eLearning Summit Session: Digital Storytelling

I attended the session “Digital Storytelling” presented by Scott Spicer, Cristina Lopez, and Pete McCauley, University of Minnesota, at this year’s eLearning Summit held on the beautiful University of Northwestern St. Paul campus. They work with faculty on courses that include digital storytelling projects. They provide support to faculty not familiar with the technology and process to produce the digital projects. They help faculty identify how a digital storytelling project will fit within the structure of their course. According to Spicer, Lopez, and McCauley, digital storytelling consists of a multimedia format with a mixture of different formats including short video, audio, text, graphics, voice-over, digital comic book, and screenshots brought together to tell a story. The educational benefits of digital storytelling are students gaining a deeper understanding of the subject they are researching and reporting, having the gift of their own voice to tell the story, sharing their work publicly, and having the students be more engaged in the subject they are learning about. The presenters mentioned that when students know their work will be shared publicly, they put more effort into the work and that it’s a great platform for students to live what they are learning instead of passive learning. For the faculty member, it requires careful planning and rethinking of a course. To integrate a digital storytelling project into a course, the faculty member should have clear learning objections. McCauley explained that students should be aware of the expectations of the process and completion of the project. She gave an example of learning objectives for the project:

"Upon completion of their digital stories, my students will be able to: -decode meaning created by the interaction of verbal audio, images and music and genre; -provide constructive feedback based on the seven elements of digital storytelling; and -present complex ideas and concepts to intelligent audiences that don't possess technical knowledge.”

Through their work, Spicer, Lopez, and McCauley have identified four main genres in which students typically work:

• personal narrative
• documentary style
• screen capture/tutorial
• public service announcement/psa

Having a faculty member choose one genre for the project was helpful for being able to control projects better, allowing for one rubric or set of criteria to evaluate projects, and ensuring ease of use from a technology standpoint. Other helpful tips they had to share about working with digital storytelling projects were to have students evaluate each other’s work (they found students responded positively to openly sharing their ideas and thoughts about the different projects) and to carefully structure the assignment in order to help different types of learners and skill levels. Having a workflow and checking in with the instructor after completing the different steps will help the student produce a high-quality media production. The workflow process they identified and use is:

Plan - writing the storyline, getting feedback, criticizing constructively, determining what the structure will look like

Capture- recording, identifying where they are going to get their resources for all this, going on-site

Edit - bringing all of the capture to a place to view and put together

Publish - finalizing the file to share with instructor, class, family, community at large

Another aspect touched upon in the session was what are the elements of a great story. It is the job of the instructor to explain to students why it is a good story. The student may know it is a good story but it is also important to articulate it well. The central piece is the gift of their voice in the storytelling process. Other formal elements important in good storytelling are having all elements work together to synthesize meaning, pacing, and to leave breathing room which will invite audience members to make meaning. They have found that this has been a creative way of using technology and a way for students to take ownership of their work. Because students knew their work was going to be shared and made publicly available, they were more engaged in the process. It has also helped to build management and leadership skills. Allowing students to openly communicate with each about the process, they were able to offer more positive feedback and encouragement along the way. Links:

Digital Storytelling eLearning Summit presentation

College of Education & Human Development Digital Stories

Student Media Assignment Examples

Digital Storytelling YouTube page