Narrative has a significant role in K-12 (kindergarten through high school) education, both in fictional form (by means of fables, historical novels, and literature) and non-fictional forms (by means of documentaries, educational books on topics such as history and politics, biographies etc.). Interactive Digital Narratives (IDN) in its many forms from e-literature to narrative-focused video game and extended reality applications has a considerable potential in education, in particular when it comes to complex topics with characteristics such as different perspectives, uncertainties, aggregated decisions and intricate combinatorics. Many educational topics, from cultural awareness to citizenship education to sustainable societies, post-colonial history, cultural heritage and personal development fit this framing, yet so far, IDN is underused in school education and absent from most curricula. Conversely, a considerable body of experiments and promising applications exist. As a case in point, the ICIDS conference proceedings list nearly 200 contributions with the keyword “school education” since 2009, e.g. (Blokland et al., 2021; Kelleher, 2009; Moreno & Gifreu-Castell, 2017; Müller, Iurgel, Otero, & Massler, 2010; Sylla & Gil, 2020))

Consequently, it is time to move from experiments to curricula and consider strategies for talking to school boards and policy makers. Our proposed panel will bring together a number of current projects and will discuss next steps, including a useful distinction of educational projects between topical (IDN for education in specific topics) and foundational (literacy- oriented education about IDN (Daiute & Duncan, 2017; Daiute, Cox, & Murray, 2019; Daiute, Duncan, & Marchenko, 2018)) perspectives.

One contribution elaborates the argument that for critical literacy of texts that are generated by or determined by code, to be taught in ways that reflect the original intentions associated with it (Freie & Macedo, 1987), it is necessary for young people to be aware of code and have a basic proficiency of computational thinking. Thus a review of critical research on digital platforms with relevant examples such as social media threads, targeted advertising and intelligent personal assistants is carried out. In conclusion, approaches of combining coding and text-writing in K12 are proposed to confront the educational challenge of making young people 'read the world' (Freie & Macedo, 1987) which is now digitally mediated.

Another presentation argues in favor of Interactive Digital Narratives (IDNs) as a medium of delivery and assessment for subjects in the humanities as well as sciences at secondary level education.

Another presentation discusses the use of Interactive Digital Narratives (IDNs) for tertiary education. To prove this rather theoretical view, a practical example of use of an IDN for a blended learning academic course, held at the University of Tartu in the Spring Semester 2022, will be presented.

A final paper will investigate the differences in the narrative emplotment of the historical sites, first, as they are featured in the Assassin's Creed main games and then in their recent Discovery Mode instances which removes traditional combat and gameplay elements, and turns the game into an interactive walkthrough attraction that imparts historical knowledge about the real-world sites and cultures that are modelled in the games.

Blokland, E., Cullinan, C., Mulder, D., Overman, W., Visscher, M., Zaidi, A., et al. (2021). Exploring Multiple Perspectives in Citizenship Education with a Serious Game. In A. Mitchell & M. Vosmeer (Eds.), Interactive Storytelling: 14th International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling, ICIDS 2021 (pp. 1–14). Springer International Publishing. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92300-6_28 Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2009). Multiliteracies: New literacies, new learning. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 4(3), 164–195. https://doi.org/10.1080/15544800903076044 Daiute, C., & Duncan, R. O. (2017). Interactive Imagining in Interactive Digital Narrative. In N. Nunes, I. Oakley, & V. Nisi (Eds.), (pp. 282–285). Cham: Springer International Publishing. Daiute, C., Cox, D., & Murray, J. T. (2019). Imagining the Other for Interactive Digital Narrative Design Learning in Real Time in Sherlock. In A. Mitchell & M. Vosmeer (Eds.), Interactive Storytelling: 14th International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling, ICIDS 2021 (pp. 1–8). Springer Nature. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92300-6_46 Daiute, C., Duncan, R. O., & Marchenko, F. (2018). Meta-communication Between Designers and Players of Interactive Digital Narratives. In R. Rouse, H. Koenitz, & M. Haahr (Eds.), Interactive Storytelling: 11th International Conference for Interactive Digital Storytelling, ICIDS 2018. Cham: Springer Berlin Heidelberg. Flores, L. (2019). Third generation electronic literature. Electronic book review, 7. Freire, P., & Macedo, D (1987). Literacy: Reading the Word & the World. Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd. Kelleher, C. (2009). Supporting Storytelling in a Programming Environment for Middle School Children. In I. Iurgel, N. Zagalo, & P. Petta (Eds.), Interactive Storytelling: Second Joint International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling, ICIDS 2009, Guimarães, Portugal, December 9-11, 2009, Proceedings (pp. 1–4). Springer Science & Business Media. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-10643-9_1 Kress, G. R. (2003). Literacy in the new media age. Psychology Press. Moreno, V., & Gifreu-Castell, A. (2017). Applying Interactive Documentary as a Pedagogical Tool in High School Level. In N. Nunes, I. Oakley, & V. Nisi (Eds.), Interactive Storytelling: 10th International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling, ICIDS 2017. Cham: Springer International. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71027-3_31 Müller, W., Iurgel, I., Otero, N., & Massler, U. (2010). Teaching English as a second language utilizing authoring tools for interactive digital storytelling. 2nd International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-16638-9_28 Sylla, C., & Gil, M. (2020). The Procedural Nature of Interactive Digital Narratives and Early Literacy. In Interactive Storytelling 13th International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling, ICIDS 2020 (pp. 258–270). Springer, Cham. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62516-0_23