My Digital Story
Synthesis
There is something within language instruction that is vital even in today’s fast pace, changing society of technology: Learning how to write well. The importance of writing and communicating well is evident in all areas of life whether it’s at work, in a social setting, or at home with family and parenting issues. Schank, the former head of the Institute for the Learning Sciences, is the author of “Teaching Minds: How Cognitive Science Can Save Our Schools” writes: There is exactly one thing worth paying attention to in English. Not Dickens (unless of course you like Dickens.) Not Moby Dick, or Tennyson, or Hawthorne, or Shakespeare (unless of course, you like reading them.) What matters is learning how to write well. A good English teacher would give you daily writing assignments and help you get better at writing (and speaking). By writing assignments I don’t mean term papers. I mean writing about things you care about and learning to defend your arguments. Learning to enjoy reading matters as well but that would mean picking your own books to read and not having to write a book report. (Schank, 2012) The importance of teaching students to write well is often best demonstrated in the instruction of story writing. The ideas behind story writing have changed overtime and most noticeably evolving in the past two or three decades with the rapid change and development of technology. Story writing is often taught in a formulaic approach teaching children how to start a story, develop plot and details, and finally how to end a story. This formula has worked relatively well for generations but is being challenged and flipped upside-down with the concepts behind digital stories or other creative ways of telling stories with evolving text technologies.
The first step writing a great story is great storytelling, especially before children’s writing skills have caught up with their speaking and listening. Most early years teachers embrace this by ensuring plenty of engaging stories are read aloud to the class on a regular basis. It is then helpful to have students retell these stories to the teacher or question them on different details from the story. Using story maps (a helpful visual aid to show students the sequence of events or details from a story) can help students think about what makes a story, the rules and vocabulary of some of the stories they know – and to explore the inherent way human beings tend to make characters and stories from the world around them. Traditionally these primary teaching practices were done orally with teacher directed questions. As students’ reading skills improved they could be done on a chalkboard or using pen and paper. Visual aids were usually limited to simple story illustrations or the teachers’ and students’ drawing abilities.
What it means to be literate today has become a broad spectrum and is no longer solely contingent on the traditional idea of reading and writing print text. Today writing literacy has to reflect the needs of students living and learning in a digital world. The all-encompassing technologies of the computer-CD and DVD players, word processing functions, Internet access, and other new digital technologies such as Web 2.0 applications (e.g., blogs, wikis, etc.) require the user to have new literacies not necessary for traditional literacies. The New London Group, a coalition of teachers and media literacy scholars, coined the word “multiliteracies” to refer to the literacies used today. Some of these literacies are described here:
- Technological literacy – refers to the skills needed to adequately use computers.
- Visual literacy – probably the oldest literacy dates back to interpreting cave drawings and has evolved to competently decoding and comprehending the icons on the tool bar, navigating the Web, and encoding images in multimedia projects.
- Media literacy – refers to the necessary skills to access, evaluate, and create messages in written and oral language, graphics and moving images, and audio and music. In addition, media literacy requires the composer of multiple texts to select graphics, moving images, narration and music that complement the multimedia project. Media literacy also recognizes the role of media in a society and the skills of inquiry and self-expression necessary for citizens in a democratic society.
- Informational Literacy – is the ability to find, evaluate, analyze and synthesize information. The development of the World Wide Web dramatically changed the availability, method, depth, quantity, and sometimes quality of accessible information; consequently, the Internet has initiated critical reading skills not typically required in traditional texts.
(The New London Group, 1996)
The implications of this broadening sense of literacy require a change in thought process behind the practice of writing stories. The relevancy and popularity of the pen and paper story is quickly fading for students. In a survey done by 200 university students, it was determined that the average student in a year reads 2300 web pages, 1281 Facebook profiles and only 8 books. They write in a year 42 pages for class and over 500 pages of email. Daily, they spend 1.5 hours watching TV, 3.5 hours online, 2.5 hours listening to music, and 2 hours on a cell phone (Wesch, 2007). Knowing students need to be proficient in a growing number of technical skills is creating a sense of urgency to redefine and modernize the story writing process.
Sharing a story can impact the person sharing and person receiving deeply. The act of creating a story for the purpose of sharing is no longer limited to the process of writing. When someone reads, views, hears, or interacts with a story it can move them to reflect on their own experiences, modify their behavior, treat others with greater compassion, speak out about injustice, and become involved in society with the ability to impact and change rather than simply exist. Whether online, in social media, in local communities, or even at the institutional level, the sharing of stories has the power to make a real difference.
The incredible importance of sharing stories lead me to the decision to create something that I felt was personally meaningful and addressed a current issue within Aboriginal affairs. I used the example of Kitkatla and the Enbridge pipeline since it was educational on many levels as well as being an interesting and engaging story. The story begins with a historical dialogue explaining the importance of oolichan oil and how it established trade relationships for thousands of years. I chose to make the digital story as an oral presentation to stress the importance of oral history within Aboriginal society. Oral history provides a rich opportunity for human interaction. History, after all, is all about the human experience. Through oral history, researchers and interviewees come together in conversation about a commonly shared interest — as with all human interactions, this has the potential to be tremendously rewarding for both parties. (Walbert, 2014)
I wanted to make the story relevant to a number of different teaching approaches. I feel that this story will work very nicely into my Moodle course on encouraging Aboriginal students. It stresses the importance of integrating technology in a meaningful way while embracing aboriginal society and culture. Digital stories appear in many forms including still photographs with voice-over narration, short videos, documentaries, professional creations, or student productions. In short, digital stories can be anything that employs digital technology to construct narrative. The importance of digital story writing when working with aboriginal students is of particular importance due to their ability to create connections and relevancy with oral traditions. It has also shown that digital storytelling may be a viable solution for struggling writers. (Sylvester & Greenidge, 2010) The teachable content of this story is not limited to Aboriginal studies. While creating the story, I tried to include accurate history, environmental science, economics, and political science content.
I initially wanted to develop my story using entirely open source platforms since open source allows technology to transcend conventional class boundaries, making applications available to the “haves”, and the “have-nots”, all over the globe. I used audacity to record my audio and play it over with the background music. I found that in order to assemble my project on the ‘cloud’ the best option for me was to use Animoto (a web 2.0 platform that can make professional looking digital slideshows). There are other options for creating these types of presentations however, after some fairly extensive testing and sampling I decided that Animoto was the best suited web 2.0 app for my digital story. It allowed me to easily upload all of my photos, and videos and arrange them chronologically. The audio mp3 file was also easily uploaded and I was able to preview progress of my video as I edited and adjusted pacing of the slideshow transitions. The music track was found in the creative commons library as were many of the images included in the story. I also was able to use a number of my own personal photos for the purpose of the story.
Depending on many factors (culture, language, age, sex etc.); people often see, hear, and perceive the world in different ways. This means that the forms and approaches they take to telling stories are also very different. There is no set formula for making a great story. This makes it difficult for teachers who are often looking for a prescription or template. The metaphors of providing a map, illuminating the possibilities, or outlining a framework can assist students and teachers in crafting a narrative. Being creative is something innate to human activity. From birth, people around the world make music, draw, dance, and tell stories. As they grow to adulthood, they often internalize the message that producing art requires a special and innate gift, tendency, or skill. Many people simply give up and never return to creative practice. Confronting this sense of inadequacy and encouraging people in artistic self-expression can inspire individual and community transformation.
In today’s world, I believe technology has the power to confront this sense of inadequacy and provide a multitude of varying activities for the creation of personal stories and narratives. Many people blame themselves for their lack of technological savvy instead of recognizing the complexity of the tools and acknowledging that access and training are often in short supply. The creation of new media and digital video technologies will not in and of themselves make a better world. Developing thoughtful, participatory approaches to how and why these technologies are being used is essential. With the use of technology, a story can be told relatively easily using music, video, animation, language translation, and many other creative ways. These stories can be seen and shared by millions of people with the simple 30 second action of uploading it to the Internet. A story is no longer the creation of someone who possesses a particular set of skills to be considered an author. The creator of a great story can be just about any human being capable of communicating in some facet.
References:
Birchwater, S.( 1993) Ulkatcho. Stories of the Grease Trail, Anahim Lake, Ulkatcho Indian Band.
Grant, T. (2014, March 7). When it comes to jobs, Alberta is in a class of its own. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved March 17, 2014, from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/jobs/canada-sheds-7000-jobs-unemployment-stuck-at-7-per-cent/article17366654/
Hein, F. J. (2000). Historical Overview of the Fort McMurray Area and Oil Sands Industry in Northeast Alberta. Earth Sciences Report 2000-05. Alberta Geological Survey.
Harrington, L. (1953). Trail of the Candlefish. The Beaver Magazine Of The North. (pp. 40-44)
Hirch, M. (12 September 2003), Trading across time and space: Culture along the North American “Grease Trails” from a European perspective, Canadian Studies International Interdisciplinary Conference, Kamloops, BC: University College of the Caribou
Schank, R. (2012, September 2). Education Outrage: Back to School: A message to high school students who hate high school; Here is why you hate it. Education Outrage: Back to School: A message to high school students who hate high school; Here is why you hate it. Retrieved November 22, 2013, from http://educationoutrage.blogspot.ca/2012/09/back-to-school-message-to-high-school.html
Sylvester, R., & Greenidge, W. (2010). Digital Storytelling: Extending the Potential for Struggling Writers. The Reading Teacher, 63(4), 284-295.
The New London Group. (1996) “A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies:Designing Social Futures.” Harvard Educational Review 66(1), pp. 60-92.
Walbert, K. (2014). The value of oral history. The value of oral history. Retrieved March 22, 2014, from http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/762
Wesch, M (2007, October 12) A Vision of Students Today. Retrieved March 18, 2013, from www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o