learning & teaching

k.i.s.s.

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I ran a digital storytelling workshop this week for the first time in several years.

I have to say I spent time pondering whether a) the emergence of easy to capture and distribute video had superseded the digital story medium (largely still images + voice over) and b) the extent to which the digital story methodology had reached mainstream in a learning facilitator's toolkit.

I remember clearly my first exposure to the concept. I was sitting at an ACAL conference keynote by Glynda Hull with adult literacy/ESL colleagues late 2001. For 10 years I'd been experimenting with the means to engage learners the education system had failed and to give them a voice in a world of written text. It was one of those aha moments. Exploration of the concept was pivotal in my 2003 FLL research and travels (including visits to Daniel Meadows and the Capture Wales project). Despite early frustrations with the lack of easy to use non-MAC software, we've seen technology increasingly become more accessible and supportive of multimodal user-generated content. In this weeks workshop, being in a Windows environment, we were using Photo Story 3 (with recommendations to progress to Premiere Elements). I continue to find PS3 very clunky and limiting but it remains a good entry point for non-techies.

The 15 participants yesterday came from all areas of VET- hospitality, business studies, adult basic ed, English language, child studies etc. The broad mix enabled some fruitful brainstorming around potential uses.

DST in VET mindmap

In addition to my planned agenda (largely hands on in PS3) a few things arose and were covered. I'll build these into future sessions:

  • how to identify image size
  • how to resize images in Photoshop
  • how to create plain coloured title slides/images
  • how to find creative commons images in Flickr using FlickR CC
  • how to document image attributions

It was a great session. The digital storytelling methodology has not lost its appeal;it still has a place in an engaging learning design.

Thanks to SWSI and the group for making it possible. My slides used are available in slideshare.