Digital Storytelling in the Community-EDUC 5333

Digital Storytelling (DST) has been lauded as a pedagogically sound activity for students of all ages and in all content areas (Lambert, 2010; Ohler, 2013). DST provides many opportunities for students to develop proficiencies outlined in the ISTE Standards for Students (2016). One standard that may not be the obvious first connection is “Empowered Learner”. Three readings are provided this week to support a discussion of the Standard 1 proficiencies. After completing the readings and reviewing the ISTE Empowered Learner Standard provide a 500-word discussion of the connections you see between the Standard 1 learning expectations and research-based findings.

Readings & Resources

Davis, A. & Foley, L. (2016). Digital Storytelling. In Handbook of research on the societal impact of digital media, 317-342. IGI Global

Kubravi, S. U., Shah, S. O., & Jan, K. (2018). Digital story telling: The impact on student academic achievement, critical thinking and learning motivation. International Journal of Research in Engineering, Science and Management, 1(12), 787-791.

Stanley, B. & Freeman, L. A. (2017). Digital storytelling as student-centered pedagogy: Empowering high school students to frame their futures. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning, CC BY 4.0.

ISTE Standards for Students (2016). https://www.iste.org/standards/for-students

EMPOWERED LEARNER: Students leverage technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving and demonstrating competency in their learning goals, informed by the learning sciences

1. Students  articulate and set personal learning goals, develop strategies leveraging technology to achieve them and reflect on the learning process itself to improve learning outcomes.

2. Students build networks and customize their learning environments in ways that support the learning process.

3. Students use technology to seek feedback that informs and improves their practice and to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways.

4. Students understand the fundamental concepts of technology operations, demonstrate the ability to choose, use, and troubleshoot current technologies and are able to transfer their knowledge to explore emerging technologies.

Questions to guide the discussion:

1. Based on your experience creating your own digital story, which of these proficiencies did you come the closest to meeting? Provide support for this answer.

During the process of creating my own digital story the proficiency I have come the closest to meeting is-Empowered Learner C: Students use technology to seek feedback that informs and improves their practice and to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways. Throughout the process I have posted my project information and shared with so many people to get feedback. Since all of this is so new to me I have relied on feedback from many people in class, my instructor and my family. I have changed my platform of sharing my information several times based on feedback from others. I have utilized a group chat with classmates, discussion boards with classmates and a blog to receive feedback from peers.

2. In what ways might digital storytelling support community members (students, staff, faculty, families) to become empowered learners?

Digital storytelling in the community can be used in so many ways. Viewing digital storytelling from the business of education I can reflect back on one way in particular that my district has used digital storytelling. Several years ago my district was looking to pass a bond that would allow us to renovate several school buildings, buy new buses and create weather safe rooms. In order to get the community involved and solicit votes a digital story was created that showed many different ways the money would be used. Students were utilized in the storytelling-explaining the benefits and the videos were shared across many different platforms. Through these stories that were shared, the district was able to use technology to seek feedback that informs and improves their practice and to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways.

Another way I can imagine that digital storytelling helps support community members is through awareness of issues. Recently the elementary school has seen a big rise in bullying-including cyberbullying. A digital story was created by the public relations interns that highlighted what bullying is, the types of bullying and what you can do to stop/prevent it, as well as how to report bullying. This digital story was shown to all 3rd and 4th grade students at an assembly run by the school resources officers and then was sent out to the public for parents to be made aware of the issues as well. This entire process made empowered learners throughout the community. The public relations interns were able to demonstrate the understanding of the fundamental concepts of technology operations, demonstrate the ability to choose, use, and troubleshoot current technologies and are able to transfer their knowledge to explore emerging technologies.

3.How does a student-centered pedagogy like DST align with learning science research and research regarding student performance and achievement?

One of the most difficult challenges that teachers are faced with in this day and age is to keep students engaged and motivated to complete their work. This generation of students are the type that need to understand how what they are learning is going to benefit them. This lack of motivation is something that teachers are faced with daily. The use of technology is becoming so much more prevalent in the classroom and through the use of technology students can become empowered to guide their learning

“Enhancing student motivation in the classroom can be difficult for teachers however the need for motivation is key to engaging students. Using stories allows students to modify them with personal touches and take ownership and control of their learning thus make them more invested in their learning (Skinner & Belmont,1993; Porter, 2005).

By allowing students to direct their own learning through something like digital storytelling they are able to demonstrate their mastery of skills that have been taught in a way that students themselves are able to guide. Teachers are able to assist students through this process but students themselves become the active learners and participants in their learning process.