A Must Tell Story!
Social Media in the Classroom
Storytelling is a way of thinking about experience that is situated in time and space and which values the individual’s view of the world (Bruner, 1986). Every story is worth telling and mine isn’t any different. My story is designed on the basis of what I am currently seeing in the classroom and what I anticipate for the future classrooms. My story has the potential to enhance students’ learning in ways such as reading, writing, creativity, and being imaginative and analytical. With the changing space in the classroom as a result of our net-gen students, it is imperative that instructors pay attention to this development. It’s no secret that instructions should be planned based on students’ interest if success is guaranteed. However, as it relates to social media, there is a lackadaisical attitude on the part of teachers to incorporate this in learning. Through these media, students writing will be enhanced as they interact and get a chance to see how others write and use the language of choice and voice their perspectives. In addition, social media foster rich meaningful discussions, interactions and debates over issues of interest or not. Through these activities, students will develop analytical and critical skills as they voice their opinions and manage constructive criticisms and also develop a sense of how to respect others’ opinions whether they agree or not.
Pedagogical rationale
I have been working with students for quite some time now and I have notice their dramatic bias towards electronic gadgets and their application; especially social media. Internet users enjoy a wealth of available resources from a vast range of sources providing emergent communities and a steady stream of socially filtered and recommended materials via blogs, social bookmarking tools, and networking nodes (Lamb, 2007). With this knowledge and the age group that dominates Internet use, I am confident that the road taken is the correct one.
Storytelling is part of an interactive event, a conversation, in which stories are mutually constructed by storytelling participants and whose roles as storytellers and addressees are interchangeable (Schegloff, 1997). It is with this in mind and the fact that the typical classroom should be interactive that I took such a decision. I am a big fan of social media and I have hundreds of the net-gen population as friends and based on my assessment, social media equates interactivity. As a result, I have been watching how they interact and the number of hours they spend in these forums writing, discussing and debating issues. However, when they are given tasks in class to write, it is always done in a rush without any real substance. With no foreseeable ending in sight to this technological tsunami, the onus was on me to tell a story that will always be relevant to the present and future of the classrooms. Even though the practice is in the embryonic stage in some classrooms, it is a story that is destined to have a happy ending.
Reasons for choice of tool
As I mentioned before in one of my earlier posts, I am familiar with toondoo and its features. It is a simple and fun tool that students will love and manipulate with comfort. Such a tool captures the entire story or activity being done and provides the users with a host of features where they can create from scratch and customize their task at will. Using this tool gave me the freedom to put everything in context where the story can be interpreted even with the lack of text. Also we are at the point now where we can do very compelling content creation with nothing more complex than a web browser and imagination (Levine, 2007). This level of convenience and affordance set the perfect platform for the digital natives of our times to unleash their ideas and creativity. In addition, comic strips are a great part of our modern literature and I had the confidence that my readers would find it fun and fascinating. Students learn a lot from doing and this tool provides that kind of experience without any form of technicalities and complexities; even though it was not long ago that producing multimedia digital
content required expensive equipment and technical expertise (Levine, 2007). The tool was also chosen to highlight to my colleagues and other web users of the potential of using it to create literatures and as a way that students can use to present materials across all the subject areas. Also, my kind of story requires special voices, expressions, settings and matching characters and toondoo provides just that.
What are the strengths of a storytelling approach?
Storytelling or oral tradition has been the backbone of retracing history and getting information across to various audiences. Using this approach allows the teller to get to a global audience through the use of text, pictures and videos which will collectively tell the perfect story. Additionally, we live in a world where story is always being told; whether in news, sports, commentaries among others. As a result, this approach fits in perfect with what the public is accustomed to. A major advantage is that the concept of a story presentation has changed; and now can be a presentation, a project report, an idea pitch, a teaser for a class topic (Levine, 2007). This therefore has given credence to creativity and innovation in the dissemination of the untold story. Furthermore, storytelling is used as a way to empower teachers, giving them a voice to express emotion, create meaning and situate their teaching in a wider political context (Ritchie & Wilson, 2000).
What are the limitations?
As it relates to limitations, the story might be told in a manner where persons are not able to understand based on their ability to read and comprehend. Persons might also misinterpret the true essence of the story based on their experiences. The format might also pose a problem for the traditional reader who is accustomed to a story coming from a text or done orally. The myriad of ways that are currently available will put doubts in their mind and they might require some form of re-socialization to become up-to-date with the new trend.
References
Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Lamb, B. (2007). Dr. Mashup; or, Why Educators Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Remix.EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 42, no. 4 (July/August 2007): 12–25. Accessed online March 9 2009http://www.educause.edu/ER/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume42/DrMashuporWhyEducatorsShouldLe/161747
Levine, A. (2007). “50 Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story.” Accessed 25 March 2009.http://cogdogroo.wikispaces.com/StoryTools
Ritchie, J.S., & Wilson, D.E. (2000). Teacher narrative as critical inquiry. Rewriting the
script. New York/London: Teachers College Press.
Schegloff, E. (1997). Narrative analysis: Thirty years later. Journal of Narrative and Life
History, 7(1–4), 97–106.