I recently had the opportunity to experience the Spotlight Stories on my Moto X. The experience was unique and a little jarring. Essentially, your phone becomes a window into a the world of the story, and it is your task to follow, or not follow, along with what is being told.
I was enthralled the first time I went through the story. The second time through I chose to move around away from the main timeline, and see what else was going on. To be honest, the rest of the world was not quite as realized as the main story, but for a first attempt I was engrossed in the story.
It is my curse, that when I look at a new story (or any story, for that matter) I always try to picture it in class. I find that many stories written in the Junior Grades suffer from a lack of thought away from the main story, and break down logically when put under scrutiny. If I challenge my students to create their own “spotlight story”, it will engage students in the process of creating a world, and force them to think about what is happening away from the action. Driving thought away form the main story line will make students create a more cohesive narrative, and (I hope) have a better understanding of motivation.
That being said, we have only witnessed a first attempt. I really like the idea of a mobile device as a window into another world. I truly hope that Motorola will branch out access to many different devices, so we all share and explore together. Further to that, a creation engine (I admit, I don’t know the practicalities of this), would be outstanding to test out in a classroom.