MERLOT Review of Inanimate Alice

In CEP 811 I was assigned the project of evaluating an instructional resource on MERLOT, a repository for instructional resources. I chose Inanimate Alice as my resource to evaluate and the following is my evaluation according to the criteria used by MERLOT to review and evaluate learning materials.

Quality of Content:

Inanimate Alice is a free, web-based resource that uses a combination of digital storytelling and gaming to encourage learning with focuses on reading/language arts and is multimodal so as to best engage reluctant readers. Additionally, the program uses “born-digital” material and models good storytelling methods. This learning tool is highly participatory and will help students learn new literacies whether literary, artistic, or technological.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching-Learning Tool:

This program is ideal for older elementary learners and even middle school students, and engages both avid and reluctant readers into the storytelling and gaming processes. The downloadable educational pack serves as a guide, helping teachers use the program and explaining the pedagogy behind each lesson. The lessons are “aligned to the Common Core State English Language Arts Standards in the area of Reading: Literature” and the educational packet clearly identifies the value of each lesson and connects it to meaningful learning. In addition, there are opportunities for students who successfully learn the material to continue Alice’s story by constructing their own episodes and continuing the story digitally.

The learning objectives can be altered to fit the teacher’s need to a limited extent, but support reading and storytelling and directly support those processes. This program is media rich and improves students’ abilities to use technology to enhance their learning experience. The teaching and learning goals are clearly identified by the creators of Inanimate Alice, and meaningful assignments can be designed in the areas of reading, storytelling, animation, or gaming to reflect on or even continue Alice’s story.

Ease of Use:

The labels, buttons, menus, text, and layout are all consistent and visually distinct. They all work cohesively to engage the student in the story. Once in the episode, the user only has to click on the arrow button to continue the story. Occasionally progress will be contingent on the successful completion of a puzzle or game, which also breaks up the reading and encourages student exercise of other technological or artistic literacies. A menu on the right-hand side encourages re-learning and allows students the opportunity of revisiting content in the episode. Requiring only Adobe Flash and internet access, the software is well-suited for classroom use, providing the classroom has computers available for student use, and requires little technical support. In addition, the multimodality and the artistic bent of the program make it attractive to readers, gamers, and artists.