Slideshare version of a workshop for the faculty of Regis College.

1. Stories are the large and small
instruments of meaning, of
explanation, that we store in
our memories.
Schank, Roger (1992). Tell Me a Story: Narrative and Intelligence.
Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

2. Digital Storytelling
In Support of Learner Meaning-Making
Gail Matthews-DeNatale, Ph.D.

3. About Me
Senior Fellow, Graduate
School of Education
Lead Faculty, eLearning and
Instructional Design M.Ed.
Program
College of Professional
Studies, Northeastern
University
… and a Ph.D. in Folklore!

4. About You
What attracted you to
digital storytelling?
Your “A Hah!” moments so
far during this workshop
Your idea for using digital
storytelling in support of
student learning

5. S ession Overview
1. Thoughts on the connection between
storytelling and learning
2. Examples of storytelling in a range of
academic scenarios
3. Reflections on the experience of
teaching and learning with digital
stories
4. Assignment development exercise

6. 1. Storytelling & Learning

7. Susan Ambrose et. al. 7 Principles
1. Students’ prior knowledge can
help or hinder learning.
2. How students organize
knowledge influences how they
learn and apply what they know.
3. Student motivation determines,
directs, and sustains what they
do learn.
4. To develop mastery, students
must acquire component skills,
practice integrating them, and
know when to apply what they
have learned.
5. Goal-directed practice coupled
with targeted feedback
enhances the quality of students’
learning.
6. Students’ current level of
development interacts with
social, emotional, and intellectual
climate of the course to impact
learning.
7. To become self-directed
learners, students must learn to
monitor and adjust their
approaches to learning.
Ambrose, S., Bridges, M., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M., & Norman, M. (2010). How learning works: seven research-based
principles for smart teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

8. James Gee 36 Principles
Doing and
reflecting
Appreciating
good design
Seeing
Tasks neither too
easy nor too hard Thinking and
Watching your strategizing
own behavior
interrelationships
Mastering new
Being encouraged
to practice
skills at each level
Getting more out
than what you put in
Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York, NY: Macmillan.

9. The Value
Learner and Educator
Perspectives

10. Video Interviews: What’s the Difference?
Video available at https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/multimedia/ELI08167C.mov

11. Video Transcript: What’s the Difference?
TITLE: What’s the educational value of digital storytelling?
TITLE: Makes learning memorable
Vaughn - It was a memorable time and this is actually something that I can remember. I can’t remember much else
about my life, but I can remember certain parts, and this is one of the things that I remember because I have things to
remind me and I did have mishaps, and I did have misadventures, and it made it more fun – it was a great semester. It
was a very profound learning curve for me that semester.
TITLE: Production process fosters reflection … and transformation
Ellen - There was something about working so intensely and in a concentrated fashion with both the dialogue and then
matching photographs to it or some kind of visual image that as a producer or whatever, you are, you know you’re so
present with the material and the message you’re trying to convey and how you’re trying to convey it and what you want
to say that you also have to think much more deeply and complexly about what it is that you want to say.
And I think through that process of analyzing it, you can come up with different versions – gez, I’ve thought about it so
much, I actually feel a little bit different about it – now I want to say something different than I thought I was going to say
when I started. And I think that’s the feedback loop that the more that you’re with the content and you’re really
introspective and you’re reflective about … The telling of the story transforms you and transforms the story.
TITLE: Demonstrates the progression of learning
Vaughn - I put a lot of effort into it, but in two different ways. Into one class, and then also into life outside of class. And
the movie at the end showed my effort and told my story, not only my story, but the story of the kid whom I was tutoring.
It showed progression and it was a marker for that whole semester. And it’s a great thing to have, to keep.
TITLE: Encourages clarity of expression
Ellen - think it is also good to help students organize what they want to say because you have to get very clear about
what’s the message. What am I trying to say and why am I trying to say this?… a theme in many fields 00:28:34:?
TITLE: Increases student engagement
Rachel -I think I was a lot more connected to my final projects than I was with a research paper, because it was really
from my thoughts, at the end of the day, after I had done the steps along the way, versus an outline that I had turned in
TITLE: Fosters student-centered, authentic learning
Ellen - You’re speaking to a larger audience in some way. … thinking about my own beliefs about what people need to
succeed in graduate education and how that’s changing … the work has changed … populations people are serving has
changed. It doesn’t mean decreasing standards, it means rethinking standards. And so a process that isn’t strictly a
written paper speaks to allowing people of very different kinds of learning abilities to engage in something – as opposed
to “write this paper, memorize this for a test.

12. 2. Examples

13. B oston Story Map
Matthews-DeNatale, G. (2013). Digital story-making in support of student meaning-making. In Smyth, E., &
Volker, J. (Eds). Enhancing instruction with visual media utilizing video and lecture capture (pp. 191-202).
Hershey, PA: IGI-Global.

14. F amily World Map

15. F amily World Map

16. F amily World Map

17. S ervice Learning Story
Matthews-DeNatale, G. (2008). Digital Story Making: Understanding the Learner's
Perspective. ELI Annual Meeting. Retrieved August 24, 2014,
fromhttp://www.educause.edu/eli/events/eli-annual-meeting/2008/digital-story-making-understanding-
learners-perspective-research-based

18. D igital Case
Makofske, M., Perna, M., Matthews-DeNatale, G., Maxfield, S., & Traynor, J. (2008). Video: Cruise Industry.
Caseplace. Retrieved August 24, 2014, from http://www.caseplace.org/d.asp?d=3283

19. H istory Story Timeline

20. H istory Story Timeline

21. C oncept Story Timeline

22. C oncept Story Timeline

23. C oncept Story Timeline

24. 3. Reflections on the
Experience

25. What are the
similarities/differences
between digital story-making
and other forms
of academic authorship?

26. The Difference
Learner and Educator
Perspectives

27. Video Interviews: What’s the Value?
Video available at http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/multimedia/ELI08167C.mov

28. Video Transcript: What’s the Value?
TITLE: What’s the difference between writing and digital storytelling?
TITLE: Difference in flow
Vaughn – While you’re writing, either through a keyboard or sitting down and writing in a book, it’s all in
your head and coming out through your eyes onto the page. The images that are in your head are
becoming the words that your hands are writing. But with iMovie you can take actual images out of the
world that you see and show them to other people.
Ellen - You know it was hard work, but it was good hard work. It was very focused hard work – the
kind of thing you can see losing time with. …. Much more time than you have.
TITLE: Goes beyond the “five paragraph essay”
Rachel – When you’re writing a term paper, you’re just using words and you have a structure to do it.
But with storytelling, it’s a completely blank board and you can do whatever you want with it. You have
all these thoughts in your head about what you want it to be, and you have all these experiences, and
you have your journaling, and other things throughout the way. For you to get across your message
and what you’re trying to say in a way that’s visual, audio, and with text, I think is really using different
parts of your brain.…Using all the senses vs. just reading it.
TITLE: Can represent internal and external worlds
Vaughn – There are so many times when I wish I could record my thoughts, like attach something to
my head and let people see what I’m seeing while I’m writing. But with the iMovie I can actually do
that. Though it’s not exactly the way I picture it in my head, it’s the best interpretation I can give them.
It’s also very real, because it can come out of the actual world.

29. What’s the value of
(digital) storytelling for
higher education?

30. C hallenging Questions for Educators
How can we help students increase
the amount of time they devote to
reflection and critical thinking?
How can we help students articulate
what they are learning?
How can we help students
remember and care about learning?

31. The Value of Digital Story-Making
•Combines visual, aural, and kinesthetic
learning
•Iterative production process encourages
revisiting, reflecting on meaning
•Increases literacy/fluency across media
•Connects prior life experiences, course,
and other co-curricular learning
•Can be shared beyond academia

32. S tory-Making Learning Cycle
Reflection
& Analysis
Experience
Share with
Others
Deeper Personal
Understanding
Future
Stories

33. Observations and Recommendations
Importance of
• Process
(pedagogically-driven, purposeful,
integrated, planned)
• Collaboration
(P2P/faculty feedback, partnering with IT)
•The Experience
(intense and requires tolerance for mishaps)

34. 4. Assignment
Development Exercise

35. C ase Study: Story Timeline

36. B ackward Planning
Pedagogically-Driven: What concepts, abilities, and skills do
you want students to gain from the course?
Purposeful: What role will digital story-making play in achieving
those aims? What opportunities does story-making afford that would not
be possible through other assignments/technologies?
Integrated: How will the assignment be positioned within the course?
How will it be introduced? How will it connect with and further other
coursework? By what criteria will the stories be evaluated?
Planned: What resources and support will the students need (both
academic and technical)? How will they be made available? What will be
the benchmarks for conceptualization and production?

37. P edagogically-Driven
What concepts, abilities, and skills do you
want students to gain from the course?
Case Study Example
•Concept: Open Learning has a long history, with many
dimensions (sectors and players)
•Ability: Evaluate the relevance and credibility of sources,
explain the importance of a source
•Skill: Convey ideas in a coherent, multimodal integrated
format

38. P urposeful
What role will digital story-making play in
achieving those aims? What opportunities does
story-making afford that would not be possible
through other assignments/technologies?
Case Study Example
•Role: Comparison of timelines helps students see that there is
no one definition of “open learning,” that the focus or
motivation for OL is context-dependent
•Opportunity: Format makes it possible for many OL
dimensions to co-exist, granting a unique perspective

39. I ntegrated
How will the assignment be positioned within the
course? How will it be introduced? How will it
connect with and further other coursework? By what
criteria will the stories be evaluated?
Case Study Example
•Position: Begin in the first week, share draft in wk 2, revise by
wk 4, grade wk 6, incorporate into ePortfolio week 12
•Connection: Draws upon Wiley resource (MOOC as
textbook), precursor to COOL Collection – Timeline and COOL
exercise equip them for final assignment

40. I ntegrated
Overview
What is open learning? The history of open
learning is still in the making; there are no
definitive texts. This assignment calls upon you
to construct a timeline of key concepts, figures,
events, and projects related to this topic.
Guidelines
Your timeline should include at least 15
entries. You will begin the assignment in Week
1 and share your timeline with the rest of the
class during the Week 2 discussion.
Criteria for Excellence
- Provides a mix of concepts,
figures, events, and projects that
gives the viewer a representative
overview of Open Learning.
- Entries include substantive
annotations that explain why you
included the item, what it is, and its
relevance to the topic. These
annotations should also be
accurate and well written.
- Takes advantage of the tool's
capacity to include links, videos,
images, etc.

41. I ntegrated
Guiding Questions
Consider the following questions as you scour the web to find
sources that will help you tell the story of the history of open
learning:
•How far back does the concept of "openness" go?
•What have been the major developments? Who was involved? In what
sectors? Who are the key organizations/projects/people? When did they
come onto the scene, and what is distinctive about their contributions?
What are the similarities and differences between the way that different
sectors approach the concept of openness?
•What are the major ideas? What are the best resources that you can find
on those topics?
•What appear to be future directions in the field?

42. I ntegrated
Avenues for Finding Sources
Search the web for links that are related to the concept of Open Learning. Not
sure where to start in searching for timeline content? The term "open" is often
paired with other terms related to education and access. Key words include:
•Open Learning
•Open Knowledge
•Open University
•MOOCs - Massive Open Online Courses (C and X)
•Open Badges
•Open Education
•Open Education Resources
•Open Source
•Open Content
•Open Access
Note that each entry should include a timeline description that provides
information about why it is relevant. Include a link whenever possible.

43. P lanned
What resources and support will the students need
(both academic and technical)? How will they be
made available? What will be the benchmarks for
conceptualization and production?
Case Study Example
•Resources: Exemplar, Log spreadsheet, Dipity tutorials
•Benchmarks: Gather/document potential sources in log. Use
Temoa rubric to evaluate credibility. Identify 15 entries.
Gather images and videos to represent each entry. Author
annotations. Compile timeline, share, discuss, receive
feedback. Revise and resubmit. Receive grade.

44. S ample Resource: DS Feedback Form
Criteria
Outstanding Satisfactory Poor Why?
Has A Point (of View)
- purpose
- stance
Engaging
- interesting
- surprising
- thought-provoking
Quality Script/Voice
- well spoken
- good pacing
- music, if any, furthers message
Use of Images/Video
- w. voice, adds new dimension
- visual flow
Wise Economy/Detail
- pacing
- pare away AND
- dig deeper
Matthews-DeNatale, G. (2008). Digital Storytelling: Tips and Resources. ELI Annual Meeting (p. 14).
Retrieved August 24, 2014, from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI08167B.pdf

45. Final Words
“Those who do not have power
over the story that dominates their
lives, the power to retell it, rethink
it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and
change it as times change, truly
are powerless, because they
cannot think new thoughts. ”
Salman Rushdie

46. Thank You
Gail Matthews-DeNatale, Ph.D.
Northeastern University
g.matthews-denatale@neu.edu