About a month ago, at the end of June 2011, author J.K. Rowling delighted fans with her announcement that she’s creating a new online environment where the stories and characters of Hogwarts will continue to develop in the years ahead: Pottermore.
According to Alison Flood’s June 23rd post for The Guardian:
Although the author made clear that she had “no plans to write another novel”, the fresh Potter material – to be unveiled later this year – already stretches to 18,000 words about the novels’ characters, places and objects, with more to come. From Professor McGonagall’s love for a Muggle as a young woman, to how the Dursleys met (Petunia was working in an office); from new information about Slytherin, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff houses, to details about wand wood, Rowling’s writing will be just one part of the richly interactive, free Pottermore.com website, which is intended to bring the Harry Potter storylines to interactive life for readers.
To stay updated on the project, check out the official Pottermore blog and follow @pottermore on Twitter.
Henry Jenkins’ post “Three Reasons Why Pottermore Matters…” highlights the importance of Rowling FINALLY embracing transmedia. I see this announcement as yet another reason we, as educators, need to be regularly playing with media to become more comfortable learning with digital text, images, audio and video. The interactive website powered, to a large degree, by user generated content (UGC) promises to be the kind of participatory learning environment our students want and increasingly EXPECT given the powerful tools in our information landscape.
Are you utilizing and experimenting with different kinds of digital, interactive communication possibilities today? As 21st century educators, we each need to be.
Thanks to Camilla Elliott for sharing this announcement.
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Comments
One response to “J.K. Rowling Announces a Magical World of Digital Text: Pottermore”
I do think this project has HUGE implications for the future. As a second grade teacher, avid reader and writer I’m eager to participate in the world of Pottermore. I’m still trying to figure out how to help my second graders gain all of the literacy skills they need to engage in all types of text digital and non-digital.