Digital Storytelling and how I could use it

Photo by Philip Wee

7 things you should know about DIGITAL STORYTELLING

While using internet, I have enjoyed telling my story in online space to share with lots of people. We can obtain various areas of useful information or get some chance to rethink about a certain topic which was dealt in some blog posts. Through this Module, I was able to know about ‘Digital Storytelling’, so I would like to describe the basic categories that we should know before we tell stories at online space. I got this information from 7 things you should know about DIGITAL STORYTELLING from internet site.

1. What is it?
Digital storytelling 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.


2. Who’s doing it?
For faculty, to facilitate various learning styles and connect to students’ interest in technology, and, for students, to develop their ability to appropriately evaluate and use online content and electronic tools as a means of personal expression.


3. How does it work?
Most digital storytelling programs promote the notion that users with little or no technical background should be able to create digital stories. Depending on the elements included in the digital story, a student might need a recording device and microphone, hardware and software to manipulate images and video, or tools to take pictures and video. Some digital storytelling applications are available free online

4. Why is it significant?
Digital stories let students express themselves not only with their own words but also in their own voices, fostering a sense of individuality and of “owning” their creations. At the same time, digital stories give students an opportunity to experiment with self-representation—telling a story that highlights specific characteristics or events—a key part of establishing their identity, a process that for many is an important aspect of the college years.


5. What are the downsides?
Many people find that piecing together a coherent narrative is considerably more difficult than they thought, and students not comfortable producing original work are likely to find themselves simply modeling their efforts on digital stories they have come across. Moreover, the multimedia technologies used in digital stories can be extensive, requiring considerable support and storage space for programs or institutions.


6. Where is it going?
The ongoing refinement of multimedia applications will place greater power into the hands of more people, allowing richer digital stories. The rise in digital storytelling will in some ways parallel the emergence and growth of social networking and video-sharing sites—these sites benefit from compelling content, and digital stories need an outlet.


7. What are the implications for teaching and learning?
Digital storytelling can serve as a bridge between these groups, encouraging a historian, for example, to delve into multimedia applications while exposing a computer scientist to the ideas of narrative through family lore.

(Which contents are summarized from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7021.pdf)

How can I use this ‘Digital Storytelling’ in my teaching?

From digital storytelling, we can access each other more easily and it makes our communication more efficient. I can use this ‘Digital Storytelling’ in class communication tool. Students may share their major concerns on learning language and they could encourage each other by sharing their difficulties or success stories in their online space. This kind of sharing may be limited in the classroom activity due to of time issue. Throughout sharing and communicating, I can encourage students and get more detailed information based upon each student’s experiences.

How I might use microblogs for teaching?

How I might use microblogs for teaching ?

Twitter, I heard and watched it from lots of gossip news mainly (J) such as some Hollywood starts’ twitting about their situation. I thought that Twitter is just for technology people seeking for a new-trend of life, so it was always very different story from my way of living. I never used blog or twitter in my daily life. I only use a phone, nevertheless that, I believe that I am accustomed to these kinds of new technology, because I have already heard about that so many times. I followed 5 edubloggers a few days, and I got some interests in this tool. As a graduate school student in education field, I am wondering how I can use these microblogging in actual classroom or for my personal development. I read two articles that can give me some hint or resources.

The first one I read was: 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Education

This article gives a lot of information that I hadn’t thought about yet. This reading gave a very systematic order of information from the ‘First Steps’ to build an account to the ‘Negatives and Positives’ in using this tool. In the section of ‘About WHAT to Tweet’, it provided really helpful tips for using Twitter in education.

First of all, we have to define the purpose of why we use Tweet. As cooper-Taylor suggested, we have to clarify that “Instead of answering the question, “What are you doing?”, answer the question, “What has your attention?”.  If I use Twitter in my classroom, I have to give them definite reason to use Twitter. For example, if I have a literature class, I can make students to share their opinion of some piece of literature (main characters, topic of this literature, meaning, etc.), and it would be our class’ attention to use Twitter. Another point from this reading was “Ask questions. Twitter is GREAT for getting opinions”. From twitting, our class share their thoughts without any limitation of time to designated or space to meet to talk. Students just can share their opinions in any time and any place. It removes time-spacial constraints and makes a new ‘Chronotope’ (Bakhtin, 1937). It makes a real community to get along with other peers by “Commenting on others’ tweets, and retweeting what others have posted” and “it is a great way to build community”. Final advantage that I found from this article was that “Twitter in the classroom helps people build an instant ‘backchannel’. Thus, even if students feel uncomfortable to ask questions to teacher, they can use Twitter freely in any purpose of their needs.

 

The second article that I read was: Getting the Most Out of Twitter

This article suggests some ways to make Twitter work for the users:

1.      A custom news feed

2.      Check your lists

3.      Attend a conference, virtually

4.      What’s around you right now

5.      Ask questions

I think this lists suggest effective ways of using Twitter for students and teacher as well. I think I can use Twitter as a place for more active communication among students, because “Even the most prolific users say Twitter has become more useful as a way to tap in to the discussions of the day than to broadcast their own thoughts”.

Another effective way of using Twitter is for asking questions, especially “when you don’t know whom to ask”. I think it is very important function of Twitter. If I do not know where I can get certain resources, then I can ask twitters in that area. I can know what is going on in education world in real time. Many information is shared in twitter. There exists no barrier any more regarding time, distance, culture, or race.

Social Networking Group: Classroom 2.0

Classroom 2.0 defined its character as;

“Classroom 2.0 is a free, community-supported network. We especially hope that those who are "beginners" will find this a supportive comfortable place to start being part of the digital dialog”.

This site provides a lot of useful information and various educational experiences.

In here, teachers (including future-educators) can get very helpful information and also I can communicate with other teachers about education. This site offers open place for discussion, communication, and technical support about using internet technology. These social networking with other teachers can help us keep up with current trends of educational technology, so as to teachers can provide real information to students.

Brave New Digital Classroom

                          
What is language ‘learning’?

What does the ‘learning’ mean?

I think that ‘learning language’ is association through interaction with others.

I think that ‘learning’ is built by negotiation through communication.

Communicators make meaning through negotiation, and they make the ‘learning’ in their real world and in real life. Blake et al. extend the boundary of the ‘real’ life to technological space because digital tools are already composed of our ‘real’ life.

"People's interactions with computers, television, and new media are fundamentally social and natural, just like interactions in real life"(p. 3). 

Cyber space becomes one of the most popular and common communicational ground, so I agree with Blake’s thought.

“All language professionals need to become acquaint with the potential advantages of using technology in their programs. Without some general claims to success and media superiority, chairs, deans, and other decision-making bodies won’t understand or support new ways of teaching second languages with technology” (p.4).

However, we have to attend to the ‘real’ things that happen in our ‘real’ world right now. Our ‘real’ world is going to a certain direction, where “the web gives all peoples a channel to express their voice, promote their self-image, and legitimize their goals. This sense of authenticity provides endless topics for cross-cultural analysis and discussions in any content-driven classroom” (p.5).

 Blake, R. J.,  &  Chun, D. M.  (2008).  Brave New Digital Classroom: Technology and Foreign Language Learning.  Washington, D.C. :Georgetown University Press.