An Instructional Design Approach for Integrating Digital Storytelling into the Classroom Using iMovie
Patrick Bell, University of Nevada, Reno

• Project for Catholic Schools in San Francisco
  • Pre- and post-surveys for teacher indicated interests in storytelling
• The effective digital story:
  • Uses only a few images, a few words, and fewer special effects to powrfully communicate meaning
  • Flows naturally and is limited to 2-3 minutes
  • Is supported with effective teacher training
  • Focuses on the writing and communication proess rather than just digital effects
  • Is solidly grounded in curriculum and expresses relevant content knowledge (Question: what counts as curriculum? Is this only for expository reports of content?)
• Goals of the project
  • Implement teacher training on effective and efficient methods of integrating digital video editing technology into the classroom
  • Enable students to creat enhancements to traditional written/oral assignments using digital storytelling
• Pedagogical concerns
  • Time contra inst on tech access
  • Availability of digital media equipment
  • Copyright issues
    • Technology, Education, and Harmonization Act (Note: See NCSU Library site on the TEACH act for more info)
      • No more than 5 images by a single artist of 10% of a collection of images may be used from an internet or copyrighted source, if attributed
• Design, Development, and Implementation
  • Curriculum Overview
    • In proceedings paper
  • Teachers
    • 2 hour workshop using a whole group setting with guided practice and interactive group work
    • Printed materials with step-by-step guides
    • Learned on how to import, sequence, an editing music and images
    • Techniques on internet searchers, writing scripts, and storyboarding
    • Saving and rendering digital movies into condensed Quick Time format for presentation and evaluation
  • Student Project
    • Conducting valid research using the internet, books, and materials provided by the teachers (historical perspective on the Holocaust)
    • Writing a script and creating a storyboard of images and text
    • Went through same process of creating movies as teachers did
    • Learning how to cite sources and give proper attribution to collected images and music
    • Movies were presented in a whole group setting for peer review and teacher evaluation on content, flow, and impact of story
  • Evaluating the project
    • Images
      • Limit the amount of images that students collect to 10-15 images
      • Google search for large or extra large images only
      • Choice of images that can be scaled to correct size and aspect ration
      • Images should appear for at least 10 seconds
      • text should appear long enough to be read by audience
      • Images should appear alone long enough to convey impact and meaning
    • Narrative
      • Text narrative is often more efficient than audio narratives
      • Background noise can distract from the quality of the story
      • Use of audio equipment can take more time than can be practical
    • Effects
      • Simple fades and dissolves
      • Basic effect applications for motion
      • Use b/w or sepia tones for image color consistency
    • Music
      • Create own music
      • Get copyright free music
• Conclusion
  • Effective stories captivate attention, use minimal special effects, and translate relevant content knowledge
  • They are a part of the curriculum and supported by effective teacher training
  • Enhance traditional forms of assessments

Reflections:
As I listened to this presentation, I was struck by the stark utilitarian vision of digital storytelling. In short, this seemed to be an enhanced version of writing the report that students have always been asked to do. By searching for images and creating, essentially, captions for them, then combining them into a very short movie, there is not much of the student represented here. When I think about digital storytelling, I think of the personal narrative or, at least, a much more personal take on an expository topic. This type of digital story would be easy to assess (10-15 images, appropriate captions with facts), which is not necessarily a good thing. The writing process is messy, and this is a sanitized version of digital storytelling.

“I would like to share my final with the class!” – Digital Storytelling for Education Major Students
Amy Eguchi, Bloomfield College (NJ)

• Bloomfield College
  • Independent four-year institute of 2000 students, in NJ and near NYC
• Introduction to Education
  • Gateway course for education majors, geared towards technology and is a hybrid course
  • Classroom management, multiple intelligences, lessong planning, inclusion, etc.
  • Self-reflection and life-long learning
• Why digital storytelling?
  • Introduce new educational technology that students can use in their classroom
  • Introduce alternate way of self-expression
  • Create a wonderful addition to their ePortfolio
  • Make learning “fun”
• Final assignment
  • “Your Own Journey of Learning” — create a movie that shows your learning this semester about issues in education
• Research Questions
  • Will student choose digital storytelling as an option to express learning?
  • Whill it help them express themsleves fully?
  • Will it help them reflect on themselves more effectively?
  • Will the introdcution of DS not be helpul to our student, perhaps confusing them or making them feel less capable of themselves (not in the millennial generation, other side of the digital divide)?
• Results
  • About half of the students choose to create digital stories and wanted to share them within and outside the class

Reflections:
This use of digital storytelling, too, was very functional, but did also show how teacher education students could compose their own stories (in particular, about learning how to teach). It was a different approach than the previous session, in that it discussed how students go through their own writing process to develop their own stories rather than reporting on other ideas. I am a bit concerned about the idea that this was done to be an “addition” to a portfolio or for “fun,” but I understand how that approach appeals to pre-service teachers. All in all, this idea could be a useful twist on the digital storytelling that I am asking students to do this year.

National Writing Project Teacher Consultants Explore Digital Storytelling
Paige Baggett, University of South Alabama

• Paige is the Director of the Mobile Bay Writing Project and has been working with teachers at that site to develop digital stories
• What is the difference between a digital story and power point? Bringing out the differences in genre and the ways that we think about using storytelling.
  • Helen Barrett — “abuses” of digital storytelling, based on Center for Digital Storytelling’s definition of a personal narrative
  • Can use applications of digital storytelling — what’s in a name?
• Looking at Kevin Hodgson, DigiTales, Bernard Robin’s Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling at UHCOE

Reflections:
This was an intimate discussion with eight people, including Paige and Helen who have extensive experiences using digital storytelling. We wandered into discussions of the composing process, copyright, personal voice in narrative, uses of different digital storytelling tools, and other related ideas. Another link I forgot about: Educause’s 7 Things That You Should Know About Digital Storytelling.


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The blurb from the site says:

This year’s fantastic line up of keynote presenters will create an inviting and welcoming introduction in which the sharing of ideas among diverse learners working in diverse contexts continues. These distinguished folks will not only extend the conversations, but also invite each of us to stretch and grow as they share their expertise and wisdom in their respective strands. We are delighted they have each agreed to accept their roles as keynote presenters.

This is very exciting news for us but also means:

• I better get going on making the big movie (gulp)
• We better figure out what in the world we are going to present
• And how to engage folks in a video creation process

No worries — Bonnie and I are a great team and we have all of you to fall back on (thus the importance of your reflective pieces) as a showcase project.

Here is the link for the K12 Online Conference Slate.

Adios

Kevin and Bonnie

Second, I want to continue reconsidering what we mean when we say “digital storytelling” and “using technology to tell stories.” I am both happy with the narrow definition of digital storytelling (as it keeps our attention focused on the task of telling a clear and concise story with audio and visuals in a movie making type of program) while at the same time disheartened by this narrowness (given examples like Bud’s story about his daughter or the ABC project). I hope that we continue to think about this and what it means in terms of the medium (be it audio only, video/images only, or some mix of audio and video) and the mode (narrative only? non-fiction such as a book talk or science report?).

Moreover, I hope that we keep reconsidering it in the context of professional development. Thus, my third point is to continue to ask, “What does this storytelling process look like in action?” What can we take from digital storytelling workshops that we have participated in and/or led in the past and translate into a broader (but not totally confusing or all-encompassing) vision of the work? I liked Kevin’s idea about collaboration and Bonnie’s point about extending the relationships beyond the initial workshop. I have to think about those ideas some more.

Again, great show. I had a colleague from RCWP who was listening in and we were carrying on our own simultaneous private chat about the discussions, both on the show and in the chat. She was very impressed with the level of discourse about this topic, as was I. Thanks again and I look forward to continuing the conversation here on the blog.

Troy

Now they have one for digital storytelling.

Sweet…

Troy

Thus, I began to think more about genre in digital storytelling and what counts as a digital story. For instance, the Center for Digital Storytelling claims in their definition that “our primary concern is encouraging thoughtful and emotionally direct writing.” Is that all? Is that too much? I am not sure. But, it does make me wonder about texts — called digital stories — that are essentially book reports, a science project, or other type of traditional school assignment souped up with multimedia. Trauman reminds us that these stories must engage the audience in compelling experiences, not just inform or entertain them.

At any rate, some notes from the session…

Ryan Trauman, Univesity of Louisville – “My Digital Me: The Digital Story as Emerging Genre”

• Definition of Digital Storytelling from Center for Digital Storytelling
  • Evocative music, personal images, short snippets of video, and a voice over connecting the materials
• Points about digital storytelling
  • We enact identities by sharing our own media
    • Favorite pictures, songs, books, and other aspects of expressing identity
  • Digital stories allow multiple media to work simultaneously
    • Facebook and MySpace allow for some forms of media, but can’t be multimodal in the way a digital story can
  • The process is collaborative and recursive in its multimodality
    • This sphere of research is becoming more and more prominent in the field
    • Investigating the affordances of multmodality for composition, focusing on form and content
    • Collaboration enhances student learning
  • Bahktin’s Dialogism in identity construction
    • Developing a sense of self comes from others and the language available to us, focusing on collaborative and technological processes
• What needs to be studied
  • The raw, digital nature of the process — the process and skill sets needed
  • How younger students bring these processes into their own production process
  • The nature of digital storytelling itself needs to be studied and looked at from these lenses
• Mixing Media
  • Photographs
  • Music
  • Video
  • Voice Overs
    • How do all of these work individually and together to create new rhetorical situations?
• Voyeuristic Viewing (MySpace and Facebook) as compared to Performative Interaction (digital storytelling)
  • The genre is effective because of the narrative and simultaneous nature of the work
• Pedagogy of digital storytelling as it relates to composition
  • Challenged to compress materials, find appropriate media, collaborate and revise, and produce a final text

First, the session was led by a technology coordinator from one of Michigan’s intermediate school districts. As I was planning the technology strand for the conference, the presenter was recommended for the session by MRA’s current president (one of his colleagues). This was a smart move for MRA as the presenter was very knowledgeable about the composing tools that Movie Maker offered, and gave us a CD-ROM with many, many links and resources (as well as some printed and handed out in a folder). It was a four (yes, four!) hour session on Sunday afternoon, smack in the middle of a three day conference.

His approach was, as you would expect, technical and we didn’t talk (at first) about many of the literacy/litreary components of digital storytelling. Case in point: copyright. He was very good at sharing the overview of fair use for teachers and how, when kept within the walls of our classrooms, using certain kinds of materials from copyrighted materials can help you compose digital stories. As the session went on — and the participants in the session kept asking questions — I began to think that talking about Creative Commons would be a good idea. So, we did. And the presenter was very thankful for the new information. We were then able to move into a larger discussion about file management (which he was able to cover well) and citation of online sources (which I added to). The back and forth conversation that we had was, I felt, mutually informative for us and for the participants. Another case was how to use transitional devices between slides, and the effects the authors wanted to achieve.

A second significant point that came out for me was the fact that this event — setting up a mini-lab of laptop computers at the MRA conference — was a first for the organization, so far as anyone on the board remembers. The model worked well, as Aram and I presented our “Reading and Writing with New Media” session in the morning, using the laptops for that, and then we left them set up for the digital storytelling session in the afternoon. I think that we might pursue doing something like this for next year’s conference, too, as many of the participants in the session told us how valuable they found the hands-on time with the one-to-one support.

This encourages me on two levels. First, I think that these participants will really take the skills and attitudes that composing digital stories engenders back with them to their schools. Sure, they could have got the 50 minute overview (and there were sessions at the conference on digital storytelling that did tha), but this was an interactive session where participants left with their own story (we were frantically emailing them as time ran out). Second, I think that this is a model that we need to adopt as NWP sites — taking the technology to the places where the most motivated and interested teachers are at: local, state, and national conferences.

So, those are some thoughts on the session. Again, the presenter approached it for nearly the first hour as a technical exercise before he even showed a sample of a digital story. That said, I think that we take some of the lessons learned here and apply them to what we think the “ideal” digital storytelling workshop might look like. What do the rest of you think?

Troy