Ana Jorge Artigau, Florencia Aguilar, Ignacio Trossero, Teresa Bosch

“Worldbuilding for collaborative storytelling in learning experience design”

Universidad Austral; Buenos Aires Argentina. Facultad de Comunicación. Worldbuilding Consortium (Junk Planet)

As a narrative and design methodology, worldbuilding practice is a new paradigm
for collaboratively creating stories incorporating rigorous research on different scales and
domains. This presentation argues that Worldbuilding methodology is suitable for shaping
learning experiences where storytelling emerges as a plural outcome.
This presentation is about designing learning scenarios as narrative worlds using
the worldbuilding methodology (McDowell & Bohorquez, 2015). The proposal explores
new learning environments for the Junk consortium from a pluralistic perspective guided
by technological vectors and social innovation. The design process, through
Worldbuilding, collaborates to recreate enhanced shared experiences empowered by
communication technologies and design languages.

The created world is the bonfire or the sandbox where stories are shared and
mined from the center of the created scenario. Professors provoke the conversation, and
then students own the outcome: a world with a shared language and remarkable stories.
The participants of the learning experience “Worldbuilders” use an ethnographic base as
a place from which to begin to imagine future opportunities for the evolution of the story
world. This way of teaching more systemically and collaboratively empowers the plurality
of voices and stories, making the learning experience more complex and prosperous.

Ana Inés Jorge Artigau is a Doctor in Communication from Austral University in Argentina, where she is currently Associate Professor and teaches courses for both Undergraduate and Graduate students. She has been part of the Participatory Creativity Research Group where she has focused on the work of Gregory Bateson. She has been working on an ecological perspective and published different papers where she studied the relationship between Creativity and Communication. In addition, she is also part of the Worldbuilding Lab where she is dedicated to further the relationship between this framework as a means to foster a Participatory Perspective.

Florencia Aguilar is Master in Content Management (MGC) from the Austral University and Industrial Designer from Misiones National University. She is a co-founder member of the Austral World Building Lab and since 2020 she has been granted the honor of leading the “Connect the dots” project, to develop an interactive platform together with students and teachers from other disciplines. A permanent collaborator in different Worldbuilding workshops applied to smart cities and entrepreneurship. She is also working on a technology project doing research for UX design. She is co-author of a publication on World Building and education for social innovation that will be published in the 30th edition of the Knowledge Forum at UANL in Mexico. Her work is about designing learning experiences in multi-user virtual environments.

Ignacio Trossero is a Social Communicator who teaches Storytelling and Worldbuilding through imagination and collaboration. He is a co-founding member of the Austral World Building and works in different projects with the Worldbuilding methodology mentored by Alex McDowell. He works as a member and project leader of the Junk Planet Worldbuilding Consortium, where he coordinates the project’s schools. He is co-author of a publication on World Building and education for social innovation that will be published in the 30th edition of the Knowledge Forum at UANL in Mexico. Ignacio is a script consultant and a technical advisor on filmmaking, cinematography and video editing. He is a Professor of Worldbuilding and Audiovisual Storytelling for design and communication students of the Universidad Austral. He is currently a candidate for the Master in Content Management of the Universidad Austral and his thesis is on Branded Content strategies for Latin America audiencies.

Teresa Bosch is Phd Candidate. Professor and Researcher at Universidad Austral and Montevideo University, Uruguay. Her work is focused on Transmedia Storytelling, World Building, Story Development and Interactive Media. She has a master’s degree in Screenplays for Film and Television (University of Navarra, Spain). Visiting Scholar in the Media Arts and Practice division of The School of Cinematic Arts at University of Southern California (USC). Content Developer for Latam and US Hispanic media entertainment industry at Mediabiz Talent Agency. She is a member of the board at Universidad Austral. Director and co-founder at Austral Worldbuilding Lab.