Collaborative storytelling with Wiki: a case study in Spanish rural schools

1. Collaborative storytelling with Wiki: a case study in Spanish rural schools F. Frossard, A. Trifonova, X. Geis, M. Moyà I Altisent, M. Barajas

2. INDEX • Introduction • Needs of Spanish rural schools • Web 2.0 Storytelling • Implementation of the scenario • Evaluation of the scenario • Conclusions

3. INTRODUCTION • Rural schools / teachers • Physical distance and isolation from other communities • Difficulties in sharing projects and co-create knowledge with peers New opportunities for bridging the gap between rural / urban teachers 2.0

4. INTRODUCTION The SoRuraLL project in Spain • Four multigrade schools, with students aged between 3 and 12, have been conducting common educational activities enhanced by social networking tools • Among other scenarios, schools co-designed a hypermedia story of the “choose your own adventure” type, by using the Wiki application of the SoRuraLL Virtual Learning World

5. NEEDS OF SPANISH RURAL SCHOOLS INTERESTS AND NEEDS OF SPANISH RURAL SCHOOLS COLLABORATIVE STORYTELLING WITH WIKI Communication with other rural communities Meaningful context to share educational projects Support and guidance to the use of ICT tools Discover a new tool for pedagogical purposes Language learning Opportunity to practice Spanish Better visibility of rural schools Public story (on the SoRuraLL VLW) Common goal-driven educational scenarios Different schools interact to achieve specific goals

6. WEB 2.0 STORYTELLING “A story has a beginning, a middle, and a cleanly wrapped-up ending. (…). Today, with digital networks and social media, this pattern is changing. Stories now are open-ended, branching, hyperlinked, cross-media, participatory, exploratory, and unpredictable”. (Alexander and Levine, 2008) Storytelling Social software tools WEB 2.0 STORYTELLING

7. WEB 2.0 STORYTELLING Wikis “Platforms for a new form of writing” “Shared writing spaces for authors separated by space and time” • Enable multiple authors to co-design and co-edit a story • Enable to integrate various types of media • Enable to use a multilinear style

8. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SCENARIO • Description • Students from distant Spanish schools co-wrote a common story, through the VLW wiki, and illustrated it with pictures and videos • Implementation • 2 rural schools: CEIP SantSerni and CEIP Rellinars • January – April 2010 • Weekly sessions of 1-2 hours • Students, with the coordination of their teacher, co-wrote the story according to what has been written by the other school

9. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SCENARIO • Collaborative writing process • A. The first school wrote the first section of the story in the VLW Wiki platform. Moreover, they wrote three possible actions between which the hero would have to choose. • B. The other participating school read the story through a projector. Afterwards, students were assigned in groups and wrote the continuation of one of the actions set by the first school. • C. Phase B repeated until each path arrived to the predefined objective of the story (i.e. the end).

10. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SCENARIO • Results • “The adventures of Laia and Oscar”: A consistent multi-ending narrative • 23 Wiki pages, including 14 possible endings

11. COLLABORATIVE STORYTELLING THROUGH WIKI • Link to a video showing a collaborative writing session in Prats school • http://daisy.cti.gr/sorurall/drupal/node/251

12. EVALUATION OF THE SCENARIO Observation sessions in the schools and interviews with the teachers • Familiarization with 2.0 technologies: Use of 2.0 tools (wiki, Youtube) in learning settings / discover new ways of their possible utilizations (e.g. achievement of a common project) • Collaboration skills: Students adapted their discourse, language and narrative to the other school’s students • Language learning and narrative skills: Spanish, reading, writing and imagination skills • Motivation: student’s awareness of the fact that the story would be read by external audiences

13. CONCLUSIONS • The scenario has enabled to match the main needs and interests of rural schools • It enabled to develop innovative activities with creative content, in which schools collaborated to reach common results • 2.0 technologies, adapted to specific settings, enable to teach / learn content in a contextualized way A positive approach for integrating innovative tools in learning activities adapted to the specific characteristics of Spanish rural schools, thus contributing to including rural education within the actual Information Society

14. Thanksforyourattention www.futurelearning.org Mario Barajas: mbarajas@ub.edu Frédérique Frossard: frederique.frossard@ub.edu Anna Trifonova: trifonova@ub.edu Xavi Geis: xgeis@xtec.cat Miquel Moyà i Altisent: mmoya@xtec.cat www.sorurall.eu This research was partially funded by the European Commission.