Digital Storytelling at the University Level
From LIS5313
By Sara Dustin
Contents |
[edit] Introduction
When considering what multimedia resources to include within the curriculum, humanities and arts instructors need to decide how the technology will promote active learning. Instructors at the university level often criticize the integration of PowerPoint presentations within the classroom curriculum because these types of presentations encourage passive learning. However, digital stories can stimulate an active learning process if they are created with a specific purpose and thought-provoking storyline. In particular, composition and literature courses can benefit from the integration of digital stories because such stories can stimulate an interest in the reading and writing process. Therefore, the focus of this essay will be on how university instructors, especially those who teach composition and literature courses, could use digital stories as a pedagogical tool to enhance learning and will not discuss the student creation of digital stories. At this point, few instructors incorporate digital stories into their curriculum, but the potential of using this medium should be explored by more departments.
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) refers to the current generation of students as “the Nintendo generation.” The video games that they play, as well as the abundance of technological resources that is available to them, “have given children a different way of interacting with information compared with previous generations” (National Academy of Sciences 1995). Previous generations didn’t have the level of technological expertise that many current students possess, which includes familiarity with social networking websites, interactive video games, and wikis. Unfortunately, many educators lag behind their students in the “technological revolution.” By incorporating a variety of multimedia platforms into the classroom, teachers can begin to bridge this divide. Digital stories, therefore, can serve as useful instruments to engage students in a more active process of learning.
With the creation of the University of Houston’s website Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling (EUDS), instructors in all fields now have an interdisciplinary website that provides numerous examples of how to incorporate digital stories into the university classroom. Although many observers of Web 2.0 would typically associate digital stories with personal narratives, the EUDS website gives specific examples of instructional/informational digital stories across the curriculum. Although the Language Arts section currently features only one story on the text To Kill a Mockingbird, the potential exists for creating and presenting instructive, engaging stories within the composition and literature curriculum, which I will discuss in greater detail in the sections that follow.
[edit] The Purposes of Digital Storytelling
As Joe Lambert, the executive director for the Center for Digital Storytelling, states, "we use the visual culture to bring people back into language and the written word" (Lambert 2007). Since many of our students are more accustomed to the visual medium rather than the written (witness the rise of video games over the past two decades), digital stories can be invaluable as they demonstrate the instructor’s awareness of new technology and its uses.
In addition, the EUDS website lists two goals/objectives that particularly relate to creators of instructional stories:
• Appeal to the diverse learning styles of the students by using Digital Storytelling as a presentation media
• Generate interest, attention and motivation for the "digital generation" kids in our classrooms.
New initiatives, such as the Visible Knowledge Project (VKP) at Georgetown University, are creating intersections between technology and learning. As Weis et. al., who are members of the Digital Storytelling Affinity Group within the VKP, remark, the topic of digital storytelling in the classroom is so popular that they delivered their paper to a “standing room only audience” (Weis et al. 2002). In addition, courses such as Dr. Robin’s “Creating Educational Materials for Digital Storytelling” at the University of Houston teach education students how to effectively develop digital stories within a core curriculum. So, a solid core now exists of organizations and individuals who want to explore the medium of digital storytelling within the university context. What remains to be seen is how many instructors, particularly within the humanities and arts, will embrace this new technology.
As I reflect on the five years I have spent teaching university level composition and literature classes, I wish I had integrated digital stories within those courses. As the number of active readers decreases in society, we need to find new ways to inspire an interest in the written word. In their discussion of the integration of digital stories within the language arts curriculum, Glen Bull and Sara Kajder note how Ken Burns, the famous documentary director, uses the digital story format of “a series of still images combined with a narrated soundtrack to tell a story” (Bull & Kadjer 2004). Given the immense popularity of Burns’ documentaries, we can see the effectiveness of this method of conveying information to an audience of visual learners. As educators begin to adopt this new technology in the classroom, it’s important to keep the focus on instructional objectives and less on showy visual effects; hence, the emphasis on images, narration, and text to convey meaning.
[edit] Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling Website
In a recent interview dated April 13, 2008, Bernard Robin, the creator of the EUDS website, admitted that "Digital Storytelling does present some challenges for students and educators." After all, as Robin remarks in the interview, "providing students with a library of digital images and computer-based authoring software will not be beneficial to students or educators." So, in his articles and on the EUDS website, Robin continually reminds educators to stay focused on their educational goals. Throughout the EUDS website and in his classes, Robin actively promotes the use of digital stories in the classroom. According to Robin, “an engaging, multimedia-rich Digital Story can serve as an anticipatory set or hook to capture the attention of students and increasing their interest in exploring new ideas.” In a general education course that includes a number of different majors, simply inspiring interest in the subject can be a challenge.
In addition, Robin remarks that digital stories can “enhance current lessons within a larger unit,” allowing an instructor to vary the means of delivering information. For example, literature instructors could give brief biographical stories on key authors or portray important events that affected the literature in a certain time period. In the digital story of To Kill a Mockingbird, which is included on the EUDS website, the creator includes contextual information on the author’s life and the controversy surrounding the book. Such a lead-in to a lecture/discussion on the book can allow students to understand the historical and cultural background of a book, allowing for a richer knowledge of the text.
The EUDS website has eight distinct sections to guide users at any stage of the creative process. The novice user of digital stories will want to begin with the “Getting Started” page, which introduced the basic tools and process of drafting a digital story. More advanced users will benefit from the array of examples of digital stories created within an educational context, especially since a number of different disciplines are represented.
For the researcher, the “Evaluation” page is of interest, since it discusses the ongoing research projects that instructors and students have been conducting since 2005. Robin describes how a set of high school teachers who participated in a workshop on digital storytelling is being monitored as they consider the role of digital storytelling within their curricula. Each teacher is given a set of questions designed to test how effective the new technology was in their classroom. Also in the "Evaluation" section, Robin describes how Dr. Helen Barrett is proposing a study on data collection, education, and digital storytelling. As a part of the study’s goals, she proposes answering questions such as:
• How do digital stories provide evidence of deep learning?
• Under what conditions can digital stories be successfully used to support assessment for learning?
[edit] A Brief Guide to Constructing an Educational Digital Story
To view an example of a digital story I created for an Introduction to Literature class, please click here. This particular story was designed to provide a bridge into a new segment on Jane Austen and her novels, and it was directed toward a diverse classroom that includes a variety of majors. Therefore, my purpose was to inspire the students' interest in an author they may view as archaic, so I focused on her life first and then her works. Listed below you'll find the steps I followed as I planned the story, as well as recommendations on how to integrate a digital story into your curriculum.
- Step One: Decide the audience and purpose of your story. What type of students do you have in your class (i.e. multiple majors, mostly first year students, etc.)? How will this story fit with your lesson plan?
- Step Two: Once you have your topic finalized, begin sketching out the educational objectives of the story. By the time the students finish watching your video, what concepts/ideas should they be considering?
- Step Three: Begin building a storyboard, which will help you to conceptualize and organize the visual and audio elements of the story. The EUDS website has a helpful pdf document entitled “Storyboarding: Creating a Storyboard in Word.”
- Step Four: Start searching for materials to incorporate into the story. Educators can find images with the appropriate Creative Commons license at the Flickr website. You have a number of options for finding “podsafe” audio resources. Some of the most common websites that offer audio resources with Creative Commons licenses are as follows: CCMixter, The Freesound Project, and Sound Transit.
- Step Five: Choose the software you will use to make your video. The EUDS website recommends 5 software programs: Microsoft Photo Story 3, Windows Movie Maker, Apple iMovie, Adobe Photoshop Elements, and Goldwave. To these I would add the Sony Vegas system.
- Step Six: Begin importing images and audio files into your chosen program. At this point, you’ll be working closely with your storyboard, which will help you to stay focused on the concepts/ideas you want to share with your students. As you arrange images along the timeline, keep experimenting with different arrangements, keeping the needs of your students in mind. It’s also helpful to frequently playback your current arrangement, so you can see how the project is taking shape.
- Step Seven: Complete the rough draft of your digital story and ask for feedback from supportive colleagues. The DigiTales website offers tips and rubrics for evaluating projects. Although these tools are directed toward student-created work, their scoring guides offer a starting point for how to assess the effectiveness of digital stories.
- Step Eight: After your colleagues have assessed your draft, set it aside for a week, so you can come back to the project with fresh eyes. After hours of listening to your soundtrack and viewing the images, it can be difficult to view the project with an objective perspective.
- Step Nine: Make any revisions or edits to the rough draft. At this point in the process, it’s helpful to return to your storyboard and educational objectives. Since many English departments evaluate their faculty on an annual basis, you’ll want to show how your digital story specifically relates to your teaching philosophy and pedagogical objectives.
[edit] Current Limitations of Digital Storytelling
The most immediate limitation is the traditionalist objection that using multimedia tools within English classrooms will promote passive learning. Sara Kajder sums up these attitudes in her book The Tech-Savvy English Classroom: “Technology in the English classroom is often seen as unnatural and, according to some, will lead to the demise of our beloved books” (Kadjer 2003: 9). However, technological tools such as digital storytelling can appeal greatly to visual learners, some of whom have never spent any significant amount of time reading. In a recent Composition I class, one student admitted that he had never read an entire book prior to joining the class. It’s easy to criticize students—or their teachers—for not having the reading and writing skills necessary to succeed in a classroom. In reality, it’s more useful to consider how teachers can reach out to such students through the use of Web 2.0 technology.
A second limitation is the means to disseminate digital stories. As Jean Burgess notes, “distribution channels for digital stories remain limited and frequently are under the control of the institutions that provided the workshops” (Burgess 2006). Although the primary audience for an educational digital story is one’s own class, other educators and students who have limited access to technological tools could benefit from having access to educational stories. YouTube is one tool that can be used to disseminate videos; however, the likelihood of reaching a target audience of educators/students is limited. Ideally, a repository of digital stories with appropriate Creative Commons’ licenses would allow instructors to share and promote digital story use within the university.
The limitation that most impacts all educators who want to incorporate digital stories within their classroom is that empirical research still needs to be done on how effective such stories are in promoting learning. Until such research is done, funding for new projects that incorporate the technology for digital stories will be limited at individual universities/departments.
Finally, many educators in the Humanities & Arts fields lack the technological expertise needed to construct effective digital stories. Although websites such as the ones listed below in the Resources section are helpful in providing step-by-step guides, classes and workshops are the most effective ways to learn how to design digital stories.
[edit] Conclusion
Although digital stories can be time-consuming to create, they can add a creative, cutting-edge, and dynamic aspect to the educational process. With the technological divide widening between the generations of students and teachers, implementing Web 2.0 tools as part of structured curriculum can allow educators to begin to bridge the gap.
In an era where funding and resources are drying up for many humanities departments, digital stories provide an innovative and cost effective method to provide information to students in new and creative ways.
[edit] Digital Media Component
[edit] References
Bull, G., and Kajder, S 2004, 'Digital Storytelling in the language arts classroom' Learning & Leading with Technology, vol.32, no. 4, pp. 46-49. Available from: http://cs2.cust.educ.ubc.ca/csed/400/csed_readings/display%2024.pdf
Burgess, J 2006, 'Hearing Ordinary Voices: Cultural Studies, Vernacular Creativity and Digital Storytelling', Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 201-14. Available from: EBSCOhost. [25 March 2008].
Diaz, K. and Fields, A 2007, Digital storytelling, libraries, and community, in Courtney, N. Library 2.0 and beyond: innovative technologies and tomorrow's user. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.
Kajder, S 2003, The Tech-Savvy English Classroom, Stenhouse Publishers, Portland.
Lambert, J 2007, 'Digital Storytelling', Futurist, vol. 41, no. 2, p. 25. Available from: EBSCOhost. [10 March 2008].
Reinventing Schools: The Technology is Now!, 1995, National Academy of Sciences, Available from: <http://www.nap.edu/html/techgap/nintendo.html> [31 March 2008].
Robin, Bernard H The Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling, University of Houston. Available from: <http://fp.coe.uh.edu/brobin/SITE2006/site-paper-2006.htm> [28 March 2008].
Weis, T.M., Benmayor, R., O'Leary, C., and Eynon, B 2002, 'Digital technologies and pedagogies', Social Justice, vol. 29, no. 4, pp. 153-67. Available from: Gale. [25 March 2008].
[edit] Resources
- Center for Digital Storytelling: a comprehensive website that provides sample stories, workshops, and a list of resources.
- Digital Storytelling - TeachingTeachers.com: offers tips of planning, creating, and delivering digital stories in the classroom.
- Digital Storytelling: organized by the University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication’s Institute for New Media Studies; provides a variety of story forms as well as a taxonomy of digital storytelling.
- DigiTales: The Art of Telling Digital Stories: provides resources to help plan and create digital stories; also offers a storytelling camp each year.
- Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling: a comprehensive website that includes tips, examples, and resources for teachers incorporating digital storytelling into their lesson plans.
- Memory's Voices: A Guide to Digital Storytelling: a site created and maintained by the Center for Digital Storytelling that offers a general guide to digital storytelling. This site also offers the Digital Storytelling Cookbook.
- Tech Head Stories: an extensive collection of links of the medium of digital storytelling.
