From Alberta
My name is Raj Boora and I'm a "Technology Professional Development Facilitator" at the University of Alberta. I'm interested in digital storytelling for several reasons. The first is that I have a passion for photography and videography and now that I have the tools to do both of these digitally, I have been able to grow and explore much faster than I would have been able to otherwise. Secondly is that I believe that digital storytelling, is really just storytelling using the tools that we have available today. The problem is that it is very easy to use and abuse these tools, so I am interested in this session to see how people get around the latter and make the most of the former. Thirdly, there are a number of faculty that I support that use or are planning to use digital storytelling as part of their research. Finally I truly believe that students/millenials are very much more inclined to a number of literacies made possible by digital technologies that our current generations of teachers and pre-service teachers are almost oblivious to, so I want to see what others are doing to help teach the teachers.
posted by idarknight @ 8:34 AM
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6 Comments:
I think you are correct that "millennials" are much more inclined be engaged in work that involves digital storytelling than many digital immigrants. Digital media is the air most younger students breathe freely, so providing them with opportunities to not only consume digital media content but also CREATE it via digital stories is a powerful formula for engagement and student learning in the 21st century classroom.
I think we can also ensure kids get some "old school" basics using these new tools as well - there are many classic elements of knowledge that are essential to making a good story, regardless of media or format. I think we need to make sure that the immigrants and visitor to this new digital era don't forget that in any way, shape or form.
I agree that there are essential elements to making a good story,in fact one of my favorite quotes about the power of story is as follows: “Story is a universal mirror that shows us the truth about ourselves-who and why we are. When we look into this mirror, we see daily routine and mundane circumstances transformed into something profound; story takes the ordinary and binds it into all of human existence, revealing the significance of the trivial.” (Livo & Rietz, 1986, p.4)
I believe digital storytelling brings to life for the "millennials" this power of story in a medium to which they are accustom.
1. Millenials are definitely into this storytelling, in all its splendor and its squalor. In my tech-for-teachers classes, I build up to showing them places like fanfiction.net, TheSims2 storytelling sites, and machinime examples such as Redvs.Blue. Clearly, students like to create stuff. I think it's the natural urge to generativity, and we don't offer students many authentic opportunities to do that during the school day or within the context of academic transmission.
2. I agree with "idarknight" about old-school basics. But how to get these concepts in there without making it an "Eat Your Vegetables" thing?
My current thinking is that it's all about the assessment stage. Yes, the teacher has to scaffold it and offer formative feedback and keep students on-task. But where the students will really be able to formalize their learning about story structure and communication is AFTER they pull their hands back from the keyboard. At that point, I think some guided metacognition would be very, very productive. Get the students to go back over their product. Tell the story of the decisions they faced, why they made the choices they made, etc. Get them to link their story back to the content -- what fits and what doesn't? I think this is especially powerful for working with re-purposed mediums, such as TheSims or video game mods. I'm also optimistic about having the students re-work the material: having told the story from one point of view, shift it to a different point of view and see what changes.
But this brings me to a bigger point: how to assess what the students produce? How to assess the grammar and usage, the use of the visual medium, the story structure? The attention to the original, targeted content and skills? The technical details? I'm interested in doing this with digital narratives about social studies, and I feel it's even messier in that domain. I'd love to hear people's thoughts in this forum on how to assess products in language arts.
Todd brings up a good point about grammar and assessment.
The digital story is much more visually based and I think should be subjected to many of the same critiques that film is subjected to now. Elements of camera angle, motion, scoring and lighting are now as important as spelling and punctuation.
Raj,
I find it fascinating that people seem to approach digital storytelling from three spaces: the image (or a set of images), audio (often a song), or a concept (some idea that provides the germ). Once one is in place, it usually sets off the other two; and, a well-developed script should unite all three.
I like your point about the research approach. I've been thinking alto about this recently, especially as it applies to podcasts and blogs (and digital stories). What would an appropriate research agenda or approach to research be that would allow digital stories, blogs, and podcasts to be more accepted in academia? We still have many institutions where "publishing" really refers only to a print medium
SITE initiated a great approach with its CITE journal, which does allow for the publishing of electronic articles, and appropriate media that would support those articles. In other words, in such a journal you could write a peer reviewed article about digital stories in which there are direct links to the digital stories you describe in the article (making any sense?).
Anyhow, I can't tell how often I still have discussions with colleagues in academia about the locus of publishing and research in the digital age. After all, the printing press was viewed by many as the most significant technological achievement of the last millennium.
Perhaps we can talk a bit more about this at SITE.
Mike
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