Robot Heart Stories

"Robot Heart Stories combines all the qualities of what I call "social benefit storytelling." The combination of creative narrative with noble ambitions is exactly the kind of groundbreaking transmedia that is inspiring and motivating to storytellers like me." 

Tim Kring creator of "Heroes" and the new Fox series "Touch"

Robot Heart Stories is the first in a trilogy of experiential learning projects from award winning storytelling pioneer Lance Weiler and creative producer Janine Saunders.  With the help of a talented team of storytellers, educators, scientists, and mathematicians, an immersive learning experience has been created that has enabled students across continents to collaborate on getting a little lost robot home.  As a class of students in Montreal, and another in LA, have worked together to get Laika back into space, while at the same time, students around the world, including my own, have had endless opportunities for creation and participation in the project.  What powers the Robot is passion and creativity. To get involved, students have created “heartpacks” to share something they love. Their work then becomes a part of a "heartpack" gallery from participants around the world. For every 1,000 "heartpacks" that are submitted, a contribution will be made to creative writing programs in public schools.

My students created many heartpacks and connected so deeply with the story, that we decided to engage with Laika in other ways.  My second graders used differentiated question stems to generate questions they had for the robot and recorded them in a VoiceThread for Laika to hear and respond to.  Their VoiceThread can be heard here:



My first graders also created a VoiceThread to share their passions:

My third graders who were just embarking on a journey with understanding and using the conventions of nonfiction.  We launched the unit with students exploring their passions and selecting nonfiction texts to match their passions.  Students then created their own heartpacks reflecting their passions which can be seen in the gallery.   Our english language learners in Kindergarten and 2nd grade collaborated with their parents on writing and drawing one thing about their country they would teach Laika (they are writing this in their native language) and one thing they would teach Laika about the US (they are writing this in English).  These families also designed their own versions of Laika to reflect the dress of their native countries.  And finally, in conjunction with a research unit of my own, my students created Google Search Stories.  We dove into a 'rabbit hole' and extended Laika's story by imagining that while with the children in Montreal, Laika had the opportunity to use a computer and to do a google search.  We brainstormed what kinds of searches Laika may have performed.  In the process, we had a mini-lesson on effective searching techniques.  One of their Google Search Stories can be seen below:

Through Robot Heart Stories, I have been reminded of the power of narrative and how a quality story and the effective use of media channels can engage our students and immerse them in their learning in a powerful way.