For those familiar with technology and blogging, you have been shaking your head at me for far too long -- and I don't blame you.
You know that (in addition to numerous other reasons), using something like WordPress to set up and run a blog is much more time efficient than running a website such as this one. With more things continually trying to make their way onto my job/time plate, I need -- no scratch that -- I have to do this.
RSS feeds are not supported on Calvin's personal websites. I have appreciated your patience in continually having to return/check-in here on this site, but it's time to move on to a better way of doing things.
I will keep this site up for reference sake -- as I've worked hard to obtain the information on the various topics located herein. Thankfully, some of this site has been helpful to other people.
Archives of my postings related to digital storytelling are listed below.
For up-to-date postings, I'll see you
over at my new "Learning Ecosystems" blog!
50+ Storytelling Tools from CogDogBlog: Alan Levine has done much background work in finding some of the best tools available for developing web-based stories. Take a look and try some of the tools that Alan has listed.
Digital Storytelling from Wes Fryer: Wes Fryer's digital storytelling wiki is one of the best resources on the subject. Beyond listing tools, Wes looks at some important issues such as copyright, fair use, and intellectual property.
Center for Digital Storytelling Examples: This Center is a non-profit organization that helps individuals and institutions build digital stories. The examples of digital stories, and resources related to digital storytelling, may be useful.
Digital Story Telling Workshop: This is an excellent resource from Patrick Woessner, MICDS (St. Louis) featuring a step-by-step workshop for teachers.
Collaborative Digital Storytelling with Storybird-- from The Whiteboard Blog Vicki from Shoofly demonstrated Storybird, a website she’d found, and I just had to share it here. Storybird provides a very user-friendly way of combining images and text to tell a story, and then share that story with other people. You choose images from a huge bank of ready-drawn pictures which also help to provide inspiration for story ideas.You can also have several users all working on the same Storybird story, which would be a great classroom activity.
Related item: New Programs Aim to Lure Young Into Digital Jobs-- from the New York Times Hybrid careers like Dr. Halamka’s that combine computing with other fields will increasingly be the new American jobs of the future, labor experts say. In other words, the nation’s economy is going to need more cool nerds. But not enough young people are embracing computing — often because they are leery of being branded nerds.
Educators and technologists say two things need to change: the image of computing work, and computer science education in high schools. Teacher groups, professional organizations like the Association for Computing Machinery and the National Science Foundation are pushing for these changes, but so are major technology companies including Google, Microsoft and Intel. One step in their campaign came the week of Dec. 7, National Computer Science Education Week, which was celebrated with events in schools and online [from DSC: which was initiated by Calvin College's own Joel Adams].
One goal, Ms. Cuny and others say, is to explain the steady march and broad reach of computing across the sciences, industries, culture and society. Yes, they say, the computing tools young people see and use every day — e-mail, text-messaging and Facebook — are part of the story. But so are the advances in field after field that are made possible by computing, like gene-sequencing that unlocks the mysteries of life and simulations that model climate change.
Storytelling Through Flickr Pictures-- from labnol.org Moodle Wikis - as document lockers
I came across this excellent jing video which explains how to use a Moodle Wiki activity as a means of students uploading documents/file repository. It is well worth watching! Yes there are many ways you can set up a file repository system on Moodle but I particularly liked this method. I believe the video was created by Digidoug whom I have since located on twitter. So if you enjoy his video you may want to go follow him and thank him for such a neat idea and well presented how-to vidcast.
12/18/09
2-5-1 Storytelling-- from Future Business
So, his team developed a framework they call 2-5-1. It goes like this:
2
Who you are
Summary of your experience
5 fingers
Little finger – what parts of the effort did not get enough attention
Ring finger – What relationships were formed, what you learned about relationship building
Middle finger – what you disliked, what/who made you frustrated
Pointer finger – what you would do better next time around, what you want to tell those who were “in charge” about what they could do better
Exploring a new, more dynamic way of reading news with Living Stories-- from Google There's been no shortage of talk recently about the "future of news." Should publishers charge for news online? How do they replace lost sources of revenue such as classified ads? How will accountability journalism endure? And, even more fundamentally, will news survive in the digital era? These are questions we're deeply interested in, and we've been exploring potential solutions. But what's often overlooked in these debates is the nature of the news story itself and the experience of how it's read online. We believe it's just as important to experiment with how news organizations can take advantage of the web to tell stories in new ways — ways that simply aren't possible offline.
12/11/09
12/8/09
Engagement and Recall: The Power of Storytelling in Presentations-- from Presentation Advisors One of the key components of an effective presentation is the inclusion of a story. Storytelling (sometimes called "Digital Storytelling" when using PowerPoint or Keynote) can have a profound effect on an audience, removing them from the classroom, boardroom, or auditorium and taking them on a journey, as I mentioned in a previous post.
Life-logging and life-streaming reflect both active and passive methods of keeping a personal digital record.
Life-logging can be supported by devices like Microsoft's SenseCam.
Digital persistence describes the likelihood that data will be recoverable even after it has been nominally deleted.
Various forms of user tracking raise fundamental questions about privacy and identity, especially in an online world.
Young people need to have some understanding of the implications of committing their data to social applications.
11/30/09
Web 2.0 Storytelling | January 7, 9:00am - 4:30pm-- from NITLE Digital technology makes it easy for people to create and share digital images, audio, and video, pushing the storyteller’s art in new directions. Web 2.0 takes that art further by moving digital storytelling into the realm of readily available web applications. This workshop will introduce participants to the emergent field of Web 2.0 storytelling. We will explore its many forms across media and platforms, including narrative by blog, wiki, podcast, web video, SlideShare, and microblogging. Other topics will include audience as coauthor, story microcontent, antecedents, multimodal forms, appropriate tools, and emergent trends. Grounded in a series of real-world examples, the workshop will mix presentation with discussion and focus on educational uses. Participants will leave this workshop with their own web 2.0 story, the ability to use this technique for more engaging teaching, and ideas to promote deeper learning in their students through alternate methods of communication.
When Everything is Programmable Digital Stories-- from The Institute for the Future The Technology Horizons program created a digital story in three parts to accompany their research for their 2009 Fall exchange, When Everything is Programmable. The story follows Omar—a doctor working at Seattle Grace in about 2019—as he moves through his day and interacts with our programmable future. Each of the videos represent a different segment of Technology Horizons fall map: Part 1 embodies forecasts around Self, Part 2 for Society, and Part 3 for Environment.
Narrative is essential to learning. From epic films to conversations with toddlers, all human communication revolves around storytelling. We use story to convey information and to make emotional connections with each other. Writers use narrative to align what they know about the world with what their readers know about the world, and through the exchange of story a sense of trust is born. The reader identifies with the writer, and thus with the information presented.
Picturing the Story: Narrative Arts and the Stories They Tell-- from the NMC Every work of art has a story to tell, either through image and symbol, or through custom and ritual. These stories can explain the unexplainable, teach a life lesson, or celebrate our common human experiences. Picturing the Story uses works of art as a springboard for an interdisciplinary approach to culture, environment, language, and learning. Using selected narrative works of world art from the permanent collection of the Memorial Art Gallery, the Pachyderm presentation explores 7 works of art across many cultures and time periods, dating as early as 1500 BCE. The stories behind the objects are interpreted in a variety of ways and through many different digital media. You can read or listen to the story or legend told orally, or you can watch an ASL interpreter sign the story.
Please take a look at this extensive resource at: http://mag.rochester.edu/PicturingTheStory/
10/26/09
Multimedia investment checklist -- from Innovative Interactivity by Tracy Boyer “Should we present this story as an interactive? ...
Tip 3: Narrative and e-learning
For the last few weeks we've talked about stories in e-learning and why they're a great way to make your e-learning memorable, authentic and engaging. What else can you do to bring a narrative into e-learning? What are the practical points when it comes to writing dialogue? The bookshelves heave with screenwriting manuals. Save yourself a few quid and start with a few basic tips for good dialogue writing in e-learning.
Tip 2: Getting stories into e-learning
Last time we wrote about the benefits of stories in learning. They're easy to remember, they're compelling, they're great shorthand for real experience, and of course they're authentic, which is maybe the most compelling aspect of all. So how can you bring stories into your e-learning? Here are some practical tips.
Tip 1: Learning starts with a story
Someone once said all learning starts with a story. They probably went on to tell a story about how they realized that. Right idea. If you can hook and engage your audience up front, all the more likely they'll stay the journey. Stories are one of the best ways of doing this. So why are stories effective? What's in a good story for learning?
Not digital, but related: The Hekman Library has invited Calvin education professor, storyteller and author, Johanna Kuyvenhoven, to be our guest speaker on Thursday evening, October 15, at 7:30 p.m., at which time she will talk about storytelling as ancient and present art. Jo will introduce and read from her new book: In the presence of each other : a pedagogy of storytelling .
Local teachers might find this presentation interesting as well as Calvin community members. Jo says the book was "grown during my time in a grade 4-5 classroom." So please help us get the word out to elementary school teachers.
We'll meet in the children's literature area of the library on the 5th floor. Jo will sign copies of her book after the presentation.
Voicethread -- online media album allows people to make audio or text comments and share them; allows an entire group’s story to be told and collected in one place.
Digital Storytelling In Plain English-- from Free Technology for Teachers and Miguel Guhlin If you're someone who has heard the term "digital storytelling" but you're still not sure what that really means, take a few minutes to watch this video created in the Common Craft style. The video was created by a group of students in Stanford's Teacher Education Program.
-- resource from Educational Origami
9/10/09
Digitally Literate Storytellers-- from Educause Joan Getman, Senior Strategist for Learning Technologies, Cornell University
Date: September 16, 2009
Time: 1:00 p.m. EDT (12:00 p.m. CDT, 11:00 a.m. MDT, 10:00 a.m. PDT).
For the student researcher, digital literacy is about navigation, assessment, citation, and incorporation of credible digital information from ever-expanding resources. But digital literacy extends beyond intelligent consumption to encompass production and storytelling—skills that are emerging as essential to teaching, learning, and scholarship. This seminar will examine the importance of storytelling and related skills in teaching and learning.
The event is free, but registration is required and virtual seating is limited. REGISTER NOW.
9/9/09
Teaching and Storytelling with Web 2.0: State of the Art, on a Budget-- from Educause by Bryan Alexander Teaching with Web 2.0 continues to develop, as tools and projects proliferate. We examine current practices, incorporating new technologies and more mature ones, outlining a typology of uses. We also explore the emergent field of digital storytelling with Web 2.0 platforms.
Be vulnerable - An authentic way to tell a story-- an item from Ray Jimenez
back from June 14, 2009 What stories help other people? Be vulnerable. Share what you have overcome.
Stories appeal when they are about personal circumstances. Real, honest, and from the heart.
Short video by Nancy Duarte.
From DSC:
This is another piece that illustrates why I think stories are important and represent a great teaching tool. We need our students to create their own stories. The trick, it seems to me, is how to create stories in some subjects/disciplines that don't seem to lend themselves to storytelling.
8/18/09
This clip of Kseniya Simonova from “Ukraine’s Got Talent” is absolutely phenomenal. Simonova ultimately won the competition, and in my view it’s clear why she did. The description on the embedded YouTube clip indicates she “uses a giant light box, dramatic music, imagination and “sand painting” skills to interpret Germany’s invasion and occupation of Ukraine during WWII.”
Reflect 2.0: Digital storytelling to develop reflective learning with next generation technologies & practice-- from JISC The overall aim of the project was to pilot the use of Next Generation Technologies to enable students to collect and present multimedia artefacts to facilitate reflective learning. Four case studies were performed across a range of disciplines. A variety of Next Generation Technologies were used to obtain digital multimedia artefacts to facilitate reflective learning. Two studies evaluated the approach with first year undergraduate students: Medicine and Performance and Cultural Industries at the University of Leeds. Two studies evaluated the approach with postgraduate students: ICT in Education at the University of Leeds and Dietetics at Leeds Metropolitan University. Download the full report.
Multimedia Storytelling -- from the Knight Digital Media Center (partnership of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and the USC Annenberg School for Communication) by Jane Stevens What is a Multimedia Story?
A multimedia story is some combination of text, still photographs, video clips, audio, graphics and interactivity presented on a Web site in a nonlinear format in which the information in each medium is complementary, not redundant.
Nonlinear means that rather than reading a rigidly structured single narrative, the user chooses how to navigate through the elements of a story. Not redundant means that rather than having a text version of a story accompanied by a video clip that essentially tells the same story, different parts of a story are told using different media. The key is using the media form - video, audio, photos, text, animation - that will present a segment of a story in the most compelling and informative way.
Related item: Intelligent Virtual Environments-- from Ray Schroeder The research goals of the British-based lab, Intelligent Virtual Environments, of the University of Teesside are to develop "new models of interactivity based on Artificial Intelligence techniques."
Abstract: This ECAR research bulletin focuses on a methodology for exploring diversity and building community among information technology and other university employees. It is based on the program developed for Princeton University's OIT staff. The methodology, which can be adapted for many uses throughout higher education, uses storytelling and other creative approaches to engage co-workers in dialogue about diversity in order to promote community, colleagueship, and understanding in the workplace.
Audience: The content contained in this research bulletin may prove particularly useful to CIOs, human resources directors, project managers, and university staff members.
Related item: Third Person:
Authoring and Exploring Vast Narratives Edited by Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin The ever-expanding capacities of computing offer new narrative possibilities for virtual worlds. Yet vast narratives—featuring an ongoing and intricately developed storyline, many characters, and multiple settings—did not originate with, and are not limited to, Massively Multiplayer Online Games. Thomas Mann's Joseph and His Brothers, J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, Marvel's Spiderman, and the complex stories of such television shows as Dr. Who, The Sopranos, and Lost all present vast fictional worlds. Third Person explores strategies of vast narrative across a variety of media, including video games, television, literature, comic books, tabletop games, and digital art. The contributors—media and television scholars, novelists, comic creators, game designers, and others—investigate such issues as continuity, canonicity, interactivity, fan fiction, technological innovation, and cross-media phenomena.
5/14/09
5/11/09
Zakelro!-- from Serious Games Portal Participatory Storytelling is the intersection of story, play, and community.
Participatory storytelling is a way of looking at storytelling that acknowledges the importance of play and community. It is a critical framework for analyzing storytelling media, from traditional storytelling to video games, with an eye on its ability to include the audience in the storytelling process. It is also a goal of story as conversation, where a storyteller and her community play together in the creation of story.
Participatory storytelling is also the guiding principle of Zakelro Story Studio. The roots of Zakelro's participatory storytelling theory can be found in the whitepaper, Games and Storytelling, by Corvus Elrod. Continued thoughts on the topic can be found on Corvus’ blog, Man Bytes Blog.
For an interesting article read the article Storytelling at a Distance by Lisa Neal in eLearn Magazine. Here are some books on storytelling with Amazon links included. I must admit I have read just the first 5 of these books however will read the rest over the next few months and then will post reviews on my favourites.
An electronic copy of an article "Storytelling that moves people" by Robert McKee is available for purchase and download. The article summarises much of the material in the book listed above, Story. At the core of the article McKee states that,
"If you can harness imagination and the principles of a well-told story, then you get people rising to their feet amid thunderous applause instead of yawning and ignoring you."
Related posting: Timetoast Creates Interactive Timelines to Share Memories and History--
from Mashable! by Ben Parr Timetoast logoOne of the things we cherish most are memories, and one of the things that we as a society value most is history. We take photos, create scrapbooks, write journals, and record videos of our children’s first steps in an attempt to preserve the best moments of our lives. But it’s difficult to bring it all into one place and place it chronologically. That is, until Timetoast, an attractive tool for creating interactive timelines to commemorate anything from the big events in your child’s life to the history of NASA.
Rural digital storytelling: PlaceStories-- from Liberal Education Today by Bryan Alexander PlaceStories offers another case of digital storytelling, aimed at communities. The collaborative site aggregates digital content from Appalachian Mountain contributors, currently organized into three projects. The communities are in Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky, with Virginia coming up...
3/30/09
StoryTop(K-12) -- from iLearn Technology
What it is: Story Top is a simple comic strip creator. Students can create an account on Story Top where they can save, share with classmates, and print out comic strips that they create. Students can choose from a set selection of backgrounds, images, and text bubbles (they aren’t able to upload their own images). Using the Story Top clip art and backgrounds, students can create a fun comic strip about almost any topic with a simple drag-and-drop interface.
3/23/09
Related posting: Is Anybody Listening?--
from Open Culture, by Dan Coleman It’s time to put a human face on the disheartening economic statistics that we’re hearing almost daily. This video features students from a Southern California high school talking candidly (and without scripts) about how the economic collapse has affected their day-to-day lives. Unemployment, parents leaving the family, homelessness, scarce food — it’s all part of the reality they’re now living. Fittingly, this video project grew out of an AP lit class (more on the backstory here) that happened to be reading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. There’s nothing like a good tale of materialism and decadent morality to get struggling kids talking.
There’s something of a happy ending to this story. This video made its way to Washington, and it resulted in President Obama visiting the school last week during his trip to California. So, yes, someone is listening. But how much will it really change the lot of these kids? Lastly, you may want to check out this photo gallery called Scenes from Recession. It offers “some glimpses of the places and lives affected by what some are calling the Great Recession.” Stunning and depressing stuff, to be sure. But that’s our world.
From DSC:
My prayer is that we will be changed as a nation and as a world -- positively -- from the pains that we are going through. I know that pain has been the instigator of change in my own life, and I sense pain may be a necessary tool for us all to change once again. It is a reminder to me that we are all in this boat together.
3/18/09
F/X MACUL 2009-- from Digital Storytelling, by Joe Brennan
3/17/09
Digital Storytelling Course-- from Queensland University of Technology; link from Bryan Alexander Digital Storytelling
is a powerful means for enabling communication and social participation. Ordinary people work with expert creative practitioners to create first person narratives for a wide and growing range of purposes, including community building, cultural engagement, brand identification, education, and public communication. This form of co-creative media takes advantage of newly accessible technologies but is based in the ancient and universal tradition of storytelling. A digital story usually...
Related story Podcast: "Telling Stories In Print, Online and Onscreen: Walden Media and Family Audiences-- from MIT Comparative Media Studies: News by Andrew Whitacre Randy Testa, Vice-President of Education and Professional Development, Walden Media, LLC will discuss what it means to create educational content in tandem with commercially released family films, film adaptations of children's literature. He will also discuss why Walden Media as a film studio has recently moved into publishing children's literature as another platform for storytelling and content acquisition.
2/12/09
2/11/09
StoryCorps-- from StoryCorps, Podcasting and E-learning posting by David Anderson If you’re considering incorporating stories and interviews into your e-learning, but haven’t known where to begin, StoryCorps might offer you everything you need to get started.
What is StoryCorps?
The heart of StoryCorps is the conversation between two people who are important to each other: a son asking his mother about her childhood, an immigrant telling his friend about coming to America, or a couple reminiscing on their 50th wedding anniversary. By helping people to connect, and to talk about the questions that matter, the StoryCorps experience is powerful and sometimes even life-changing. Just as powerful is the experience of listening. Whenever people listen to these stories, they hear the courage, the humor, the trials and triumphs of an incredible range of voices. By listening closely to one another, we can help illuminate the true character of this nation reminding us all just how precious each day can be and how truly great it is to be alive.
Digital Research Tools (DiRT)-- original link from Ray Schroeder As more and more scholars grow interested in the world of digital research, this tremendously useful wiki will be one that they will tell their colleagues about. Created by Lisa Spiro, the director of the Digital Media Center at Rice University, this collaborative wiki collects information about tools and resources that can help scholars conduct research more efficiently or creatively. Visitors can browse through topical headings that include "Authoring", "Blogging", and "Data Mining", among others. Within each heading, visitors can read short descriptions about each resource. Under the "Types of Tools" section visitors can search for specific tools that can help them collect data, edit images, make a dynamic map, and so on.Additionally, visitors can sign up to join the wiki here and also learn more about Spiro and her other projects.
2/5/09
Puget Sound Off’s digital skills how-to-- from Smart Mobs by Howard Rheingold Puget Sound Off is a wonderful site by and for young people in the Puget Sound (Seattle environs) region. They have just launched a How-to site for young people seeking to learn digital skills, starting with interactive videos about blogging, digital storytelling, and social networking.
Need some digital skills? Check out our library of interactive videos to help you master blogging, digital storytelling, and other multimedia skills. Click on the icons below to view them. Also, let us know what you think and if you’ve created or know about other good how-to’s that should be posted.
1/30/09
Lessons from the art of storyboarding-- from Presentation Zen blog; original link from George Siemens Storyboarding as we know it may have been pioneered by film makers and animators, but we can use many of the same concepts in the development of other forms of storytelling including keynote presentations or short-form presentations such as those made popular at TED. The storyboard process allows you to flush out themes and look for patterns as you apply your creativity toward presenting your content.
Storyboarding is a great way to begin to visualize the story of your content. (In animation) storyboards are used to develop the story. A great storyboard artist is a great communicator (not necessarily a great illustrator/animator). Walt Disney developed the use of storyboards in the 1920s. Storyboards allow film makers to see a blueprint of the movie before going into production. You tack them (your sketches/ideas in visual form) up on the wall so you can see the entire sequence, flow, continuity, etc. Storyboards are an effective, inexpensive way to develop the story. You can "board it up" on the wall and see if it works. Because ideas can be changed easily and quickly, storyboarding works. The key is to put down in your storyboards the minimum amount of information that gives a dynamic and quick read of the content (and the emotions) of the sequence.
A good storyboard artist is a good storyteller. The drawings do not have to be pretty, but they must have the meaning and the feelings behind the idea. A good storyboard artist is a good pitchman. Walt Disney, they say, was an amazing pitchman/storyboard artist. Walt's great ability was his passion and vision behind the pitch. The storyboard pitch is one of the great performance arts developed in the 20th century at Disney (yet no one ever gets to see it). The use of storyboards is one of the reasons Walt Disney's early films were so remarkable; the practice was soon copied.
Walt Disney:
"At our studio we don't write our stories, we draw them."
I'm in the process of creating an interactive timeline, and as I revisited my links and bookmarks, I came across a link to a video of Jonathan Harris discussing his ideas regarding digital storytelling, overlapping threads, and multiple perspectives.
Jonathan explores real-life stories and celebrates the interconnections between events, ideas, feelings, and people. Linear narrative and linear time lines do not do justice to the richness and complexities of human experience.
"Combining elements of computer science, anthropology, visual art and storytelling, Jonathan Harris designs systems to explore and explain the human world."
"Jonathan Harris is redefining the idea of what it means to tell a story. Take a ride through an arctic whale hunt and plunge headfirst into the feelings Harris finds running rampant in cyberspace as he describes what he calls “storytelling platforms.”
Below are links to two story-telling platforms described in the presentations. The Whale Hunt is organized so that the user can explore the story through a variety of perspectives and interfaces, and at different points in time...
...The project aims to “revolutionize how we tell our stories, from major motion pictures to peer-to-peer multimedia sharing. By applying leading-edge technologies to make stories more interactive, improvisational and social, researchers will seek to transform audiences into active participants in the storytelling process, bridging the real and virtual worlds, and allowing everyone to make their own unique stories with user-generated content on the Web”
Frank Moss, the director of the MIT Media Lab - “The challenge is to acknowledge the inevitability of change, that kids especially take media in small chunks continuously now. My dream is that the depth of stories to convey meaning, importance and emotion can be preserved in this world of on-the-run multiple media. Storytelling is at the very root of what makes us uniquely human.” Hear hear.
The power of narrative to engage
The research asks - Why does our brain seem to be wired to enjoy stories? And how do the emotional and cognitive effects of a narrative influence our beliefs and real-world decisions?
Stories it seems are a universal part of human culture – this may not be big news to many of us, however the consistency in themes, structure and purpose of stories start to uncover why they are such powerful methods of human communication and learning.
Stories are highly motivating to us precisely because they target themes that are emotionally and cognitively important to us – scientists argue that these are wired into us as fundamental drivers. Studies across human societies identify a few clear common themes for stories. Primary among these are Conflict and Love. This is surprising as romantic love might not thought to be a good candidate for universality as many societies view marriage as an economic union. More surprisingly, stories across societies show similar gender depictions – a strong male protagonist and female beauty. This is consistent across societies ranging from Western democracies to hunter-gatherer tribes. There were no instances of male beauty.
We use them naturally The effect of stories can be seen at a very young age where we have been shown to develop strong emotional attachments to stories through storybooks, movies and games that we encounter. In a large part of our everyday communication we have been shown to use stories and story like structures to communicate with others. This powerful communication medium can be very successful in persuading and changing behaviour. Experiments consistently show that narrative fiction can shift readers viewpoints towards the views expressed within the narrative.
Why we learn from them
It’s interesting that for all of the debate in education and training about delivery formats, ‘learning styles’ (hocus pocus), etc the key predictor of improved learning outcomes is the instructional method used and the degree to which this engages the student in appropriate cognitive processing on the content. See Clive Shepherds blog for a discussion of this.
Research studies into narrative fiction have begun to uncover a common structure and a consistency in properties that lends itself to reflection and analysis instructional processes. A familiar definition of narrative is that they include a series of causally linked events that unfold over time.
Digital Storytelling: Old Ways, New Tools -- from the NMC, by Laurie Burruss | Pasadena City College
What makes a good story? Ten essential elements of storytelling define the process for creating, making, and distributing
digital stories. These ten elements establish a process for designing and developing story concepts, methods,
tools, and distribution. A discussion of each element follows with “real world” examples illustrating the principles and
actualization of “successful” stories. They include:
1. Point of View
2. A Dramatic Question
3. Emotional Content
4. The Voice
5. Juxtaposition: Text & Image
6. Rhythm, Tone and Tempo
7. Narrative Structure
8. The Audience
9. Immersion, Connection
VoiceThread compared to GarageBand-- from Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wesley Fryer The following is a reply I shared tonight in a closed online learning community to the question, “Is VoiceThread something you can use [for digital storytelling] instead of GarageBand?”— start of response —
VoiceThread can be used for digital storytelling instead of Garageband, but I see it as a different tool with different benefits as well as limitations.
Storytelling in organizations -- from ChangingMinds.org
(NOTE: This is not necessarily digital storytelling, but I include it nonetheless)
"Organizations, companies, business and other groups of people are just that, groups of people who gather together for some purpose. Sometimes they act quite clinically and 'storytelling' seems quite irrelevant. Yet it always happens, whether you want it or not. Here are some notes about how to make it work for you."
“Digital storytelling begins,” says Joe Lambert, Co-Founder of the Center for Digital Storytelling, “with the notion that in the not [too] distant future, sharing one’s story through the multiple mediums of digital imagery, text, voice, sound, music, video and animation will be THE PRINCIPAL HOBBY OF THE WORLD’S PEOPLE.” As that world becomes more connected through the Internet, the importance of learning to use digital tools to share your ideas, your vision, your stories becomes all the more critical. Given the choice of drill-n-practice or digital storytelling that is authentic, involves multiple media forms, which would your students select? I invite you to join the digital storytelling revolution, adding your voice to the mix.
11/18/08
Stories for Change: multimedia narrative and digital storytelling-- from Liberal Education Today, by Bryan Alexander Stories for Change connects multimedia narrative and digital storytelling practitioners. The site includes examples of these stories, and resources for making them. It's a collaborative project, involving the Center for Digital Storytelling, Creative Narrations, EduWeave, MassIMPACT, Middlebury College, and Storybuilders.
The power of narrative to engage The research asks - Why does our brain seem to be wired to enjoy stories? And how do the emotional and cognitive effects of a narrative influence our beliefs and real-world decisions?
Stories it seems are a universal part of human culture – this may not be big news to many of us, however the consistency in themes, structure and purpose of stories start to uncover why they are such powerful methods of human communication and learning.
Stories are highly motivating to us precisely because they target themes that are emotionally and cognitively important to us – scientists argue that these are wired into us as fundamental drivers. Studies across human societies identify a few clear common themes for stories. Primary among these are Conflict and Love. This is surprising as romantic love might not thought to be a good candidate for universality as many societies view marriage as an economic union. More surprisingly, stories across societies show similar gender depictions – a strong male protagonist and female beauty. This is consistent across societies ranging from Western democracies to hunter-gatherer tribes. There were no instances of male beauty.
We use them naturally The effect of stories can be seen at a very young age where we have been shown to develop strong emotional attachments to stories through storybooks, movies and games that we encounter. In a large part of our everyday communication we have been shown to use stories and story like structures to communicate with others. This powerful communication medium can be very successful in persuading and changing behaviour. Experiments consistently show that narrative fiction can shift readers viewpoints towards the views expressed within the narrative.
Why we learn from them It’s interesting that for all of the debate in education and training about delivery formats, ‘learning styles’ (hocus pocus), etc the key predictor of improved learning outcomes is the instructional method used and the degree to which this engages the student in appropriate cognitive processing on the content. See Clive Shepherds blog for a discussion of this.
Research studies into narrative fiction have begun to uncover a common structure and a consistency in properties that lends itself to reflection and analysis instructional processes. A familiar definition of narrative is that they include a series of causally linked events that unfold over time...
11/8/08
Example of digital storytelling -- link from Wes Fryer
Celebrate Oklahoma Voices Welcome to our online learning community for Celebrate Oklahoma Voices presented by The Oklahoma Heritage Association. COV is a statewide digital storytelling project empowering learners to become digital witnesses, archiving local oral history and sharing that history safely on the global stage of the Internet.
Business Storytelling Resources-- from BPP blog, by Meryl Evans People using the Beyond Bullet Points (BBP) approach enjoy successful presentations because they tell stories while giving the presentation. They don’t load their slides with a lot of words and meaningless data. Instead, they weave together the point of their presentation using the story telling techniques we learned as kids. Stories connect speakers with their audience. It’s also easier to remember stories than facts. Stories can make a point, selling products and services, and communicate what you want to communicate. To get your storytelling juices flowing, visit some of the many resources available on the web. What are your favorite resources and sources of story inspiration?
Web 2.0 Storytelling-- info/quote from George Siemens: Alan Levine and Bryan Alexander have published an important article: Web 2.0 Storytelling: Emergence of a New Genre (and a supporting wiki). When new faculty or training professionals encounter read/write tools (blogs, wikis, video, podcasts, etc) the initial excitement usually turns to "oh, but how will I use this beyond posting blogs for students?". The focus of this articles is on using storytelling (my preference is for the term narrative) to assist faculty and students to better make use of technology that offers personal control. What's web 2.0 storytelling? It's "the telling of stories using Web 2.0 tools, technologies, and strategies".
Empressr -- link from Angela Maiers Empressr is the first visual storytelling and presentation rich Internet application. Feature-rich, it allows you to create, manage and share—going beyond other applications by enabling you to combine streaming video, animation, audio, still images and text to create the most dynamic content possible. You can easily embed your visual story in your blog or your favorite social network page. Or use Empressr to create state of the art boardroom presentations.
This master site provides easy access to the many art and storytelling materials available through jasonOhler.com.
Digital storytelling and education websites
Digital storytelling materials are divided into the four parts described below. All websites are cross-referenced and can be reached regardless of where you start.
Part I. Storytelling, learning and literacy.
Start here. This site provides an overview about how and why storytelling and digital storytelling in particular can be used to advance literacy and learning in content areas.
Part II. The art of storytelling. How to create compelling stories, regardless of the media used. This site focuses on the actual processes of helping students create, develop and produce digital stories within a classroom context.
Performance literacy is a process by which a student writes a story and then performs the writing using sound, expression and movement. It is a powerful storytelling process, and includes oral language development, the writing process, content from the curriculum and parental/community involvement. Brett Dillingham describes the components of performance literacy, focussing on the Visual Portrait of a Story and its use in telling and retelling.
Savannah College of Art and Design — named one of the "25 cutting-edge schools with
an eye
toward the future" — uses Adobe software to prepare students for career success.
Watch a video case study to see how instructors incorporate Adobe Creative
Suite
Master Collection software throughout the curriculum.
In the presentation, authors mention that the following process is often used for digital story creation:
Write
Select images.
Narrate.
Apply Motion.
Their research findings suggest, however, the following is a more beneficial process to support student learning and retention of content-area knowledge:
Select images and write.
“Loop” step 1 with teacher input and feedback. (in the form of guided questions)
The Head First Teaching/Training Approach-- idea from equixotic.com Learning isn't something that just happens to you. It's something you do. You can't learn without pumping some neurons. Learning means building more mental pathways, bridging connections between new and pre-existing knowledge, recognizing patterns, and turning facts and information into knowledge (and ultimately, wisdom). Here's how we help you do that:
We tell stories(PDF) using casual language, instead of lecturing. We don't take ourselves too seriously. Which would you pay more attention to: a stimulating dinner party companion, or a lecture?
We make it visual(PDF). Images are far more memorable than words alone, and make learning much more effective. They also make things more fun.
We use attention-grabbing tactics...
10/13/08
Multimedia & Literacy-- from David Warlick I see the pressures to expand our notions of basic communication skills coming from two directions. First, there is the challenge of gaining your audience’s attention. We’re overwhelmed by information, having to choose from a bewildering array of sources, all competing for our attention. It means that communication must now utilize combinations of text, images, sound, video, and animation, arranged appropriately for an audience, in order to accomplish your goal.
But from the other direction, we find ourselves with amazingly sophisticated tools: video cameras costing less than a hundred dollars, software that comes pre-installed on our computers, free software and web services that can turn our standard computers into world-reaching broadcast stations, and a growing virtual world that can be turned into a movie set.
TV Tropes-- link from Caleb Kuntz in the T&L Digital Studio This one is for the writers and media studies students. TV Tropes is self described as "A catalog of the tricks of the trade for writing fiction." It's essentially a informal wiki dedicated to cataloging Tropes, that is, literary devices common in fiction that are not as overused as to become cliche. It's a great resource for coming up with story ideas, as well as for connecting different tv shows, books, and movies thematically.
Digital Storytelling and 21st Century Skills (pdf) -- link originally found at Interactive Multimedia Technology
This nine-page primer is useful for anyone interested in learning how to create digital stories or develop digital storytelling activities with young people. The information was provided by David Jakes, an instructional technology coordinator for Community High School District 99 in Downers Grove, IL, provides a good case for digital storytelling and an outline of the process of implementing related activities at the high school level.
Towards a Vision of Visual Literacy Learning
Humans are anatomically built to process visually. With that in mind, how can educators take advantage of the explosion of user-created visual content, the Web’s enormous capacity to distribute that content in multiple formats, and the high level of engagement that occurs when visual content is used in instruction? This session explores a framework for understanding the process of helping students become more visually literate, and identifies the strategies and tools to do so.
Capturing Stories, Capturing Lives: An Introduction to Digital Storytelling
Everyone has stories. Stories can originate from a variety of sources, from one’s collective experience to a person’s imagination. Digital storytelling is the process of capturing those stories, first by writing, and then by extending that writing by including powerful multimedia elements to make the story come alive. In this presentation, we’ll explore the process of digital storytelling from its theoretical basis to the practical “how to” processes necessary to integrate this instructional technique into your teaching. See examples of student digital stories and see a digital story created. Leave the session with the ability to use the process of digital storytelling to create a magical learning experience for students.
Digital Storytelling 2.0: What’s Next?
You’ve started using the process of digital storytelling with kids. You’ve had success. But what’s next, and how can you grow your use, or your program? This session explores the new tools, the new media, and the new networks of digital storytelling that will enable students to further extend their voice, develop their message, and engage in a lifetime of creation and contribution.
Items from Mr. Ken Neville Sr., Show Producer, Walt Disney Imagineering
Storytelling is one of the oldest teaching methods. By
using digital video cameras and software such as iMovie,
almost anyone can extend a story’s reach to a much
wider audience. In education, instructors can ask students
to create digital stories to demonstrate knowledge
of a topic. Websites such as the Center for Digital Storytelling
emphasize that the technology is “always secondary
to the storytelling” (Banaszewski, 2002, para.
18). See Chapter 25 (part of 13 MB file), Tools for Online Engagement and
Communication, for more information on digital storytelling.
Great Book Stories-- from Wesley Fryer
"Great Book Stories is a collaborative project with a simple premise using powerful technology: We encourage students to share short digital book reviews using VoiceThread about books they have enjoyed reading. The project website is a collaborative wiki, where teachers are welcome to add links to their students’ own VoiceThread examples. This project not only provides a great opportunity for teachers and students to learn how to use VoiceThread to create and share interactive digital stories safely online, but it also provides a great opportunity for teachers to learn more about using a wiki in a collaborative project."
Citing his recent experience teaching his grandson to crawl by putting a green squeaky frog just out of his reach (see: School is profoundly broken”: Roger Schank’s visit to BYU), Schank reinforced the value of providing students with real-world learning situations. Deriding “required courses” (and plain “courses” for that matter), Schank argues for a story-based curriculum in which students are required to solve the kinds of practical problems they are likely to face in real life. His new science-based high school curriculum, for example, requires students to (among other things) file a report about a crime scene, create an exercise and nutrition plan for a client, and identify and eradicate a mysterious fungus destroying farmer’s crops. As students work toward these goals, they are provided with the facts, information, theories, formulas, etc. they need to succeed. Story-based, goal-driven curriculum doesn’t require artificial, external motivation for students. The motivation is intrinsic in the learning activities themselves.
Roger says in this video that "You don't learn anything if you don't remember it.
Memory comes from having had experiencies. We learn by doing. Experiences must be:
In contrast to a passive, subject-oriented curriculum, a Story-Centered Curriculum (SCC) can be viewed as a carefully designed apprenticeship-style learning experience in which the student encounters a planned sequence of real-world situations constructed to motivate the development and application of knowledge and skills in an integrated fashion. A realistic story, at the core of each SCC, provides a meaningful, motivating role for the student, designed to ensure that the student faces exactly the right progression of challenges to stretch and build his or her abilities. While the "characters" that a student encounters in a traditional apprenticeship are primarily concerned with their own-life goals, the characters in a Story-Centered Curriculum are specifically constructed to further the student's education by providing appropriate challenges. Mentors play the expert role, providing one-on-one coaching, help, and feedback to the student, while encouraging self-directed learning. Through these mechanisms, the SCC provides accelerated experiential learning.
We (as in humanity) often view ourselves as being logical. We spend much time in philosophy classes debating the nature of logic, playing with logic tables, and generally convincing ourselves that what defines us as humans is our ability to explore concepts and ideas through a framework of logic. After, isn't the scientific method a testament to the power of a logical framework to banish myth and superstition? While logic certainly is a large part of who we are, most of us are moved more by stories than by logic. Bambi, for example, did more to raise awareness about hunting than did studies and logical arguments. Political leaders aren't elected because they are the best or most competent, but rather because of their ability to translate a meaningful world view (through narrative and story) that resonates with what we aspire to be. And advertisers, well, let's not get into the latest Axe or Budweiser commercials. Regardless of how far-fetched and at times comical an advertising message is, something in a story stirs us. The Secrets of Storytelling: Why We Love a Good Yarn tackles why stories have such power over people: "Psychologists and neuroscientists have recently become fascinated by the human predilection for storytelling. Why does our brain seem to be wired to enjoy stories? And how do the emotional and cognitive effects of a narrative influence our beliefs and real-world decisions?
The answers to these questions seem to be rooted in our history as a social animal. We tell stories about other people and for other people. Stories help us to keep tabs on what is happening in our communities. The safe, imaginary world of a story may be a kind of training ground, where we can practice interacting with others and learn the customs and rules of society. And stories have a unique power to persuade and motivate, because they appeal to our emotions and capacity for empathy."
"We would like to imagine that we learn from the stories of others, but we really only do so when the stories we hear relate to beliefs that we feel rather unsure of, ones that we are flirting with at the moment, so to speak. When we are wondering, consciously or unconsciously, about the truth, about how to act or understand some aspect of the world, then the evidence provided by others can be of some use." (P.78)
“One process that bridges analysis and synthesis is storytelling. Stories are always drawn from life, from both the general qualities we distill from experience and the particular qualities we discern in careful observation, but they get their power from going beyond this basis in fact.”
Home > (Digital) Storytelling
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