Lillian Jones

Lillian Jones

Digital Storytelling

Dear Faculty,

This article was written by Lillian Jones. Lillian Jones is a doctoral student in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese studying Hispanic linguistics and second language acquisition. Her research interests include computer-mediated communication, computer assisted language learning, and pedagogical applications of messaging apps and social media.

Snaps, status updates, live stories, and storytelling are ubiquitous in the lives of many students. Students tell their stories face-to-face, using voice and gestures, as well as in writing, such as by emailing, texting, or updating their status. In fact, telling stories is such an integral part of the human social experience that popular social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram have even launched a Stories feature. Additionally, in their 2019 Social Media Report, HootSuite declared “Storifying social” as the number two trend. Why is this? Because humans are innate storytellers. Storytelling has always been a fundamental feature of how humans communicate and interact. We use stories to relay information, keep our history alive, and connect with our community. 

While not all students are on social media, the message is clear: users of language share information via stories. Today’s students are increasingly narrating stories digitally and in a multimodal manner using voice, video, text, and images. Thus, if social digital storytelling is so important in the lives of our students, we as faculty are presented with an opportunity to consider storytelling as a pedagogical tool. 

Digital storytelling allows learners from every field of study an opportunity to leverage a variety of digital tools and linguistic resources, while simultaneously deepening their understanding of course content and enhancing their digital literacies. Instructors from every discipline can apply digital storytelling to enhance the learning experience, though they must first consider how using the tools will meet the learning outcomes of their courses. 

Below find five suggestions on how to integrate digital storytelling into the classroom: 
  1. Scripted video Working in small groups, students will review course content in a discovered silent video (or a video with the sound muted) that is between 30-60 seconds long. For example, a group of students in a biology course might be asked to write a script for 45 seconds of film plucked from a documentary on a particular ecosystem or organism. Based on the learning content, together students will create a script of a story that supports the actions occurring in the video. Using video editing software, the students will record their script as a voiceover, and present it to the class. This collaborative and scaffolded activity allows learners to break down concepts, piece them back together, synthesize the material, and present the information in an easily-digestible way. Additionally, the inclusion of audio, listening and speaking, as well as the live action in the video, can help learners more fully grasp the course content and material.
  2. Emoji Including emotive reactions, icons, and gestures with student narrations, reactions, or informative messages, provides students an opportunity to add a layer of creativity to the way they tell stories. Integrating emoji into student learning is impactful because learners have a personal reason and connection as to why they choose specific emoji (McSweeney, 2018), and the act of binding associated images can help learners remember concepts or terms (Brandl, 2008). Students will select a specific number of emoji, equally split between the categories of faces and gestures, on the one hand, and places or things on the other. Next, they will assign each selected emoji a target vocabulary word or concept, and then write out the reasoning behind their choice. Then, using a digital writing device, each student will produce a short story utilizing the emoji to replace certain key concepts in the text. Students will then share their stories with the class, using them as a fill-in-the-blank game or quiz, where the audience will guess the missing key term based on context of the rest of the story and what is suggested by the emoji.
  3. Photos and #hashtagsUsing a photo-sharing platform, one which supports captions and #hashtags, students can cleanly organize and categorize all the elements of a story: the setting, the characters, the problem, and the resolution. Guided by the learning goals, students will draft a storyboard, which includes six image sketches and written captions relating to their assigned topic. The captions should be written in story form, include topic-related hashtags, and walk the audience through the topic as a narrative fulfilling each component of the story. Then each group will take their own pictures reflecting their storyboard sketch and organize them chronologically following the steps of the story. In the final step, the user-generated content will be uploaded to a public photo-sharing platform, and the students will read their story to the class, following their images and the corresponding captions and hashtags. The hashtags can be used later as a way to find topics for review. Pedagogically speaking, user-generated content is not only fun, but may also be an effective way to foster learner autonomy and agency (Lee & McLoughlin, 2007), all the while helping learners master challenging concepts.
  4. PodcastingPodcasting already implies a story of some type or genre, in which a storyteller/speaker (the guest) and a listener (the audience), participate in an exchange of information. Using podcasts as a platform for digital storytelling for educational purposes is advantageous because they can be listened to at the convenience of the learner, and because they afford the student with opportunities to engage with the material through both listening (as the audience) or speaking (as the creator). For example, instructors may create short podcasts to accompany various units in the class by adding supplemental material to their curriculum, such as by narrating brief story snippets to each subunit. On the production side, students can produce end-of-week reflections, discussing and reflecting on the unit themes, with each recording culminating into a larger end-of-class project. The final project may include student reflections on their journey in the class, an audio presentation of their own learning story. This approach may lead to more engagement with the material, as well provide the students more study resources, even if assessing all those hours of recorded audio may provide instructors a challenge. If you are eager to integrate podcasting into your course, inquire with Mark Wilson at elearningstudio@ucdavis.edu about the podcasting hub in the eLearning Studio.
  5. The Relay Retell Retelling a story enables the learner to fully grasp the content covered as they are required to break it down and piece it back together in their own words (Rose & Acevedo, 2017). Additionally, allowing students to choose their favorite mode or skill (such as writing, speaking, audio, or video) can increase student motivation to take ownership of the project, and ultimately of their learning. The Relay Retell involves a small group of students taking a concept from class, breaking it down, and piecing it back together, using their newly paraphrased version and digital tools. In the resulting multimodal presentation, one which includes audio, video, and images, each student picks their “relay strengths,” coordinating the production of items such as script writing, mastering the video editing software, animations, voice over, script authoring, etc.
 

For successful integration of digital storytelling, please consider the following suggestions:
  • Prioritize the alignment of the learning objectives of the course or assignment and the story curation. Technology is a tool which should be leveraged to support student learning; flashy tech should not distract students from achieving learning outcomes.
  • Require that each digital storytelling task include the main components of a story: setting, characters, problem/conflict, solution/resolution. Ensuring that each digital story contains these essential elements will help guide the students in a complete, cohesive and coherent exercise, while maximizing pedagogical impact (Blake and Guillén, 2020). 
  • Shape digital storytelling using scaffolding by having students produce bite-size elements on a weekly or unit basis, like scripts, images, or audio, which culminate into a final class project. The meaning-making and knowledge building in scaffolded activities can help learners move from making generalized claims to being able to present and discuss more detailed evidence (Coffin & Donohue, 2014). This process of interaction with the content, as well as with their peers, allows learners to make meaningful connections and learn the material through the language (Pellettieri, 1999), and language specific to their discipline. 
  • Make it a collaborative project. The collaborative component of digital storytelling can be an effective method for learning because the active methodologies can encourage students to become involved in their own learning process (González-Lloret & Vinagre, 2018). 
Through storytelling, students can learn the language specific to their discipline and the content. Further, digital storytelling allows for reproduction of the content in a multimodal and interactive way, in which students can be creative and form a sense of agency. Providing students the opportunity to create and tell relevant stories that serve their own individual disciplinary and social purposes can help them more fully develop their understanding of the course concepts. 

Additionally, communication skills such as writing, speaking, presenting, synthesizing and delivering information go beyond the classroom; digital storytelling provides a way for faculty to help students develop these skills, as well as concisely to convey information in a well-structured and cohesive way. Students are already engaging in storytelling: by leveraging something students already do and like to do, instructors can simultaneously enhance their students’ understanding of course material and their digital literacy skills. 

References 

Rose, D. & Acevedo, C. (2017). Aprender a escribir, Leer para aprender: origen y desarrollo de proyectos para la mejora de la lectura y la escritura en Australia. Lenguaje y Textos, (46), 7-18.

Blake, R., & Guillén, G. (2020). Brave New Digital Classroom: Technology and Foreign Language Learning, 3rd Ed. Georgetown University Press. 

Brandl, K. (2008). Communicative language teaching in action: Putting principles to work. Pearson.

Coffin, C., & Donohue, J. (2014). "I Feel Very New to It and Very Inexperienced": Semantic Orientation, Semiotic Mediation, and the Genres and Registers of Online Discussion Forums. Language Learning, 64, 205-254.

Gonzaléz-Lloret, M., & Vinagre, M. (Eds.). (2018). Comunicación Mediada por Tecnologías: Aprendizaje y Enseñanza de la Lengua Extranjera. Equinox Publishing Ltd.  

Lee, M. J., & McLoughlin, C. (2007). Teaching and learning in the Web 2.0 era: Empowering students through learner-generated content. International journal of instructional technology and distance learning, 4(10), 21-34.

McSweeney, M. (2018). The Pragmatics of Text Messaging: Making Meaning in Messages. Routledge. 

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