IF YOU ARE ACCESSING THIS PRESENTATION THROUGH

DOWNLOAD

TIP: This PowerPoint file includes extensive speaker notes – you may want to read it in “notes” view.

Copyright Simmons College, 2008. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the author.

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

Joe Lambert / Roger Schank

“Tell me a factand I’ll learn.Tell me a truth and I’ll believe.Tell me a story and I’ll remember forever.”

Saying

Digital Story-Making:Understanding the Learner's Perspective

Gail Matthews-DeNatale, Ph.D.Associate Director, Academic Technology

Simmons CollegeBoston, MA

Copyright Simmons College, 2008

Story-MakerPerspectives

Rachel FranchiSophomore

Vaughn RogersSophomore

Ellen GoodmanSSW Field Education Faculty

Presentation Overview

1. How are we using digital storiesat Simmons?

2. What can story-makers tell us about what it feels like to make a story? What do we learn from listening to learners?

3. Exercise: Put yourself in the learner’s shoes

4. Based on faculty/learner feedback, what’s the educational value of digital stories?

Part I

How are we using digital stories at Simmons College?

Storytelling 2.0 at Simmons

Introductory Assignment: Boston Story Map

Storytelling 2.0 at Simmons

Culminating Assignment: Family Map

• “Digital Stories” in the CDS Sense of the Term

•Faculty Institute on Digital Storytelling

•Digital Stories of Service Learning

•Digital Cases SOM, Corporate Social Responsibility

Digital Storytelling at Simmons

Faculty-Produced Digital Story

Reflection on an Unresolved Life Experience

“Never before have I been so into doing a final project – I found myself putting other things aside so I could work on it.”

“The feeling of accomplishment is much greater than just writing a paper and it was such a different kind of assignment, it was fun to work on.”

Feedback from Students – SOM Grads

Take two minutes to reflect on a time when you really got into something (in school or on your own).

Jot down a few sentences about the experience – you’ll use this during an activity later in the session.

What About You?

Powerful Learning Experience• Deeply engaging• Deepened your understanding• Memorable

Must be a specific experience

What About You?

What can story-makers tell us about what it feels like to make a story? What do we learn from listening to learners?

Part II

“[Students] cannot learn in a deep way if they have no opportunities to practice what they are learning … they cannot learn deeply only by being told things outside the context of embodied action.” James Paul Gee

Embodied Learning

Digital Storytelling and Writing

Flow, Senses, Represent Internal/External

Doing and reflecting

36 Learning Principles – James Gee

Appreciating good design

Seeing interrelationships

Mastering new skills at each level

Being encouraged to practice

Tasks neither too easy nor too hard

Thinking and strategizing

Watching your own behavior

Getting more out than what you put in

Play (experiment and problem-solve)

New Media Literacies – Henry Jenkins

Judgment (assess credibility & reliability)

Distributed Cognition

Performance (improvisation &

discovery)

Simulate (model real-world processes)

Multitask (shift focus as needed)

Appropriate (sample & remix)

Collective Intelligence (pool & compare)

Network (search, synthesize, disseminate)

Negotiate (discern & respect perspectives)

Transmedia Navigate(flow of ideas across media)

If life is like a box of chocolates

Digital Storytelling is like three dimensional tic-tac-toe

Digital Storytelling as 3D Tic Tac Toe

timesound

image

• Turn to your neighbor, swap stories, pick one to work with

• Using the blank storyboard, consider how you could use sounds (words in particular), images, and timing to begin to tell a story of “powerful learning.”

Experiment with 3D Authorship

Storyboard (multimodal timeline)

Insert or Sketch Image Insert or Sketch Image Insert or Sketch Image

Accompanying Audio/Words

______________________

______________________

______________________

______________________

Accompanying Audio/Words

______________________

______________________

______________________

______________________

Accompanying Audio/Words

______________________

______________________

______________________

______________________

Other(e.g. Duration, Transitions, Music)

Other(e.g. Duration, Transitions, Music)

Other(e.g. Duration, Transitions, Music)

Thoughts? Experiences? Challenges? Insights?

Anybody care to share?

From the teacher’s perspective, how the heck do you design, implement, and assess it?

Debrief

A Word on the Value of Rubrics

Storyboard/Script FeedbackCriteria

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

Based on faculty/learner feedback, What’s the value of (digital) storytelling for higher education?

Part IV

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?

The Value of Digital Storytelling

Memorable, Reflective, Transformative …

Story-Making Learning Cycle

Reflection& Analysis

Share withOthers

Experience

Deeper PersonalUnderstanding

FutureStories

•Embodied: Combines visual, aural, and kinesthetic processes

•Iterative: Production process encourages revisiting, reflecting on meaning

•Multimodal: Enhances fluency across a range of media

•Integrative: Connects prior experience, course, and other co-curricular learning

•Authentic: Keep/share with others

The Value of Digital Story-Making

“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

Final Thoughts

Using ALL of Our Brains