tis hell. Let all men work
from Monarch to workman, Let all reap benefit from honest toil.
Let Life be made Co-operative and See to it that Injustice shall be
slain. Build up a new religion based on Love, Away with Cruelty to
Man or Beast; Beasts have their rights just every much as Man,
Are they not our own kin, our mute, dumb friends? We have no
right to torture them for sport, For Scientific purposes or food.
Blood was not made for Man’s consumption. Grain And fruit, and
vegetables, and nuts and herbs Are what God Nature gives him for
his food; And Health demands he should adopt as such. Give us a
kind religion. Let the Truth Be the magnetic influence of our lives.
Let Sham and Superstition be condemned As false and hideous
idols of the past. Down with all law in Church and State which
kills The holy rights of Nature, our true God. Oh! Woman, wake!
Crush the black snake Untruth. Wake! Woman, wake! And you
shall wake the World. Are these the sentiments which merit
death?” [Cries of “No! No!” and “Yes! Yes!” “Should they not
rather live eternally? Are they not true? Is not all Truth divine?
What! Treason is it to condemn a lie? What made the lie? God?
No. Just little Man. Man, still in an imperfect, undrilled state.
Shall lies or laws based on them be immortal? Not so, I say. They
must be executed. Vergli will be their executioner. Is he a
Revolutionist? No, no. He is an Evolutionist. That’s all. Kill him?
You cannot! Thought will never die, It is a part of Immortality.
Silence this body? That which gives it life You cannot kill, because
it is of God. It is that which is speaking to you now. Silence it?
Never! ’Tis eternal Life. For Thought is Life and Life which cannot
die, It is the Soul and deathless part of Man.”
[He ceases speaking. Loud applause breaks out which is with
difficulty suppressed. The judge assumes the Black Cap and
pronounces the death sentence. It is received in contemptuous
silence by Vergli and gloomy silence in the Court.
As the prisoner is led away, Verita manages to pass near him and
whispers: “Hist! Vergli! Isola is all prepared. Fear not! Ere long
thou shalt be free as air.”
[She goes quickly away as she speaks.

Education Narrative Technologies and Digital Learning 1St Ed Edition Tony Hall Full Chapter PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Education Narrative Technologies and Digital Learning 1St Ed Edition Tony Hall Full Chapter PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Education, Narrative Technologies and

Digital Learning 1st ed. Edition Tony

Changing Digital Geographies: Technologies,

Stuart Hall, Conjunctural Analysis and Cultural

Higher Education Design: Big Deal Partnerships,

Teaching Narrative 1st ed. Edition Richard Jacobs

Narrative Policy Analysis 1st ed. Edition R.A.W Rhodes

Digital Humanism: A Human-Centric Approach to Digital

Narrative and History 2nd ed. Edition Munslow

Teaching and Learning for Social Justice and Equity in

More information about this series at

Digital Education and Learning

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018938393

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

Cover illustration: almagami / Alamy Stock Vector

Printed on acid-free paper

1 The Age of Autobiography and Narrative Technology 1

2 Educational Design with a Capital D 25

3 The Pestalozzi Principle 53

4 Narrative Technology and the ‘Third Teacher’ 107

5 Evaluating Narrative Technology Design 135

6 SCÉAL Design-Based Research Framework 171

© The Author(s) 2018 1

 he Creative Educational Potential

Returning for the moment to Frank McCourt’s classroom: during his

In the 1950s, Frank McCourt drew on the potential of the autobio-

Education as Narrative Process and Product

Thus, what is our epistemology of narrative? What are its distinctive

One of the founding developments in the origins of this important

positively on their learning and how it and might be repeated and/or

1. through accomplishment/achievement—by completing a task or

Alongside contemporary narrative conceptions of life and meaningful

stories spanning teachers’ entire careers in classrooms are being used to

In education, the import of narrative, and the stories we construct and

The Narrative Mode of Thought

The contiguity of chronology, sequence and time are central in story-

logos, or meaning. Furthermore, a strong conception of the logos or

we use stories to explore beyond the everyday, to create, envision, engage

1. Multiplicity: there are many possible ways of knowing;

The aim of education should be to support learners to move towards

In Against Narrativity (2004), Strawson critiqued and refuted what he

Intrinsic Narrative Technology

re-imagined the story of Fionn, including a contemporary interpretation

© The Author(s) 2018 25

technology. Alongside ontological and theoretical insights, the chapter also

 haracterising the Challenge of Educational

EDR, which can have different methodological variations, including

In the Reggio Emilia Schools in Italy, the physical learning environ-

 esearch and Development Methodological

interventions designed to enhance children’s education (e.g. Lingnau,

emerging insightful and promising possibilities. This would be particu-

(Stevens, 2002, p. 272) Consequently, Stevens notes how we need to

s­ubsidiary research questions of the extrinsic technology design case in

 ationale for Selection of Design-Based

 here Do We Begin in Design-Based

design process typically comprises a number of interpenetrating, reflec-

 ontribution to Design Knowledge

Intelligences (1993a), which ­emphasises the importance of developing

Characterising Educational Complexity

End of Act II.

You might also like

1 The Age of Autobiography and Narrative Technology 1

2 Educational Design with a Capital D 25

3 The Pestalozzi Principle 53

4 Narrative Technology and the ‘Third Teacher’ 107

5 Evaluating Narrative Technology Design 135

6 SCÉAL Design-Based Research Framework 171

he Creative Educational Potential

Education as Narrative Process and Product

The Narrative Mode of Thought

Intrinsic Narrative Technology

haracterising the Challenge of Educational

esearch and Development Methodological

subsidiary research questions of the extrinsic technology design case in

ationale for Selection of Design-Based

here Do We Begin in Design-Based

ontribution to Design Knowledge

Intelligences (1993a), which emphasises the importance of developing

Characterising Educational Complexity