Tell me a Fable

Since I signed up for this course as the M.Ed program dictated back in… September(?), I was rather exasperated to find this current class is about Digital Storytelling. My first thoughts were along the lines of “Really? Should I just record this session of Dungeons & Dragons that I’m hosting online and call it my project?”

After getting some much needed sleep, I realized this may actually work to cover the various outcomes under the BC Digital Literacy Framework:

1. Research Information and Literacy
   • Make students master how to accurately search the web and databases in order to participate in the game.
2. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making
   • Use variety of tools and logic to discover solutions to puzzles.
3. Creativity and Innovation
   • Create their own scenarios / puzzles using digital art.
4. Digital Citizenship
   • Understanding how to maintain group relations in online platform.
5. Communication and Collaboration
   • Literally, the entire game.
6. Technology Operations and Concepts
   • Become confident in learning and operating new technology.

This might actually work… but let’s looks at my attempts at implementing digital storytelling.

Three-Photo-Story:
As I teach ADST (applied design, skills, and technology), one of the units I cover is photography and the major project for that is for students to create and tell a story using only 3 photos. They have to plan (and write) a short scenario, brainstorm how to represent major aspects of it in each photo, create it using different shots & angles learned in class, then combine and display it to the class to see if the story comes across correctly. My success with this project has been mixed so far. Those who are interested, curious, or simply enjoy a challenge do well with the project, whereas those who are disengaged will do the bare minimum at best (ie. have 3 random pictures). The quality of the “story” aspect has generally been underwhelming, where it often results in three simple frames of an activity or action in progress. To improve this, I feel I should look at cross-curricular collaboration with their English teacher where students first write an entire short story, which I can then use for this project. The alternative would be to have students try to summarize popular movies or TV shows they watch using the same three-picture constraint. Another issue I’ve faced is the lack of quality (DSLR) cameras, which limits the breadth of techniques students can employ in creating their story.

Graphs:
Math/Science teachers often use graphs to tell a “story”. This is particularly relevant in Physics, where we create a graphical representation of an object’s displacement, velocity, or acceleration over a period of time. Graphs can also have broader storytelling applications such as lessons from investing in cryptocurrencies:

**Update for Mar 24 – further considerations for reflection submission**

Previously, I focused on digital storytelling in the sense where digital tools other than written text were used to convey a story (hence photo-editing, graphs, etc) which also encompasses curriculum competencies. While I feel this adheres to the concept of the course (development and implementation of the curriculum), I believe it’s a bit off from what the instructor is looking for; which is focusing more on story telling through videos. My experiences with them over the past few decades has just reinforced my stance on why it’s not always a good option.

1. Video-based lectures
   Context – I work as an online and blended learning teacher at a local high school and the learning management system (LMS) we used is Moodle. By default, the courses have videos which function as a textbook in providing content knowledge to students. Below is an example which goes over the structure & functions of phospholipids, one of four biomolecules students need to learn in Anatomy and Physiology 12 (aka Bio12):
   

   Issue – The most common complaint I hear from students are that the accent in the video makes it difficult to watch and follow along, or that the clips are too long (some are well over 10 minutes). To address the first concern, students often find alternative videos which may cover more or less of the information than required. Their preference would be to use a textbook-style presentation of information which they’re more comfortable with, and it also makes it easy to look up information when key words are bolded. It’s harder to do the same in videos as you either remember exactly what time the information is mentioned, or have to scroll through each time frame to find it. To address the latter concern, it’s incredibly difficult to balance breadth and depth of a single topic in a single video. Bite-sized pieces like the one posted above might help compartmentalize information, but then there needs to be a long list of videos for each topic. The example with phospholipids is that it’s one of three types of lipids (along with fats and hormones), which is one of four biomolecules to learn. An example from Khan Academy which condenses information on all 3 types of lipids can be seen here:

   This leads me to the next issue of legibility. While I frequently suggest Khan Academy as a source of information to students, it has the downsides of being rather messy or cluttered in several videos. A pet peeve that’s been brought up by several students was how they found it difficult to concentrate if the speaker stutters or repeatedly corrects himself throughout the video. So while videos are a potential way for teachers to “tell” the story of course contents to students, the quality of available videos still leave much to be desired.

2. Video-based Projects
   My first attempt was back in Grade 12 English, where the teacher offered a choice between timeline, poster, or video summary of Shakespeare’s Othello. Being with a group of my goofy friends, we thought it’d be hilarious and easy to just take a bunch of videos of us doing stupid things in context of the play. I can confidently say that by the end of the project, I still had minimal understanding of the plot in Othello, but lifelong respect for my good friend who organized and edited over 200 clips to make a 20 minute video. We each had our roles of director, editor, cameraman, and of course actors, but some tasks required insurmountably more time and effort than others. For instance, the director who had to read the entire play had to figure out the most important scenes in the story and try to re-create it; in contrast, the actors were just running around with random props most of the time. The most grueling job was video editing, which I need to stress that we did this project before the invention of the iPhone. Most cameras and video editing software are simpler and user-friendly, but the entire process still takes much more time compared to static alternatives (if there are any). The video project which I had to do during EDCI570/571 is a great example (available on cohort shared drive). Having to learn a video editing software, organizing the clips, arranging and cutting to fit, editing to remove pauses and stutters, lighting adjustments or voice enhancements… the list goes on. It was easily as much work as the research and storyboard combined. In the end, it still feels like our digital slideshow presentation was much more informative and reflective of our understanding on the topic of … something, than the video presentation (because that’s all I remember now, the shortcuts to video editing tools).
   To summarize, the video project alternative is often more taxing and can take the focus away from learning goals.