Vignette #1
Art of the 21st century emerges from a variety of materials which include the latest digital technologies, instead of, materials and processes once associated primarily with handicraft, such as paintings. A key feature of the art scene in the 21st century is the impact of globalization and how the internet allows information to travel through time and space within seconds. It was just a short decade ago that the term, “digital art” was an obscure term, but these days it’s mainstream. Artists working with digital media are popping up everywhere from different social media platforms, to museums, to the art we find in our living rooms. With this shift, is art driven by new technologies a fad that will sooner or later come to a close? It is clear that not only is great art being made through the use of technology, but artists are also showing us just what technology can do, whether it is plastering the city walls with images of an eye, as seen in JR’s TedTalk, or creating educational video games for students learning in the digital age.
In Friedman’s video, “Art education culture: A puppet based exploration of identity, racism, and responsibility,” Roger Dane best explains that, “Art is the central thing that society looks at when exploring culture. Art also provides the objects to look at as we describe culture” (Friedman, 2004). Since many artists use some form of digital media to produce work, it is important for teachers to accept that digital literacy is extremely important for the success of our students in this digital age. Growing up in the digital work has encouraged “this generation to be active and demanding inquirers – not passive consumers of media created for a mass audience” (Tapscott, 2008). Kids love imagining and creating using digital devices at home. BC’s Redesigned Curriculum outlines the importance of Digital Literacy, which is why the Applied Design, Skills, and Technologies (ADST) curriculum “builds on students’ natural curiosity, inventiveness, and desire to create and work in practical ways” (BC’s New Curriculum, 2016a).
Many schools are teaching basic programming, unfortunately, most students do not learn the valuable digital art skills such as: creating websites, graphic designs, 3D models, producing games, videos and animation. Most schools just don’t have the time, funding, and qualified staff to teach these skills. If districts invest time and money into training teachers how to implement digital art into curriculums, students will feel more prepared for future education and ultimately careers, as they become the new innovators of time. Kiran Subhani states that, “Media literacy is a critical skill for future global citizens trying to make sense of images representing the current and ever-changing state of society” (Subhani, 2015). The skills learned in the ADST curriculum will harness the power of “learning-by-doing” and provide the challenging fun that inspires students to dig deeper, work with big ideas, and adapt to the changing worlds. Ultimately, it provides learning opportunities in which students can discover their interests in practical and purposeful ways.
References:
BC’s Ministry of Education. (2016a). Building Student Success – BC’s New Curriculum: Applied Designs, Skills, and Technology. Retrieved from https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/adst
Friedman, S., Kind, S., & Dane, R. (2004) Vignette: Art, Culture, Identity and Representation: A Conversation with Three Art Educators- Stacy Friedman, Sylvia Kind and Roger Dane.
Subhani, K. (2015). Photos as Witness: Teaching visual literacy for research and social action. English Journal 105(2), 34-40.
Tapscott, D. (2008). Net Geners Relate to News in New Ways. Nieman Reports; Winter 2008, 62(4), 18-19.
Vignette #2
The English teacher had the goal of integrating technology into his Grade 10 classroom by introducing an online forum for his students to participate in. The desired learning outcomes of this assignment was for students to actively participate in the online discussion on the Learning Platform Discussion Forum. From the final paragraph of the vignette, we can determine that this learning outcome was met. The students were expected to read the ‘Lord of the Flies’ novel, then participate in the online discussion forum over the span of two weeks, where they were expected to post at least five substantive responses. It appears that over the course of the two weeks, the students’ responses grew longer and more thoughtful. The students learned what it meant to make a substantive response to their peers, while posting new questions of their own for their peers to answer. I was impressed with how quickly all of the students bought into the online discussion idea, seeing that in the short two-weeks span, even the more quiet and reserved students had opportunities to shine in the discussion forum. This shows that technology plays a key role in this vignette, because every student’s voice was heard through their responses posted online – something that isn’t always achieved during face-to-face interactions. The discussion forum allowed the students to provide and receive meaningful feedback to their peers; something that isn’t always achieved during face-to-face interactions in the classroom. The teacher’s role according to the vignette, was to begin the online discussion by posting questions on controversial topics relating to the novel ‘Lord of the Flies’. The teacher spent two days teaching his students how to navigate the discussion forum, which means there must be a face-to-face component to this unit. Since the students’ responses are growing longer and more thoughtful, I can only assume that the teacher must be guiding his/her students to understanding what a critical and thoughtful response is, as well as engaging in the discussion forums by posting his thoughts and ideas, although this is not formally mentioned in the vignette.
Online learning platforms are becoming increasingly popular as an approach to enhance educational access, promote flexibility, encourage reflection and deeper thinking by the students, and build an effective and efficient classroom community (Awofeso et. al., 2015). This year I’ve challenged myself to create a classroom blog for my students and I to participate in, seeing that “they’ve grown up digital, and it’s changed the way their minds work” (Tapscott, 2008). Personally, I find that using online discussions, such as the one in ETEC 532, works well with my learning style. Some major advantages to online discussion forums are: being able to participate at a time and place that is suitable for the student, more time is available to create thoughtful and meaningful responses, peer-to-peer learning is encouraged, and lastly everything contributed in the discussions encourages big picture thinking. Some limitations would include: lack of facial cues can lead to misinterpretations, discussions can go off topic, students lose motivation to participate unless they perceive ‘value’ in the discussion, and most students require consistent input/feedback from teachers. Traditionally, teachers were told what, when and how to teach. They were required to educate every student in exactly the same way. However, many teachers today are encouraged to adapt and adopt new practices that acknowledge both their student’s unique needs, learning style, social and cultural background, interests and abilities. Teachers need to make their presence felt in online discussion forums, as online forums alone do not possess the ability to enhance critical thinking, but can only act as a platform to aid the teacher in encouraging both increased student engagement and critical thinking (Dennen, 2011). One suggestion I find helpful is for teachers to provide the initial response to all discussion topics as a way of establishing teacher’s presence before students make their own post. This will not only establish teacher presence, but will also act as a scaffold to help students understand what is expected of them and where to start from.
References:
Awofeso, N., Hassan, M., & Hamidi, S. (2015). Individual and collaborative technology-mediated learning using question & answer online discussion forums Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning, 31(1), 54-63. Retrieved from http://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/doi/pdf/10.1080/02680513.2015.1120662?needAccess=true
Dennen, V. P. (2011). Facilitator presence and identity in online discourse: use of positioning theory as an analytic framework. Instructional Science, 39(4), 527-541. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/stable/pdf/23882879.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A7384f7ce06ff138910507f807cd8d34c
Tapscott, D. (2008). Net Generes Relate to News in New Ways. Nieman Reports; Winter 2008 62(4) 18-19. Retrieved from http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=5277cfd4-81ed-4fcf-9831-535c476216d3%40sessionmgr4008
CIP/LIT REVIEW-
Annotated Bibliography
Bailin, E. (2014, June 16). The Power of Digital Storytelling. TEDx Talks [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA2cTZK9hzw
Bailin discusses how digital storytelling, presented orally, with music, and/or images is a different experience than reading. The process of digital storytelling brings people together, helping us experience where someone is from, who they are, and what they are; not merely a geographical location. She uses digital storytelling, modeled on “Where I’m From” poems to build a foundation amongst students at the beginning of a semester, as she strongly believes that this allows trust to be established, and respect gained. Technology is used to provide a deeper context.
Dunford, M., & Jenkins, T. (2017). Digital storytelling: Form and content. Retrieved from https://link-springer-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/content/pdf/10.1057%2F978-1-137-59152-4.pdf
This edited collection brings together practitioners and academics from Europe, North America, Africa and Asia to explore the uses of Digital Storytelling, which places the greatest possible emphasis on the voice of the storyteller. Case studies and examples are used to investigate the concepts and practice of Digital Storytelling. Participants originate and edit their own material, while gaining the creative and technical skills needed to tell a story using words and imagery. The author’s focus is on ‘story’ rather than ‘digital’ and the approach to participation is firmly grounded in the facilitation of the ‘story circle.’
Emert, T. (2013). “The transpoemations project”: Digital storytelling, contemporary poetry, and refugee boys. Intercultural Education, 24, 355–365. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2013.809245
Emet’s 2013 article outlines a literacy program developed to support English language learners through digital storytelling. These refugee students came from a variety of backgrounds and life experiences, which mirrors the variety of student that we have in our British Columbia school system. This article is important because students were shown to increase their English language learning, learn to incorporate multiliteracies, and socially connect with peers as they partake in a variety of creative and collaborative activities during the implementation of the “Transpoemations Project”. This fusion of language and technology allowed students to share part of their culture with others through the sharing of their projects and the rich conversations arising from them.
Emert, T. (2014). “Hear a Story, Tell a Story, Teach a Story”: Digital Narratives and Refugee Middle Schoolers. Voices in the Middle, 21(4). Retrieved from http://www.ncte.org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/VM/0214-may2014/VM0214Hear.pdf
The author’s passion for the importance of literacy, especially when working with vulnerable students, is an aspect of this article that resonates with us. Taking literacy and combining it with educational technology not only helps to solidify English language learning, but Emet has noted that multiliteracy assignments, such as digital narratives, creates a sense of trust between students and educators. Students moved from hearing stories (from educators), to telling their own stories, and concluding with teaching a story through text and technology. Throughout this process, students were continuously supported and worked collaboratively with peers. Not only did students acquire literacy skills, they were challenged with other skills as well.
Fell, A. (2017, July 13). Why Storytelling is so powerful in the digital era. TEDxUniMelb [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSi0kmqOBu4
Fell focuses on STEM and CLASS: Communications, Language, Arts and Social Science. Looking at how you can bring info data to life through infographics. Written word goes into our short term memory, visuals go straight into our long term brain. 90 percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and we process visuals faster (60,00 times faster than text). She expresses the importance of communicating through visuals, specifically digital storytelling. Storytelling is visual, even without the use of pictures. Digital storytelling can interest us, instruct us, involve us and inspire us. Research affects us best when it tells a story. She expresses that great stories have colours, pictures, and movement.
Hansen, A. K., Iveland, A., Harlow, D. B., Dwyer, H., & Franklin, D. (2015). Programming Digital Stories and How-to Animations. Science And Children, 53(3), 60-64. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/1728349095?pq origsite=summon&accountid=14656
This article discusses how teachers can combine computer programming, science, and engineering, to teach design thinking using tasks like creating a digital story to describe a science phenomena or a “how-to” animation. Students are using Scratch to create programs and digital stories. The students work through defining problems, developing solutions, and optimizing solutions. The final project is a digital story, aligned with any science content area. They include video, digital photos, and drawings that use video editing software. Students create a meaningful artifact. This article includes lesson plans for working through the design thinking framework, helping students with storyboards that depict how-to animations, as well as a rubric.
McKnight, A., Hoban, G., & Nielsen, W. (2011). Using “Slowmation” for Animated Storytelling to Represent Non-Aboriginal Preservice Teachers’ Awareness of “Relatedness to Country”. Australasian Journal Of Educational Technology, 27(1), 41-54. Retrieved from http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid= 1&sid=b129c05e-fb90-42e4-9012-edc6bd488b9f%40sessionmgr4008
This study talks about how a group of non-Aboriginal preservice teachers creating digital stories of what they learned when they visited Aboriginal sites to listen to stories shared by Aboriginal elders. They created their own animated story using an approach called Slowmation, which is a narrated stop-motion animation that is played slowly at 2 photos per frame. Slowmation is a simplified way to make animations that integrates aspects of Claymation, digital storytelling and object animation. Creating these animated stories allowed the teachers to develop awareness of cultural diversity and Aboriginal ways of know, being and doing.
Ohler, J. (2013). Digital storytelling in the classroom: New media pathways to literacy, learning, and creativity. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin Press.
Ohler presents a relevant approach to teaching technology and emphasizes the importance of storytelling in the curriculum and how students and teachers can be transformed by learning the art of storytelling. Digital Storytelling in the Classroom is divided into three parts. Part I is an overview of storytelling and new media in the context of education. Part II focuses completely on the components of storytelling, storytelling structure, and teaching students to brainstorm, map, and create compelling stories. Part III moves on to discuss how digital media technology plays a role in teaching students to become storytellers.
PBS Learning Media (2017, March 23). Digital Storytelling with Stop Motion Animation [VideoFile].https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/digital-storytelling-with-stop-motion/digital-storytelling-with-stop-motion/#.Wqcb9kwUUb0
This website and corresponding video series provides an excellent introduction to using stop motion animation alongside digital storytelling. For educators interested in getting their students to tell stories, their own or others’, this site provides a thorough guide to get started. From understanding what stop motion is, to what tools you can use with your students, the video scaffolds the learning for educators and helps facilitate and develop digital stories from our students.
Suwardy, T., Pan, G. & Seow, P. (2013). Using digital Storytelling to Engage Student Learning. Accounting Education, 22(2). Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/09639284.2012.748505
This article explores how digital storytelling can address and engage students’ visual and auditory senses in ways that traditional, written text cannot. While using a financial accounting course as an example, it was noted that digital storytelling was helpful for students even in what was considered “a dull and boring subject”. With this consideration, how might we incorporate digital storytelling into other areas of the B.C. curriculum that students may not consider engaging? Creative digital storytelling helped to fuse financial theories and case studies allowing students to make deeper connections with their learning.
Wilson, C. (n.d.). What is Digital Storytelling and How to Get Started | Athabasca University e-Lab. Retrieved from http://elab.athabascau.ca/workshop/digital-storytelling
This website features a workshop that is designed to introduce you to what digital storytelling is, what makes a good digital story, and how to produce your own digital stories. The workshop links viewers to many resources dedicated to digital storytelling, as well as websites for the different technologies the viewers may want to use. Viewers are informed that this website only acts as a guide, stressing the importance of understanding why and how stories are being produced, and encouraging storytellers and collaborating partners to share their stories in ways that support positive individual and collective change.
Wolz, U., Stone, M., Pearson, K., Pulimood, S. M., & Switzer, M. (2011). Computational Thinking and Expository Writing in the Middle School. ACM Transactions On Computing Education, 11(2). doi:10.1145/1993069.1993073
A multidisciplinary approach, focusing on computational thinking and expository writing, this research project aimed to demonstrate how interactive journalism could be used to promote computational thinking in middle school. Drawing directly from Papert (1980) and Turkle (1984), empowering learners through constructivist learning, and evidence that shows that some children, especially girls, are captivated by computing when they can “tell stories” digitally. Topics include: purposeful writing, computer programming and interactive journalism. A three-year project, working with 7th and 8th graders and their teachers, to create an online newsmagazine. Evidence shows that students and teachers became empowered as computational thinkers, and their confidence increased in their computing abilities.
Literature Review
Children in today’s classroom are growing up digital, as they are surrounded by technology such as computers, tablets and smartphones. Parents and educators are acknowledging the importance of teaching our students what it means to be literate in the digital age. BC’s new curriculum aims to provide flexibility to inspire the personalization of learning that addresses the diverse needs and interests of BC students (BC Ministry of Education, 2016). Our group chose the topic of digital storytelling using coding and stop motion animation at the elementary level. Digital storytelling is a creative way for our students to combine telling a story while interacting with technology. “Digital storytelling is even more important as a tool to humanize teaching and learning and to make the learning even more relevant to the students” (Ohler, 2013). Students are communicating and thinking creatively and critically to turn their designs into digital artifacts. Digital storytelling is a powerful tool that allows students from a variety of backgrounds and skill sets to work collaboratively with their peers, while engaging in projects that develop their language skills. This style of learning is “one that demands they demonstrate an understanding of narrative structure, voice, grammatical constructions, technology tools, and composing and editing processes” (Emert, 2013). Storytelling is a traditional method used to teach about cultural beliefs, values, customs, rituals, history, relationships, and ways of life, that goes back from many generations ago (Ohler, 2013) and happens around the world. Through digital storytelling, we can continue the tradition of storytelling alongside our digital native learners, with relevant and engaging technologies.
Objective of the literature review
This paper reviews the literature on the importance of storytelling in the curriculum and explores how educators have incorporated technology, through the lens of stop motion and programming languages, to facilitate students’ creation and sharing of their stories in a digital manner. Schools have invested in classroom technologies to equip students with the latest innovations to help them become digitally literate. Drawing on Seymour Papert’s theory of constructivism (1980), we review literature detailing ways educators are actively and consciously engaging students in their learning, through digital storytelling. Schools are adapting a more hands-on approach to learning rather than the traditional lecturing and tests. Being hands-on is especially important in the classroom today because it allows students to engage in kinesthetic learning, which involves students carrying out physical activities rather than listening to lectures – doing helps them better understand the material. It allows students to experiment with trial-and-error, learn from their mistakes, and understand the potential gaps between theory and practice. In addition, it allows educators to provide their students with meaningful education that is unique to their learning needs as information is presented in new and engaging ways. Through this review of the literature, we have noticed an increasing number of publications related to digital storytelling; however, there are far fewer directly related to the use of stop motion as an innovative platform for storytelling. The articles selected address themes we feel are imperative in the successful implementation of digital storytelling in elementary school classrooms. It is crucial that we understand how the technology we utilize in schools will facilitate our students’ learning.
Digital Stories
Digital Stories are multimedia artifacts that can include photographs, animations, video, music, and text. Digital stories are being used in the classroom as a way for students to evidence their learning, developing creative thinking, critical thinking, and communication. Research shows that storytelling as a pedagogical tool, is an effective means of imparting knowledge, beliefs, and traditions (Suwardy, Pan, & Seow, 2013). Digital Stories can be drawn from the theories of constructionism. Papert stated that constructionism involves two stages, internal and external.
The internal stage is an active process where students construct their knowledge from their experiences in the world, whereas the external stage is based on the idea that student learning is most effective when they design artifacts and share with others (Karahan & Roehrig, 2015; 2014).
Through digital storytelling, students can share their understanding of curricular content, and their ability to perform curricular competencies, through a hands-on project. “The constructionist design process supported by a social constructivist learning environment resulted students with focusing on a particular issue in-depth” (Karahan & Roehrig, 2015; 2014). Digital stories can be used cross-curricular, not limited to language arts. Combining the arts & humanities curriculum to other areas of study gives students a better understanding in how their learning ebbs and flows, providing deeper learning contexts. STEAM merges science, technology, engineering, art and math together, naturally involving art and creative thinking. Technology affordances allow students to combine different media to create an animated, engaging digital artifact, that showcases evidence of their learning.
In the elementary classroom, digital storytelling often includes app smashing; combining multiple apps to create a project. Students are using stop motion, green screen technologies, voice overs, video, coding programs and iMovie to create their final projects. Digital stories are helping students become digitally literate, able to interact with different digital media, utilizing critical thinking and computational thinking skills. This is an important twenty-first century skill for learners.
In Language Arts, students can turn their written short stories into short animated films. Research shows that written text goes into our short term memory, and visuals go straight into our long term (Fell, 2017).
Digital storytelling harnesses the power of audiovisuals to engage students’ visual and auditory senses in ways that printed textbooks can never accomplish. The combination text, image and audio motivates students to engage in deep learning, something which is far from surprising given the extent to which today’s students are familiar with this form of interaction (Suwardy, Pan, & Seow, 2013).
Our students have been raised in the digital age. It has changed the way they learn, multi-task, and share their learning. Students are learning to advocate for their needs, and share evidence of their learning in innovative ways. Digital stories are interactive, engaging, and relevant to today’s learner.
Design Thinking
John Spencer and A.J. Juliani state that using design thinking boosts creativity and brings out the maker in every student (Spencer & Juliani, 2016). British Columbia’s Applied Design, Skills and Technologies (ADST) curriculum implements design thinking through ideating, making and sharing. Spencer and Juliani (2016) use these curricular competencies in similar stages, coining the acronym LAUNCH, which walks the students through specific stages of the creative journey. Digital stories involves creation, where students turn their ideas into digital artifacts. The research shows that through explicit teaching of design thinking using a motivating task such as programming a story, teachers can better support their students, allowing for more flexibility and creativity (Hansen, Iveland, Dwyer, Harlow & Franklin, 2015). A design thinking framework can support student learning, helping them step-by-step towards success.
Engagement, empowerment and differentiation
There is power in digital storytelling. Growing up in a technologically savvy world, students have high expectations when they come to school and teachers have the challenging role to educate our students in engaging and empowering ways. Though looking at young adults, the study by Sudwardy, Pan & Seow (2013) describes how digital storytelling can be used as an “effective teaching pedagogy for engaged student learning” (p. 109). Digital storytelling was shown to increase the engagement and learning of students even in courses that have traditionally been seen as “dull and boring” (Sudwardy, Pan & Seow, 2013) such as financial accounting. Given the opportunity to display their knowledge through stories and utilizing technology, students are able to customize, contextualize, and make abstract concepts relatable. However, are elementary aged students engaged and empowered by the deeper connections to digital storytelling itself, especially over time, or does the novelty of using the technology wear off? Campbell (2012) found that not only were students engaged, but that they produced higher quality writing skills and maintained these over several years. Do these gains seen transfer over to traditional storytelling?
As educators in the British Columbia school system, our students come from diverse backgrounds and bring their own, unique stories to our classrooms. Some excellent examples of this can be seen in Emet’s articles (2013 & 2014) and in Emily Bailin’s TED Talk (2014). The benefits of digital storytelling as a point of connection with students from refugee and/or English Language Learning backgrounds is apparent. These articles anchor digital storytelling as a strategy that supports strong, student-centered teaching practice while allowing the students to experience multiliteracies, collaboration, and giving voice to their unique backgrounds and stories.
Research evidences that the process of digital storytelling attracts students to participate, be engaged and better learn the concepts (Suwardy, Pan, & Seow, 2013). When students take ownership over their learning, and have choice within their projects, they become empowered. Digital stories, especially student-led productions, demand a prerequisite level of understanding about the topic at hand, thus prompting students to engage in reflective learning, deeper thought processes, as they learn to communicate their ideas with their peers through digital platforms (Suwardy, Pan, & Seow, 2013). Digital storytelling is an innovative way to provide differentiated learning for our students, encouraging independent thinking, and a variety of projects that provide new contexts of discussion.
Computer Programming
Digital Stories can be created through coding programs such as Scratch and Scratch Jr. The research shows that improving thinking skills in computer education, in particular, computational thinking, develops logical thinking and creativity (Jun, Han & Kim, 2017). Students can program choose your own adventure scenes of a story, that can be changed with the click of a mouse. Fortunately, graphical programming makes coding accessible to elementary school children, allowing children to use their imagination and creativity to animate anything (Hansen, Iveland, Harlow, Dwyer, & Franklin, 2015). The Scratch website includes programming tutorials for students to help them navigate and learn digital animation.
Scratch is a student-friendly, graphical programming interface designed to be accessible to novice computer programmers. It is free, making it a reasonable choice for elementary school classrooms. In Scratch, programmers create scripts (short programs) to make sprites (two-dimensional pictures of people, animals, or objects) move, make noises, and interact with other sprites (Hansen, Iveland, Harlow, Dwyer, & Franklin, 2015).
Students use design thinking to map out their stories. They choose an idea to pursue in the ideating stage, which includes character and plot development. In the making phase, students learn how to use programming software to bring their ideas to life. They learn how to decompose, by breaking a problem down into smaller pieces, developing computational and critical thinking to find solutions. The rich user-centered interaction of Scratch supports constructivism as students are learning by designing meaningful projects, creating things and sharing them in the community (Papadakis, Kalogiannakis, Orfanakis, & Xaranis, 2017). Students can share their digital stories with their peers, teachers, and parents. Students can also share with the online Scratch community, so that other students can learn from their ideas. Students can decide on how and with whom to share their products. Using coding programs to create digital stories is making programming more interesting, more relevant, and more powerful (Guzdial, 2004). Digital stories designed through programming encourage students to take ownership over their learning.
Stop Motion
When creating a stop motion animation, students are simply taking a lot of frames of pictures and putting them together to tell a story. Students are capturing one frame at a time, with objects moving slightly between each frame – creating the illusion of movement. Stop motion is a free resource that is used to create wordless digital stories, building important literacy skills. Students can include image, voice overs, backgrounds, and different text boxes, or attempt old-fashioned by drawing images into their animations (PBS Learning Media, 2017). Stop motion is based on several important principles that explore the Applied Designs Skills and Technology (ADST) core competencies: communication, creative thinking & critical thinking, outlined in BC’s new curriculum (BC Ministry of Education, 2015). Stop motion allows students to be creative and personalize a story through their own eyes.
A ‘slowmation’ is a narrated stop motion animation that is played slowly at 2 photos per second to tell a story. The reason why a slowmation is played at 2 frames per seconds is to explain a story or science concept, whereas a typical stop motion animation is played at 20 frames per second to animate the story (McKnight, Hoban, & Nielsen, 2011). At the elementary level, slowmation might be the perfect way to experiment with animation. This simplified version allows students to create a flipbook like animation using less photos, while placing an emphasis on the explanation of a story or concept.
By using stop motion in the classroom, students are given the opportunity to learn literacy in a tangible way. They are learning to tell a story solely through illustrated animations. In addition, students with different learning styles and multiple intelligences can all find success in creating these digital artifacts that demonstrate their learning.
Core Competencies
Digital storytelling inspires students to become confident creators and communicators of media, as they develop their digital literacy skills. The process of creating a digital story using stop motion, aligns with the three core competencies: thinking, communication, and social and personal, found in the ADST curriculum (BC Ministry of Education, 2015). When students create stop motion animations, they are using all of the competencies mentioned above. Students are brainstorming how they can visually represent their stories through animation. They collaborate with their peers to continually construct and reconstruct their digital artifacts, through self-reflection, peer-editing, and formative assessment. Finally, when students share their projects with peers, they will see the contribution to the learning that is taking place collectively in their classrooms. Students are sharing the story of their design and construction, which is an integral part of the design thinking framework. British Columbia’s new curriculum focuses on personalized learning, which enhances student engagement and gives students choices, allowing them to take ownership of their learning, which will lead to lifelong, self-directed learning (BC Ministry of Education, 2015). Digital storytelling is just one example of how teachers can combine literacy with technology, while making learning meaningful and relevant to our students in today’s classrooms.
Assessment
Student assessments are an integral part of the learning process. The research shows that digital stories can be assessed for curricular content, engaging in design thinking, programming concepts, or for any combination of these (Hansen, Iveland, Harlow, Dwyer, & Franklin, 2015). According to BC’s new curriculum, “Assessment involves the wide variety of methods or tools that educators use to identify student learning needs, measure competency acquisition, and evaluate students’ progress toward meeting provincial learning standards” (BC Ministry of Education, 2015). Many elementary schools in British Columbia have begun to eliminate traditional report cards and are replacing them with innovative platforms such as digital portfolios. Students are able to access these digital portfolios throughout their educational experience and can can contribute actively in their creation. Students are learning to self-reflect, and set future goals, encouraging students to take responsibility of their learning. Through reflection, students can identify things that went well and things that they can work on. Digital stories provide opportunities for students to develop integral core competencies, understanding that the process of design is as equally important to the final digital artifact. This design process is cross-curricular, providing new contexts of learning, creativity, and sharing, developing lifelong learning. Feedback from ongoing assessment in the classroom can be immediate and personal for a learner, guiding the learner to understand their misconceptions and use the information to set new learning goals (BC Ministry of Education, 2015). When creating a digital artifact such as a stop motion animation or computer programming, students are discovering new ways to think critically and share evidence of their learning, while educators facilitate the construction of knowledge and activities in the classroom.
Conclusion
Children are innovative, creative, and have a passion for sharing their stories. Digital storytelling, through the medium of Stop Motion and computer programming, has been shown to allow all students the opportunity to collaborate, create and engage with language and share with others using the technological skills needed for their future. Opportunities abound, with direction and support from the new B.C. curriculum, for students to utilize technology and reflect on their learning. Platforms such as stop motion, coding, and other forms of digital storytelling give teachers options for differentiated instruction, personalized learning, and ways for students to demonstrate their learning in individualized ways. There is value in students sharing their learning. It is also important that teachers share their innovative approaches with the educational community, through websites, blogs, and social media. Continued research, professional development, and mentorship for educators is vital as they facilitate digital storytelling through new mediums of technology and is important for its continued success.
References
Bailin, E. (2014, June 16). The Power of Digital Storytelling. TEDx Talks [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA2cTZK9hzw
BC Ministry of Education. (2015). BC’s New Curriculum. Retrieved from https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/
Campbell, T.A. (2012). Digital storytelling in an elementary classroom: Going beyond entertainment. Social and Behavioral Sciences 69, 385 – 393. Retried from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.11.424
Emert, T. (2013). “The transpoemations project”: Digital storytelling, contemporary poetry, and refugee boys. Intercultural Education, 24, 355–365. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2013.809245
Emert, T. (2014). “Hear a Story, Tell a Story, Teach a Story”: Digital Narratives and Refugee
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