Monday

Interactive Storytelling. The meaning behind these two words quickly sank into my cranium today. As the words floated through my brain, my neurons thrust upon my conscious mind the image of my little brother and me.

Under my sister’s cool pink comforter, which was designed with ribbon flowers, I felt at peace with my little brother’s head resting on my left arm. I heard his childish laugh vibrating through the air as he rambled on, telling me his story. We were rarely found reading bedtime stories out of a book. My brother lacked the patience to wait for me to flip to the next page as his eyes raced across the printed words. Somewhere in his story he weaved in a string of super heroes and villains and then to top it off there was a fearsome creature (e.g. shark, crocodile, or alligator). It was almost my turn. My mind was getting sluggish and I knew if I didn’t respond quickly enough, I would hear the loud calling of my name. It was not pleasant, especially nearing midnight. Then an idea hit me. I turned towards my little brother and playfully tickled his side. I told him I had an idea. We should share a story. This was new. I told him that I would begin a story and we would take turns telling it. He appeared excited, but then as my idea unfolded I edged towards another roadblock. How did I become the creator and he the terminator? As I fleshed out the story, adding characters and suspenseful plotlines, my brother found some mayhem to instill and a character to erase. Is this what happens when my brother watches movies like Spider-man more than ten times? I asked him to stop eliminating my characters. We’ve barely started. He only laughed and I in no mood to argue tickled him.

Now as I contemplate his story, I recall a quote by Pablo Picasso: “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” As he moves into the “real world,” I hope that he retains his love for storytelling just as I have. Some things are better left to the imagination.

As I climb up towards a world more defined by science and research more than pure belief, I find myself edging away from wholesome imagination. Just last week, I watched the movie Transformers on my little brother’s portable DVD player. I sat there pondering the science behind these transformations. How did a Chevrolet Camaro or a Peterbilt, for that matter, “transform” into a robot more than five times its size? What was the physics behind these unique alterations that caught my brother’s interest? I turned towards my younger sister for an answer, but she only shrugged, and told me that it was a movie and that I should have more imagination. More imagination. If only it was easy as drinking a pill. Need more imagination? Here, take a pill every twelve hours. What are the side effects? Hallucinations, perhaps.

Digital storytelling can bring so much to the science field. I know that my learning success largely depends on visuals. Studying biology through high school, I surfed the web for videos that explained the replication of DNA vs. RNA, the flow of blood through the muscular heart, and the channeling of waste and food through the complex system of pregnant women. With the continuing improvement that the digital world brings to science, I find that scientists and medical practitioners can eliminate preventable errors. I recall reading an article concerning a 4D human model that enables surgeons to plan out their procedures before performing them on actual patients. I also remember the existence of a model at an eminent medical university that duplicates medical symptoms and complications from pregnancy, to high fevers, and to cardiac arrest. The purpose of the model is to train the medical students without the danger of hurting the patients. Is it possible for a doctor to treat a patient who is residing halfway across the world through a screen? Can she/he operate on the patient by moving the tools (supervised by a skilled staff of course) much as a child playing tennis on the Wii? Will medical students learn better by seeing chemical and biological reactions through the assistance of specially designed goggles? How will this enhance the hands-on experiences? Only time will tell.