Why story telling?
According to Edgar’s Cone of Experience, our understanding of a subject matter is deeper and more meaningful when we learn through different medium. When studying units that are more reading based, like biology and geology for instance, students that are less verbal find it difficult to grasp the concept even though they can read the definition of vocabularies in the textbook. Explaining the concept in the form of a story helps put the vocabulary in context, and also gets the students’ attention.
Tool used- Slideroll:
I need a simple web application that allows me to put pictures and text together to create a story. Audio is a plus, but it’s optional. Because students will be asked to create their own story, this application must be free and easy to use.
Slideroll is excellent for this purpose – pictures can be uploaded to the program, and there is quite a variety of music selection. It’s time line editing tool is easy to pick up, which makes the process of creating this video enjoyable.
Strengths and limitations of story telling in teaching:
Students always enjoy listening to a good story. Demonstrating ideas through stories adds variety to the classes, and gets students’ attention.
Having such an assignment allows students to be creative and make connection between what they are learning and what interests them in real life. Students can share their stories with the class and they can know more about each other. Feedback on their stories from other classmates will be more meaningful than just a check or a cross to the textbook questions. This fun activity will help build a learning community in the class.
The down side to this type of activity is that it can be time consuming, no matter how simple the web application is. If a student is less tech-savvy or does not have access to the technology, student might get frustrated with the technology, while teachers might find that it consumes too much time offering technological help. Adequate amount of time needs to be given to students when they assign this type of projects.