See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266522918 Digital Storytelling Student ID in Higher Education Thesis · July 2014 CITATIONS READS 4 1,141 1 author: Sandra Ribeiro Polytechnic Institute of Porto 30 PUBLICATIONS 174 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE All content following this page was uploaded by Sandra Ribeiro on 07 October 2014. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. Digital Storytelling Student ID in Higher Education Sandra Ribeiro, António Moreira, Cristina Pinto da Silva Department of Communication and Arts and Department of Education, CIDTFF, University of Aveiro Abstract Identity achievement is related to personality, as well as cognitive and interpersonal development. In tandem with the deep structural changes that have taken place in society, education must also shift towards a teaching approach focused on learning and the overall development of the student. The integration of technology namely Digital Storytelling (DS) may be the aggregator capable of humanizing Higher Education (HE) while developing essential skills and competences. Grounded on an interpretative/ constructivist paradigm, we implemented a qualitative case study to explore DS in HE. We found participants to be the ultimate gatekeepers in our study. Very few students and teachers voluntarily came forth to take part in the study, confirming that the challenge remains in getting participants to see the value and understand the academic rigor of DS. Despite this reluctance, DS proved to be an asset for teachers and students directly and indirectly involved in the study. Besides the technological-related advantages, DS seems to challenge HE contexts, namely regarding teacher established perception of students; thestudent’s own expectations regarding learning in HE; the emotional realm; the private vs. public dichotomy and the shift in educational roles. Education today, namely HE, is not merely about transferring consolidated or developed knowledge. There is a need for a range of generic skills that are relevant for society, essential for employability, and overall citizenship such as applying knowledge in practice; adapting to new situations; information management skills; autonomy; team work; organizing and planning; oral and written communication; without ignoring interpersonal skills (see European Commission for Education and Training Framework as well as the Partnership for 21st Skills, in addition to the state of the art literature on these topics). Thus, we posit Digital Storytelling is the adhesive force capable of aggregating what research has identified as core. DS is capable of integrating different literacies and language skills, as it combines multimedia researching, production and presentation skills with more traditional activities like writing and oral production skills. In practice, DS compels student to interpret, organize, prioritize, and make meaning of scattered events. Students are forced to reflect on their relationship with themselves and their relation to others. The preparation and creation phase requires students to search for and collect audio and visual materials, such as images, photos and soundtrack, to support their story and then combine and organize them in such a way that allows them to create the effect they want. It obliges students to think critically about the meaning and effectiveness of multiple modes (elements) and their combination. This also confronts students with copyright issues on the Web. The narrative function allows students to tell a story with their own voice. Students need to reflect and decide on what to disclose. They are able to record and edit their stories as often as they want before finally presenting them to their teachers and colleagues, thus being able to improve their work until it is to their liking. DS is a personal self-representation, mediated by its limits. Length restrictions foster new ways of thinking, creativity and imagination. DS is also usergenerated media, placing the focus on the student instead of the teacher, giving students leeway to cater to their own individual interests and learning styles, toward a more personalized learning context. This however, changes classroom dynamics and relationships, putting a spin in traditional lecturedbased HE classrooms. Digital Storytelling seems to offer more than an opportunity to incorporate technology. As a process, Digital Storytelling demonstrates the capacity to aggregate the essence of HE: human (personal) development, social relational development, and technology. The motivation for this project stemmed precisely from the challenges that teachers and students face in HE, in Portugal, in terms of the integration of technology as a means to foster interpersonal relationships using DS. Traditional storytelling and educational technology can be said to have travelled divergent paths in education. While technology has seeped relentlessly into classrooms of all grade levels, storytelling seems to be imprisoned in lower grade levels (K-4), and the remaining grade levels continue to intently pursue Portuguese and Mathematics with a strict focus on standardized, national assessment. This system pervades HE. However, research has, time and again, demonstrated the connection between storytelling and higher-order thinking skills (Bruner, 2004; McAdams, 1993), as well as emotion and cognitive development (Illeris 2003, Damasio 1994). Stories are essential to human communication, learning and thinking. DS allows conjugating storytelling and the latest technologies accessible to our students for learning purposes. DS addresses story in its multiple, interrelated elements, as well as visual and media literacies. DS challenges traditional education and established mindsets. We draw on the literature of multiple subject areas as basis for our work, namely: identity construction and self-representation, within a psychological and social standpoint; Higher Education (HE) in Portugal after Bologna, college student development and other intrinsic relationships, namely the View publication stats role of emotions and interpersonal relationships in the learning process; the technological evolution of storytelling towards DS – the Californian model according to Lambert (2002) – and its connections to identity and education. Conclusion Digital Stories are puzzles. Each story presents one of the many possible self-representations, inseparably connected with the micro, meso and macro context. We were able to identify a continuum throughout the DS process: student self-perception almost always coincides with teacher perception of the student, indicating that perhaps everyday teacher/student interaction is enough to obtain the adequate insights into who our students are. However, all participants admitted that DS had a significant impact on them and was essential to provide the missing pieces and deeper understanding of situations and students (e.g. The unexpected, Fig1). Teachers and students professed having undergone a deeper reflection process and understanding regarding their own lives, motivations and behaviors and that of others, confirming the pivotal position of DS in personal and social development. Fig 1 / Screenshots of The unexpected Connected to emotion and self-disclosure, interpersonal relationships influence have significant impact not only at the personal level, but also on the academic and the professional realms. However, the personal is still seen as unessential and even uncalled for in HE by teachers and students alike. Students are understandably reluctant to talk about themselves and what they perceive to be as private and not belonging to the field of academia. In this study, technology drove student participation and involvement. However, our work with DS over the last four years (even the one beyond the scope of this thesis) has revealed, time and time again, that 21st century students often lack even the most basic digital and media literacy skills, contradicting the notion that many teachers, who are themselves trying desperately to catch up as far as technology is considered, have that our students are from a technology savvy generation (e.g. story in Fig 2). Fig 2 / Screenshots of There once was a bird In this study, students irrefutably argued DS improved their digital and media literacy skills. DS is the technological evolution of age-old storytelling however, it is not delimited by a specific technology. While technology is spiraling towards inconceivable realities, DS is adaptable and able to permeate otherwise chaotic experiences with rigor and structure. Yet, DS does demand a wide variety of skills and a new mindset for all those involved. References Bruner, J. (2004). Life as narrative. Social Research: An International Quarterly, 71(3), 691-710. Damasio, A. R. (1994). Descartes' error: emotion, reason, and the human brain. New York: Putnam. Illeris, K. (2003). Towards a contemporary and comprehensive theory of learning. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 22(4), 396-406. Lambert, J. (2002). Digital storytelling: Capturing lives, creating community. Berkeley , CA: Digital Diner Press. McAdams, D. P. (1993). The stories we live by: personal myths and the making of the self. New York, N.Y.: William Morrow and Company.
