Digital Storytelling and Meaning Making Critical Reflection Creativity

Digital Storytelling and Meaning Making: Critical Reflection, Creativity and Technology in Pre-service Teacher Education Bonnie Long, Education Technologist, NUIG School of Education Galway Doctoral Research Fellow

NUI Galway • • National University of Ireland, Galway One of 4 NUIs in Ireland School of Education Programmes: – Continuing Professional Development – Initial Teacher Education • BA in Mathematics and Education- 4 Years • Postgraduate Diploma in Education- One Year

My Research Project • Digital Storytelling and Meaning Making: Critical Reflection, Creativity and Technology in Preservice Teacher Education – Studying the use of digital storytelling to enhance reflection in pre-service teacher education • Research questions: – How can DST be designed to enhance reflection in teacher education? – Does DST allow Pre-service teachers to better evidence their reflection and growth? – In what way does DST enhance student teachers’ ability to construct their professional identity as teacher?

Why DST and pre-service teachers? • Make Reflection on practice engaging, creative • Develop ICT skills • Develop students’ technology self efficacy – Increase possibility of preservice teachers integrating technology into their future teaching Digital is “To date, storytelling I haven’t seen an a highly activity motivating that allows students to blend strategy thatdesign, can creativity, thoughtful make reflection expression, and concrete andasvisible. technology skills well as (Barrett, 2006, p. 1) DST does. ” (Ohler, 2008, p. 13)

Methodology • Design Based Research – Ongoing cycles of research, design, implementation, reflection/evaluation and redesign – mixed methods approach – both qualitative and quantitative research methods • Methods of Data Collection: – Questionnaires – Analytic assessment rubrics – Online discussion boards – Researcher’s journal – Digital stories produced by the students – Students’ digital storytelling ‘working portfolios’, including all planning and design documents

Our Definition of a DST: • Center for Digital Storytelling model • Short, 3 -5 minute video • Produced by someone who is not a media professional • Incorporates multimedia components such as still images, music, voiceover, video • Usually constructed as a thought piece on a personal experience • Usually narrated in the author’s own voice • The story is the focus (Matthews-De. Natale, 2008) (Dogan & Robin, 2006)

2009 -2010: The Pilot Project • Implemented Digital Storytelling (DST) unit with PGDE students – Whole cohort taken through the DST process in Ed Tech class, semester 2 – Given a choice to write an essay or complete a DST – 18* students volunteered to complete a digital story

The DST Unit: • Five one hour lessons, over five weeks • Covered the stages of digital storytelling process: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Introduction to DST and Storytelling in Education Story Sharing and Script Creation Image/Music Sourcing and creation Windows Movie. Maker or i. Movie Tutorial Work Session • Students had six weeks additional time to finish DST after the formal lessons

The Assignment Brief: Aim: To…demonstrate your capacity to draw connections between different elements of the PGDE programme and to offer a synthesis of your learning as a whole. In your digital story, reflect on: • your educational journey • re-evaluate learning goals and learning philosophies, evaluate achievement of these learning goals • trace any transformations in your learning and teaching beliefs, values, attitudes, and assumptions, how these changes have come about • relate what/why/how different elements of the PGDE programme contributed to your learning and teaching • highlight significant landmark achievements/improvements you have made to your learning and teaching (can draw from your journal, lesson plans and evaluations…)

Hardware/Software Used: • Wanted to use what was available in the computing suites and/or free to use – PC’s in the computer suites – Windows Movie Maker – Myna Audio editing website

Assessment: • Developed an Assessment Rubric for the DSTs • Used the assessment criteria for part D of the reflective portfolio – same as used for other students’ essays • Re-evaluation of learning goals/philosophies • Reflecting on the teaching and learning journey/experience • Application and integration

What did they create?

How did it work out? Students enjoyed creating their digital stories All found it a rewarding experience Found it to be a reflective, engaging process All enjoyed the chance to be creative Almost all showed high degrees of technology efficacy at the end of the process • Most felt it helped them to articulate what they learned as pre-service teachers this year • • •

How did it work out? • All felt it improved their ICT skills • All felt that using images, music and sound in the DST made it easier to express themselves • Voiceover recording was the hardest part for most due to technical difficulties • Time intensive – average 30 hours on whole process – much more time than an essay!

What do the students have to say? • What did you like most about the digital storytelling process? “I“Iliked andthe getting use some likedchoosing the way Iimages, could see storyto unfolding asof I my ownon personal images. I also liked using story worked it and that I could express myselfthe through boardand to organise myself. Ihaving felt that was a very pictures images without to itsay everything. visual approach projectwhat and Imay betoa I sometimes findtoitcompleting hard to say aexactly want useful tool help students are visual learners convey andto this provided anwho alternative method for organise themselves for any kind of project. ” me to work with. ”

What do the students have to say? • Were you pleased with the outcome of your digital story? – All said “yes” – Some of their comments were: “It was great to see all my hard work come together “I felt that I had completed something meaningful for in a movie and I feel really confident in using the myself while at the same time learning a new skill. ” software for other school work now. ”

Levels of Reflection Achieved: • Deep reflection not as apparent as we’d hoped it would be in the final product • Using a rubric based on Moon’s (2004) generic framework for reflective writing, results were: 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 10 2 1 0 5 0 Descriptive 3 Descriptive Reflective (1) Reflective (2) with some reflection

Lessons Learned with Pilot: • Task set for students needs to match desired outcomes • More time needed for story creation • Place more emphasis on ‘story circle’ step of process • Require a due date for final draft of the script • More time needed for lesson on voice recording • Refine voiceover process to make it easier

Lessons Learned with Pilot: • Quality of voiceover was a big problem • Need to include reflection engendered by multimedia aspects of the process • Need time to share stories at the end of the project • Researcher needs to experience creation of a digital story

Changes to Design of Unit for Year 2: • All students completing a digital story • Digital Story will be based on the Critical Incident Analysis part of the portfolio – Delve deeply into an incident that has changed their practice • Much more time given to story development – Incorporated into tutorial on Critical Incident – Feedback from tutors and peers • More emphasis on story circle step – Based on Mc. Drury & Alterio (2002) • More time devoted to the unit overall • Refinement of voiceover recording

This Year’s Brief: • Create a digital story about a ‘critical incident’ – An incident which occurred which made you subsequently think and/or act differently • Telling the ‘story’ of how this incident affected them, reflection on it, changes made to their practice • Told as a personal narrative • Incorporate theories about teaching and learning that are relevant to this incident – Three quotes for the literature

Questions Raised: • Is process more important than product? • What does the use of images and sound add to reflection? – How do I measure this? • Do they really understand the process of reflection? – Re-design how we teach them about it? • Evidence of identity creation? • The research continues…

References • • • • Barrett, H. (2006). Digital Stories in e. Portfolios: Multiple Purposes and Tools Retrieved 17/4/09, 2009, from http: //electronicportfolios. org/digistory/purposes. html Behmer (2005), Literature Review: Digital storytelling: Examining the process with middle school students, Iowa State University, Ames, IA Gratch, A. (2000). Becoming Teacher: student teaching as identity construction. Teaching Education, 11(1), 119126. Jakes, D. , & Brennan, J. (2005). Capturing Stories, Capturing Lives: An Introduction to digital storytelling. Retrieved on 20/1/10 from www. jakesonline. org/dst_techforum. pdf Jakes, D. (2007). Digital Storytelling and 21 st Century Skills. Paper presented at the Tech. Forum Orlando. Retrieved 29/1/10, from http: //archive. techlearning. com/techlearning/events/techforum 07/dst_orlando_jakes. pdf Li, L. , & Morehead, P. (2006). Digital Storytelling: Self-Efficacy and Digital Literacy. Paper presented at the World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 2006, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. Mello, (2001) The power of storytelling: How oral narrative influences children’s relationships in classrooms. International Journal of Education and the Arts. 2(1) Ohler, J. (2008). Digital Storytelling in the Classroom: New media pathways to literacy, learning and creativity. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Jason Ohler’s Website: http: //www. jasonohler. com/storytelling/storyeducation. cfm Partnership for 21 st Century Skills Porter, B. , (2004) Digitales: The art of Digital Storytelling, Sedalia, CO, BJP Consulting Personal Narrative information taken from: http: //www. verity. ashland. k 12. ky. us/Portfolio/pnarrative. htm Sandars, J. , Murray, C. , & Pellow, A. (2008). Twelve tips for using digital storytelling to promote reflective learning by medical students. Medical Teacher, 30, 774 -777. Schank, R. (1990). Tell Me a Story: Narrative and Intelligence. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Søreide, G. E. (2006). Narrative construction of teacher identity: positioning and negotiation. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 12(5), 527 -547.

Image Sources: • • • • • CDS graphic: http: //www. storycenter. org/ DST wordle graphic: Created by Bonnie using www. wordle. com Point-of-view photo: http: //blog. christilling. de/2007_01_01_archive. html Question image: http: //godspeak. org. au/? id=discussthequestions Emotion image: http: //fulltwist. net/smiling/ Economy image: http: //www. hoadworks. com/chop. htm Voice image: http: //davidmaxey. wordpress. com/2009/11/24/why-cant-i-hear-gods-voice/ Soundtrack image: http: //www. masternewmedia. org/news/2006/11/15/new_soundtrack_creator_service_helps. htm Pacing image: http: //www. aykew. com/aboutwork/speed. html i. Movie image: http: //rateyourworld. files. wordpress. com/2009/03/imovie-08. jpg Windows Movie. Maker image: http: //it. seattleschools. org/BEXlevy/wpcontent/uploads/2009/06/moviemaker. jpg Aviary image: http: //aviary. com/tools Sound effects image: http: //www. stonewashed. net/sfx. html Flick-r icon: http: //www. flickr. com/ Magnatune icon: https: //magnatune. com/ Digital Literacy wordle: http: //www. gregfalken. com/2009/11/teaching-digital-literacy/ Project management image: http: //www. improsys. in/images/projectmanagement. jpg Wide-screen TV image: http: //www. dolphin-media. co. uk/images/wide_screen_tv. jpg NUI Galway Image: http: //www. crookhaven. net/attractions. php Tutorial image: celtscot. ed. ac. uk

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