Stories are the large and small instruments of meaning, of explanation, that we store in our memories.

Schank, Roger (1992). Tell Me a Story: Narrative and Intelligence. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

Digital Storytelling In Support of Learner Meaning-Making

Gail Matthews-DeNatale, Ph.D.

About Me

Senior Fellow, Graduate School of Education

Lead Faculty, eLearning and Instructional Design M.Ed. Program

College of Professional Studies, Northeastern University

… and a Ph.D. in Folklore!

About You

What attracted you to digital storytelling?

Your “A Hah!” moments so far during this workshop

Your idea for using digital storytelling in support of student learning

Session Overview

1. Thoughts on the connection between storytelling and learning

2. Examples of storytelling in a range of academic scenarios

3. Reflections on the experience of teaching and learning with digital stories

4. Assignment development exercise

1. Storytelling & Learning

1. Students’ prior knowledge can help or hinder learning.

2. How students organize knowledge influences how they learn and apply what they know.

3. Student motivation determines, directs, and sustains what they do learn.

4. To develop mastery, students must acquire component skills, practice integrating them, and know when to apply what they have learned.

5. Goal-directed practice coupled with targeted feedback enhances the quality of students’ learning.

6. Students’ current level of development interacts with social, emotional, and intellectual climate of the course to impact learning.

7. To become self-directed learners, students must learn to monitor and adjust their approaches to learning.

Ambrose, S., Bridges, M., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M., & Norman, M. (2010). How learning works: seven research-based principles for smart teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Susan Ambrose et. al. 7 Principles

Doing and reflecting

James Gee 36 Principles

Appreciating good design

Seeing interrelationships

Mastering new skills at each level

Being encouraged to practice

Tasks neither too easy nor too hard Thinking and

strategizingWatching your own behavior

Getting more out than what you put in

Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York, NY: Macmillan.

The Value

Learner and Educator Perspectives

Video available at https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/multimedia/ELI08167C.mov

Video Interviews: What’s the Difference?

TITLE: What’s the educational value of digital storytelling?

TITLE: Makes learning memorableVaughn - It was a memorable time and this is actually something that I can remember. I can’t remember much else about my life, but I can remember certain parts, and this is one of the things that I remember because I have things to remind me and I did have mishaps, and I did have misadventures, and it made it more fun – it was a great semester. It was a very profound learning curve for me that semester.

TITLE: Production process fosters reflection … and transformationEllen - There was something about working so intensely and in a concentrated fashion with both the dialogue and then matching photographs to it or some kind of visual image that as a producer or whatever, you are, you know you’re so present with the material and the message you’re trying to convey and how you’re trying to convey it and what you want to say that you also have to think much more deeply and complexly about what it is that you want to say.

And I think through that process of analyzing it, you can come up with different versions – gez, I’ve thought about it so much, I actually feel a little bit different about it – now I want to say something different than I thought I was going to say when I started. And I think that’s the feedback loop that the more that you’re with the content and you’re really introspective and you’re reflective about … The telling of the story transforms you and transforms the story.

TITLE: Demonstrates the progression of learningVaughn - I put a lot of effort into it, but in two different ways. Into one class, and then also into life outside of class. And the movie at the end showed my effort and told my story, not only my story, but the story of the kid whom I was tutoring. It showed progression and it was a marker for that whole semester. And it’s a great thing to have, to keep.

TITLE: Encourages clarity of expressionEllen - think it is also good to help students organize what they want to say because you have to get very clear about what’s the message. What am I trying to say and why am I trying to say this?… a theme in many fields 00:28:34:?

TITLE: Increases student engagementRachel -I think I was a lot more connected to my final projects than I was with a research paper, because it was really from my thoughts, at the end of the day, after I had done the steps along the way, versus an outline that I had turned in

TITLE: Fosters student-centered, authentic learningEllen - You’re speaking to a larger audience in some way. … thinking about my own beliefs about what people need to succeed in graduate education and how that’s changing … the work has changed … populations people are serving has changed. It doesn’t mean decreasing standards, it means rethinking standards. And so a process that isn’t strictly a written paper speaks to allowing people of very different kinds of learning abilities to engage in something – as opposed to “write this paper, memorize this for a test.

Video Transcript: What’s the Difference?

2. Examples

Boston Story Map

Matthews-DeNatale, G. (2013). Digital story-making in support of student meaning-making. In Smyth, E., & Volker, J. (Eds). Enhancing instruction with visual media utilizing video and lecture capture (pp. 191-202). Hershey, PA: IGI-Global.

Family World Map

Family World Map

Family World Map

Service Learning Story

Matthews-DeNatale, G. (2008). Digital Story Making: Understanding the Learner's Perspective. ELI Annual Meeting. Retrieved August 24, 2014, fromhttp://www.educause.edu/eli/events/eli-annual-meeting/2008/digital-story-making-understanding-learners-perspective-research-based

Digital Case

Makofske, M., Perna, M., Matthews-DeNatale, G., Maxfield, S., & Traynor, J. (2008). Video: Cruise Industry. Caseplace. Retrieved August 24, 2014, from http://www.caseplace.org/d.asp?d=3283

History Story Timeline

History Story Timeline

Concept Story Timeline

Concept Story Timeline

Concept Story Timeline

3. Reflections on the Experience

What are the similarities/differences between digital story-making and other forms of academic authorship?

The Difference

Learner and Educator Perspectives

Video available at http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/multimedia/ELI08167C.mov

Video Interviews: What’s the Value?

TITLE: What’s the difference between writing and digital storytelling?

TITLE: Difference in flow

Vaughn – While you’re writing, either through a keyboard or sitting down and writing in a book, it’s all in your head and coming out through your eyes onto the page. The images that are in your head are becoming the words that your hands are writing. But with iMovie you can take actual images out of the world that you see and show them to other people.

Ellen - You know it was hard work, but it was good hard work. It was very focused hard work – the kind of thing you can see losing time with. …. Much more time than you have.

TITLE: Goes beyond the “five paragraph essay”

Rachel – When you’re writing a term paper, you’re just using words and you have a structure to do it. But with storytelling, it’s a completely blank board and you can do whatever you want with it. You have all these thoughts in your head about what you want it to be, and you have all these experiences, and you have your journaling, and other things throughout the way. For you to get across your message and what you’re trying to say in a way that’s visual, audio, and with text, I think is really using different parts of your brain.…Using all the senses vs. just reading it.

TITLE: Can represent internal and external worlds

Vaughn – There are so many times when I wish I could record my thoughts, like attach something to my head and let people see what I’m seeing while I’m writing. But with the iMovie I can actually do that. Though it’s not exactly the way I picture it in my head, it’s the best interpretation I can give them. It’s also very real, because it can come out of the actual world.

Video Transcript: What’s the Value?

What’s the value of (digital) storytelling for higher education?

Challenging Questions for Educators

How can we help students increase the amount of time they devote to reflection and critical thinking?

How can we help students articulate what they are learning?

How can we help students remember and care about learning?

•Combines visual, aural, and kinesthetic learning

•Iterative production process encourages revisiting, reflecting on meaning

•Increases literacy/fluency across media

•Connects prior life experiences, course, and other co-curricular learning

•Can be shared beyond academia

The Value of Digital Story-Making

Story-Making Learning Cycle

Reflection& Analysis

Share withOthers

Experience

Deeper PersonalUnderstanding

FutureStories

Importance of

• Process (pedagogically-driven, purposeful, integrated, planned)

• Collaboration(P2P/faculty feedback, partnering with IT)

• The Experience (intense and requires tolerance for mishaps)

Observations and Recommendations

4. Assignment Development Exercise

Case Study: Story Timeline

Backward Planning

Pedagogically-Driven: What concepts, abilities, and skills do you want students to gain from the course?

Purposeful: What role will digital story-making play in achieving those aims? What opportunities does story-making afford that would not

be possible through other assignments/technologies?

Integrated: How will the assignment be positioned within the course? How will it be introduced? How will it connect with and further other coursework? By what criteria will the stories be evaluated?

Planned: What resources and support will the students need (both academic and technical)? How will they be made available? What will be the benchmarks for conceptualization and production?

Pedagogically-Driven

What concepts, abilities, and skills do you want students to gain from the course?

Case Study Example•Concept: Open Learning has a long history, with many dimensions (sectors and players)

•Ability: Evaluate the relevance and credibility of sources, explain the importance of a source

•Skill: Convey ideas in a coherent, multimodal integrated format

Purposeful

What role will digital story-making play in achieving those aims? What opportunities does story-making afford that would not be possible through other assignments/technologies?

Case Study Example•Role: Comparison of timelines helps students see that there is no one definition of “open learning,” that the focus or motivation for OL is context-dependent

•Opportunity: Format makes it possible for many OL dimensions to co-exist, granting a unique perspective

Integrated

How will the assignment be positioned within the course? How will it be introduced? How will it connect with and further other coursework? By what criteria will the stories be evaluated?

Case Study Example•Position: Begin in the first week, share draft in wk 2, revise by wk 4, grade wk 6, incorporate into ePortfolio week 12

•Connection: Draws upon Wiley resource (MOOC as textbook), precursor to COOL Collection – Timeline and COOL exercise equip them for final assignment

Integrated

Overview

What is open learning? The history of open learning is still in the making; there are no definitive texts. This assignment calls upon you to construct a timeline of key concepts, figures, events, and projects related to this topic.

Guidelines

Your timeline should include at least 15 entries. You will begin the assignment in Week 1 and share your timeline with the rest of the class during the Week 2 discussion.

Criteria for Excellence

- Provides a mix of concepts, figures, events, and projects that gives the viewer a representative overview of Open Learning.

- Entries include substantive annotations that explain why you included the item, what it is, and its relevance to the topic. These annotations should also be accurate and well written.

- Takes advantage of the tool's capacity to include links, videos, images, etc.

Integrated

Guiding Questions

Consider the following questions as you scour the web to find sources that will help you tell the story of the history of open learning:

•How far back does the concept of "openness" go? •What have been the major developments? Who was involved? In what sectors? Who are the key organizations/projects/people? When did they come onto the scene, and what is distinctive about their contributions? What are the similarities and differences between the way that different sectors approach the concept of openness?•What are the major ideas? What are the best resources that you can find on those topics?•What appear to be future directions in the field?

Integrated

Avenues for Finding Sources

Search the web for links that are related to the concept of Open Learning. Not sure where to start in searching for timeline content? The term "open" is often paired with other terms related to education and access. Key words include:

•Open Learning•Open Knowledge•Open University•MOOCs - Massive Open Online Courses (C and X)•Open Badges•Open Education•Open Education Resources•Open Source•Open Content•Open Access

Note that each entry should include a timeline description that provides information about why it is relevant. Include a link whenever possible.

Planned

What resources and support will the students need (both academic and technical)? How will they be made available? What will be the benchmarks for conceptualization and production?

Case Study Example•Resources: Exemplar, Log spreadsheet, Dipity tutorials

•Benchmarks: Gather/document potential sources in log. Use Temoa rubric to evaluate credibility. Identify 15 entries. Gather images and videos to represent each entry. Author annotations. Compile timeline, share, discuss, receive feedback. Revise and resubmit. Receive grade.

Sample Resource: DS Feedback Form

Criteria

Outstanding Satisfactory Poor Why?

Has A Point (of View)- purpose- stance

Engaging- interesting- surprising- thought-provoking

Quality Script/Voice- well spoken- good pacing- music, if any, furthers message

Use of Images/Video- w. voice, adds new dimension- visual flow

Wise Economy/Detail- pacing- pare away AND- dig deeper

Matthews-DeNatale, G. (2008). Digital Storytelling: Tips and Resources. ELI Annual Meeting (p. 14). Retrieved August 24, 2014, from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI08167B.pdf

“Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives, the power to retell it, rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change, truly are powerless, because they cannot think new thoughts. ”

Salman Rushdie

Final Words

Thank You

Gail Matthews-DeNatale, Ph.D.Northeastern Universityg.matthews-denatale@neu.edu