Enhancing Teaching and Learning Through the Use of Digital Story

1. Enhancing Teaching and Learning Through the Use of Digital Story Shuyan Wang, Ph.D. The University of Southern Mississippi

2. Overview • What is digital storytelling • Why using digital storytelling in education • Learning theories • Current teaching and learning practice • How to create digital stories • Procedures • Tools • Our applications • Lessons learned

3. What is Digital Storytelling Digital Storytelling • uses new digital tools to help ordinary people to tell real-life stories • is the practice of combining narrative with digital content, including images, sound, and video, to create a short movie, typically with a strong emotional component. • can be instructional, persuasive, historical, or reflective. • is normally 2-5 minutes long • can be effectively applied to nearly any subject

4. Why using digital storytelling in education? • Facilitate the convergence of four student-centered learning strategies: student engagement, reflection for deep learning, project-based learning, and the effective integration of technology into instruction --- Dr. Barrett

5. Why using digital storytelling in education? Learning theories • Constructionism (Papert, 1993) • “Learning by making” sharable “public entity” • Narrative paradigm (Fisher, 1985; 1989) • “man is in his action and practice, as well as in his fictions, essentially a story-telling animal” • All forms of human communication can be seen fundamentally as stories.

6. Why using digital storytelling in education? Current teaching and learning practice • Educators at all levels can use Digital Storytelling in many ways: • introducing new materials • helping students learn to conduct research, synthesize large amounts of content, gain expertise in the use of digital communication and authoring tools, • helping students organize their ideas as they learn to create stories for an audience, and • presenting their ideas and knowledge in an individual and meaningful way. http://www.coe.uh.edu/digitalstorytelling/goalsobjectives.htm

7. Why using digital storytelling in education? Research has found: DS helped students organize and express their idea and knowledge in an individual and meaningful way (robin, 2005) DS enhanced employability portfolio development (Morehead, et al, 2007) DS increased social skills for children with disabilities (More, 2008) DS increased reading comprehension (Royer & Patricia, 2009)

8. Why using digital storytelling in education? Five advantages of using digital storytelling in education (Gils, 2005) • Provide more variation than traditional in current practice • Personalize learning experience • Make explanation or practicing of certain topics more compelling • Create real life situations in an easy and cheaper way • Improve the involvement of students in the process of learning

9. When is Digital Story Telling Whenever, a teacher wants to • Enhance student learning • Enhance student motivation • Enhances student engagement • Build student technology skills

10. Procedures • Make your plan: define your purposes, analyze your audience, and decide the tools to be used • Write an initial script, plan an accompanying storyboard. • Collect/create images and music • Create your digital story • Evaluate/modify your story • Publish your story

11. Tools • Microsoft Photo Story 3 • still images and audio. Free but requires Microsoft Windows XP Operating System. • Windows Movie Maker • still images, video clips, and audio. Windows only. Free with Microsoft Windows Operating System. • Apple iMovie • still images, video clips, and audio. OS X Macintosh only. Free with Apply OS x Operation System

12. Our applications • Graduate level courses • Computers in Education (online course) • Networks in Education • Undergraduate level courses • Computer Applications in Education • Mandarin Chinese (Second year)

13. Some Examples from Classroom • Create teaching materials: math • Describe class activities • Create a reflective tutorial

14. Lessons learned • Creative challenges • Decide on a topic • Content matches graphics and music • Voice synchronizing with story • Technical challenges • Large file size • Uploading speed • Fizzy pictures • Wrong format

15. Resources • Educational Uses of Digital Storytellinghttp://www.coe.uh.edu/digitalstorytelling/default.htm • What is Digital Storytelling?http://www.storycenter.org/whatis.html • Digital Storytelling from Photobushttp://www.photobus.co.uk/index.php?id=2 • The Art of Digital Storytellinghttp://digitales.us/files/digitalstorytellingarticle.pdf • A Multilevel Approach to Using Digital Storytelling in the Classroomhttp://discovery.coe.uh.edu/7358-f07/class1/multilevel-approach.htm • The Educational Uses of Digital Storytellinghttp://discovery.coe.uh.edu/7358-f07/class1/Educ-Uses-DS.pdf • The Power of Digital Storytelling in the Classroomhttp://www.edutopia.org/power-digital-storytelling-classroom • How To: Use Digital Storytelling in Your Classroomhttp://www.edutopia.org/node/1418