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Chapter 2: Defining and Discussing Digital Storytelling &

Chapter 15: Copyright and Fair Use in Education Dennis, Helen, Louisa, Laura, Rehana and Ann-Marie

From: Digital Storytelling in the Classroom by Jason Ohler

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Defining Digital Stories

“Digital Storytelling (DST) uses personal digital technology to combine a number of media into a coherent narrative” (15)

DST in the classroom is characterised as follows:

1) Typically driven by an academic goal 2) Uses commonly available technology to

students 3) Usually in the form of a short (two-to-

four minutes) mini-movie that audiences watch via computer or other digital means

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Digital Storytelling and New Media Narrative

“New media” – “any digital media production using “multimedia: print, video, image development, audio production” etc (16).

While every digital story qualifies as a new media production, not every media production is a digital story (16).

Key word is story- “How you as a teacher define story will shape the requirements you want to establish of the digital stories you assign students to create” (16).

More helpful to think of the world of personal media production (DST) as “new media narrative”

Narrative= broader idea than story captures better the idea of “individual media expression”

“Media” rather than digital captures idea of “expressing oneself before an audience”

Digital story format can consists of: voice-over narration with still pictures, music, and titles (16)

Others use video performance, animation and other technologies (16)

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Digital Story Examples

Author provides several that span multiple subject areas in addition to language arts, take for example the following video created by fourth-grade math students:

Video: “How to Animate a Ball Rolling”

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Dialoguing About Digital Stories- What Teachers Talk About

Author provides three discussion topics for teachers anxious about utilizing (DST) in the classroom

Considerations for teachers include: 1) story type, purpose, or impact 2) story elements 3) story production

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Category 1: Story Type, Purpose, or Impact

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Essay Versus Poem

Refers to readers expectation Essay – clear prose, effortless to

understand Poem requires interpretation, multiple

readings Thus, teachers in their objectives for

students want to decide is it clear like an essay? Or “Challenging like a poem”

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Choosing Your Metaphor or Genre

Might be helpful for teachers to choose an appropriate metaphor for DST they watch, i.e: is it a historical documentary? A fantasy? A visual Poem? (22)

Thinking in terms of metaphor helps align story type with curricular goals (22)

Can also view metaphor in terms of genre – have students choose a consistent genre in their DST – so that a murder mystery, for example, does not turn into a comical farce.

Have students identify a metaphor or genre in the planning stages of their story development to see if they are on track (23)

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Resonate Versus Nonresonant Stories

Resonant stories allow listeners to connect to them (23)

When assigning digital stories teachers need to” decide whether resonance… is important [and] how to determine if it has been achieved” (23).

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Passive Viewing Versus Active Viewing

Issue of critical thinking of “new media” can be thought of in terms of active viewing, where students note-take and respond to DST or passive such as when they watch T.V.

Up to teacher whether videos are made with the goal of active or passive viewing

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Story Versus Report

When planning student media projects teachers decide whether students create a story without commentary or report on the events or a combination of both, i.e.: is it mostly a story with embedded academic research in the plot?

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Teaching About Myself Versus Myself Teaching about Something

Teachers need to decide the weight of “personal story” –teaching about myself or if they want students to demonstrate their understanding of content-area material – teaching about something (26).

An example of using metaphor and genre, a historical biography:

Video: “Digital Storytelling World War 1”

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Category 2: Story Elements

This section addresses the traits teachers find important

in digital stories (26).

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Point of View

Point of view can range from the very personal perspective of first-person to objective third-person narration

Teachers decide if (DST) projects are very personal in a language arts class or an objective documentary in social studies (27)

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Emotional Engagement

Hard for teachers to assess the story value Ultimately teachers need to decided how

much emotional engagement vs. objective argument is appropriate in a given project (28)

Teachers may want to “outlaw …music or images that will evoke emotions regardless of the strength of the story” (28)

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Tone

Teachers “may want to have students choose a tone at the onset or simply assign students to practice storying using a particular tone: is it Sombre? Straightforward? Detached?” (28).

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Spoken Narratives in Digital Stories

Narrative in digital stories tends to carry the story

A lot of “assessment talk” focuses on the effectiveness of a narrative across all subjects, teachers concerned with focus of the narration

Teachers need to decide whether narration is scripted or not

Author recommends teachers include written component of narration wherever possible = encourages reflection

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Soundtrack Music

Teachers need to assess to what extent the music is supportive or distracting- does it overpower the narrative?

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Role of Video and Performance

Use of video in DST can be more “complex, time consuming, and costly to create and edit” (31).

Teachers need to make sure they have the technology and time in their curriculum to accommodate use of video (31)

Teachers need to decide whether use of video “provides an academic payoff that is worth the complexity it brings to the story development process” (31)

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Creativity and Originality

Issue of creativity being at odds with current expectations of “standards” and “getting the right answer” (31)

If teacher are looking for creativity and originality they still need to be clear about their expectations (32)

Suggestion: a certain portion of music, photos or other elements student use must be original (32)

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Time, Story Length, and Economy

In an already time-constrained classroom, it is important for teachers to “create specific digital story requirements about length, number of media components” (33) and other elements that impact how long a project can be

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Category 3: Story Production

-Some teachers are quire unfamiliar with being media producers

-The author discusses ways to best manage their students’ skills within the

learning environment

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Production Values

“The more polished the piece, the higher the production value employed by its creators” (34)

Yet, higher production values like good essays, take more time

Instead of avoiding DST, consider the 80/20 rule – students produce 80% of a high-quality, high-production value digital story in 20% of the overall time it takes to create entire story.

A way of effectively using media production with consideration of time-management and resources

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Media Grammar

Media grammar= how the story was made Issue that most of us have developed a sense of

“writing grammar” as consumers (readers) and producers (writers) but this is not so for media grammar (36)

Idea of what is effective media grammar varies from viewer to viewer

Therefore it is important that teachers teach/model whatever grammar they expect students to observe and make sure student know what they are being assessed on its use (36)

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Equipment Needed

Teachers need to determine what technology they have access to before beginning (DST)

Typically need sustained equipment assess for two weeks

Might consider staggering student projects or team-based DST projects to account for not enough computers (37).

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Role of Help, Tech Support, And the Teacher

Addresses the issue of when students know more about technology than you do!

Author promotes the use of learning communities – students help one another based on their expertise

Consider what help exists in schools or districts and “how they want to structure, encourage, and reward students for helping each other in their DST projects” (38).

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Emerging Digital Stories

What will be important to DST in terms of story purpose, elements, and production?

Author cites some fascinating possibilities for the future of DST including:

Short movies: DST will resemble short movies rather than storytelling performances (39)

Distributed, collaborative, shared stories and spaces: students in the future might share and collaborate on digital stories in specialized electronic communities (40)

Advanced Editing Techniques- when video material becomes cheaper/easier to use –videos will become more advanced (40) etc.

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Chapter 15: Copyright and Fair Use in Education

Fair use “is a legal term that refers to what educators can fairly use of other people’s material without infringing on their protections under copyright” (192)

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What Teacher’s Want to Know

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What’s Copyright Protected

Everything students see, hear, touch is copy protected regardless of copyright patent or not

Teachers want to know the extent of graphics, photos, movies and other digital material students can legally use in their works (194)

And what are the differences between showing projects at school and distributing them via CD/DVD. (194)

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Commonsense Copyright

-Have students relate to copyright and fair use in real ways, i.e. asking students how they would feel if they were musicians and someone downloaded their music?

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Three Rules of Respect

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1. Citation

students should cite ALL materials used in digital stories including graphics, words, music and other media

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2. Permission

As a teacher you need to decide what constitutes use versus distribution

When in doubt about fair use assume the worst Author provides some guidelines: If the amount of work that students want to use exceeds the

amount allowed by fair use, then they must ask permission (196) If the amount they want to use doesn’t exceed legal limits, then

they should ask permission only if they’re prepared to be denied (196)

In the case of no district policy, teachers need to decide whether student work is being published for purposed of distribution. If they determine it is, then they should require students to obtain permission for all media they use. (196)

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3. Compensation

Those who want compensation for their work are clear, but some make exceptions for educational purposes (197)

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Four-Factor Fair-Use Test

Non-profit educational use better than commercial; ie. digital stories vs. selling school t-shirts (198)

Factual published work safer than imaginative unpublished (i.e music) (198)

Small amounts of works used less controversial (198)

What effects would it have on the market for the original, for instance, using music in a digital story vs. distribution of music (198)

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What the Law Says

The TEACH Act says:– Music/animation: Students can use 10%

of songs, movies etc– Words: Students can use 10% or 1000

words from a text– Illustrations/photos/graphics: Students

can use no more than five images from one artist etc.

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Avoiding the Gray Zone of Copyright and Fair Use

Be perpetually paranoid: when in doubt, seek permission!

Use what you find on the Web, observing the three rules of respect: Cite sources, ask permission, compensate!

Create your own material Use your friend’s materials Subscribe to media services (use a number of

graphics) Use only material provided on free use or limited

use sites (websites are all different) Use the CREATIVE COMMONS

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Creative Commons

A copyright license that facilitates two things:

Allows creative content developers to post their materials and specify how they can be used

Allows the public to access their materials within those constraints

BOTTOM LINE: Show respect, do your homework, follow the fair use laws as best you know.

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Some questions to consider:

Could you see yourself using DST in your professional practice?

How would you assess what you saw?

How would you enforce the idea of fair use in your classroom?

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