Digital storytelling and teaching and learning

Storytelling in an educational context

We all tell stories, but why?  Some stories are used to convey information, or perhaps to motivate colleagues or friends (McDrury & Alterio, 2003), but many of the stories are used to help us make sense and meaning of our experiences (Abrahamson, 1998; Matthews-DeNatale, 2008; McDrury & Alterio, 2000).  Storytelling has long been recognised as a means for storytellers, learners, to give meaning to their own particular experiences, to demonstrate their own understanding of the world (Miley, 2009; Nygren & Blom, 2001: 372).  In this respect the sharing of stories is an important element: “For a story to be a story, it must be shared” (Orech, 2008).  It is by sharing our stories that we can obtain a deeper insight into their meaning.

Stories can be created as personal narratives, stories to inform or as a critical analysis.  In whatever context they are used educationally the process of developing a story engages the student's in cognitive strategies:

[story] construction process judgments and inferences are required at two levels: about discrete items of information and the adequacy of the unfolding story.  Selecting, comparing, inferring, arranging and revising are activities which we regard as cognitive strategies.  (Robinson & Hawpe, 1986)

In particular creating a story is a powerful stimulus for reflection.

Digital Storytelling in Higher Education

Digital storytelling as a process is about the construction of artefacts.  Mishra & Koehler (2006: 1035) see this process as being 'located in the interplay between theory and practice, between constraints and tradeoffs, between designer and materials and between designer and audience'.  This is representative of active forms of learning and allowing the learner to take more control of their learning.

Discussing the use of digital video Burn (2007: 511) highlights research that identifies three affordances which could also be applied to digital stories.  These are:

• feedback: Burn (2007) notes how instant viewing can be both motivational and provides opportunities for reflection on the work in progress.  The potential benefits for feedback are though greater than this with uses for formative feedback, peer feedback as well as self-reflection (see Assessment for examples).
• dynamic representation: being in digital format presents opportunities for a wide representation of the stories, by posting to web sites, video sharing sites such as YouTube as well as presentation in classroom settings.
• iterative opportunities for editing: the software packages that are available for the creation of digital stories allow for easy reworking and editing of stories as they are created.

The web site 'Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling', developed at the University of Houston organises stories into three categories:

• Personal narratives
• Stories that inform or instruct
• Stories that examine historical events.

McLellan (2006: 73) while recognising that digital storytelling has applications in a range of disciplines prioritises its use for personal stories, digital story archives, memorial stories, avocational stories, educational stories and stories in medicine and health.  

The Digital Storytelling Media Archive reports on on-going research by Matthias Oppermann and Michael Coventry which has investigated the impact that digital storytelling can have on student learning, and in particular the impact of the social and affective dimensions of this approach.  The Digital Storytelling Media Archive (https://digitalcommons.georgetown.edu/projects/digitalstories/) as well as reporting on the research provides examples of digital stories and video clips of students reflecting on the use of this medium.

This research highlights how the novelty of using digital storytelling can have a positive impact on the student learning experience.  Students can become accustomed to traditional forms of assessment and internalise processes for coping with them.  At the University of Gloucestershire recognition of this was a key factor in introducing digital storytelling into a final year Business module on change.  It was explicitly chosen to take students out of their comfort zone.  The result was positive both in terms of student feedback (after initial concerns) and in the quality of the student outputs.  Research into the use of digital storytelling with students at Leeds University and Leeds Metropolitaan University (Sanders, 2009: 11) found students to have mixed opinions as to the use of this approach.  This appeared to be related to students preferred mode of learning, with those with a preference for written approaches less favourable.  However, this project did also find that the creativity of the digital storytelling process helped facilitate reflection (Sanders, 2009: 12).  This was recognised by academic staff involved in the delivery of the projects, one of whom noted how 'digital storytelling can encourage students to sidestep habitual approaches to reflection and engage in a more intuitive and creative way' (Sanders, 2009: 15).  Oppermann and Coventry recognise that digital storytelling works at the boundary of emotional and epistemological learning, bridging theory and practice.  Students become emotionally engaged with the creation of the digital story leading to a ‘spiral of engagement’.  Feedback from students at the University of Gloucestershire also shows that students invest more time in creating digital stories than they would in traditional forms of assessment.

The form of digital stories, being multi-layered and demanding ‘compressed argumentation’ (Digital Storytelling Media Archive, 2009) also impacts on the student learning.  As a multi-layered approach students are able to use and develop different skills and literacies to convey ideas rather than just words alone.  This does present creative opportunities for assessment.  The compressed form of digital stories means that students are challenged to consider how they present their ideas.  Student feedback at the University of Gloucestershire and through the Digital Storytelling Media Archive (2009) indicate that this can transfer into other forms of assessment.  So challenging the internalised processes that might exist for more traditional forms of assessment. 

Burn (2007) identifies the iterative opportunities as one of the important affordances of using digital video.  Creating a story is a powerful stimulus for reflection.  Sharing these experiences with others allows a different perspective to be introduced and new questions to be asked, which can potentially prompt further thoughts and reflections.  The sharing of stories is an important element: “For a story to be a story, it must be shared” (Orech, 2008).  It is by sharing our stories that we can obtain a deeper insight into their meaning.  The whole process of creating a story contains opportunities for collaboration, whether the stories are created in groups (see Case study) or individually.  For this reason there may be some applications where it is clear that the product is the main topic of interest (e.g. perhaps as part of a media-based course), or is intended to be a point of discussion (e.g. use in a critique – see Case Study 1), but there are other occasions where the purpose of the activity will be to promote student reflection and in this situation it could be argued that the final product may not always adequately represent the level of learning or understanding that was developed through the process of creating the story.  Depending upon the purpose of the digital story, it may therefore be appropriate to consider whether some form of additional evidence is required, for example a reflective journal outlining the steps taken to create the digital story, as it may be possible for a student to engage in quite high levels of learning and reflection – as indicated by Moon’s ‘Map of Learning’ – but for this not to be manifest within the final digital story.

Web2.0 Storytelling

Alexander & Levine (2008) believe that as a result of the new Web2.0 technologies we are seeing the development new forms of storytelling that exploit its potential.  They identify two essential features of Web2.0, microcontent and social media.  Web2.0 storytelling is then a social process involving generation of microcontent, using multiple media forms, that they provide evolving stories that can also have different routes through and changing perspectives.  Important within this is the principle that stories, these chunks of micrcontent are made available for resuse by others.  Alexander & Levine recognise the role that digital storytelling has had in the classroom and see Web2.0 storytelling as broader and the next stage.  They do however recognise digital storytelling as one of the potential mechanisms for generating microcontent that can contribute to this new form of storytelling.

Does this suggest that digital storytelling is a transient form?  While digital stories do represent a fixed product they are examples of microcontent that can be resused in a variety of ways.  It is also important to recognise, as identified by Alexander & Levine (2008: 54) that the use of Web2.0 storytelling might be influenced by scale and that the practices of Web2.0 storytelling are important.  In this way using digital storytelling as a social process leading to the final production of the story, the microcontent, makes use of these Web2.0 practices. 

In identifying Web2.0 storytelling it helps to illustrate how difficult it can be to define what digital storytelling actually is.  Ohler (2008) recognises that the multiple forms that stories can represent suggest that a term such as 'new media narrative' is more encompassing, but not as user friendly.  Alexander & Levine (2008: 52) also highlight the huge use of web video storytelling through sites such as YouTube. Digital storytelling is not a clearly definable genre which is why careful consideration needs to be given to how it is being used (see Infrastructure and practical tips).

Some of the new tools that are available for the creation of digital stories will directly support Web2.0 storytelling.  For example VoiceThread (http://www.voicethread.com) which allows the sequencing of audio with slides which can then be published on the web.  Once published it is possible for viewers to add a commentary, through text, audio or video.  Other Web2.0 tools which could be used to generate stories or digital stories could be integrated into include mapping and timeline tools.  For example through the use of mapping tools such as Google Maps (http://maps.google.com) virtual tours can be created, individually or collaboratively.  Timeline tools such as xtimeline (http://www.xtimeline.com) or dandelife (http://www.dandelife.com/) allow creation of timelines to which as well as images and text it is also possible to link in blogs and RSS feeds.