Just as a picture paints a thousand words, I believe that educating is about storytelling. It’s not just the images or words you choose to use but the path you take your audience on. Learning is a journey. Along that journey, you pick up tidbits of knowledge that solidify your understanding of what you already know and juicy morsels of data that open your eyes to new ideas and ways of doing things. Allowing yourself to reflect, sit back and really look at a challenge you are facing during your journey may even help you move from the disdain of something to moderately liking or loving it.
My entrance into becoming an educator is not from a teacher’s college or working in schools. My career as a leader and passion to set people up for success have led me to become an educator and hone my skills. First and foremost, I am a storyteller. Whether writing, speaking, or teaching, my superpower is building rapport with my audience through stories. Stories can help us learn about others and find understanding and empathy for them and their situations whether we know the individual or not; hearing their story evokes feelings within us (Hurst, n.d.).
Your audience expects you to treat them respectfully, present your information in a way that does not make them defensive, and appreciate your thoughtful consideration of more than one view, along with your understanding of the complexity of a topic(s) (Brown, 2019). Upon reflection, perhaps educational technologies also need to be treated with respect and used thoughtfully, along with time spent learning to adjust expectations and get the outcome you want.
My education module is focused on storytelling and presentation skills. To be effective, the content needs to be presented as a story to reinforce the importance of storytelling for learning. My initial attempt for Part 1 was frustrating – I could not get Moodle to help me build my story. I realized I had to build my story differently while developing a course that met the needs of our assignment but, most importantly, would engage and keep the attention of the target audience – sales professionals.
To do this, I have introduced the use of Rise360. Moodle has become the skeleton that supports the course materials. Rise360 facilitates story development. Not only does it have movement from one section to another built-in, but it also provides the flexibility to incorporate multiple ways to interact with the content being shared as the learner works their way through each unit of learning. As I mentioned in my “Not a Moodle Fan” post, sometimes you have to try something more than once or twice to acquire the taste – (maybe) I’m starting to like Moodle.
References:
Brown, C. J. (December 19, 2019). Connecting with the audience. Grand Valley State University. Retrieved November 16, 2022, from https://www.gvsu.edu/speechlab/connecting-with-the-audience-26.htm
Hurst, K. (n.d.). The importance of storytelling and story creation. Paths to Literacy. Retrieved November 18, 2022, from https://www.pathstoliteracy.org/playing-words-why-it-important-importance-storytelling-and-story-creation/