Symposium for Teaching and Learning with Technology

I've looked forward to Kathleen Brown's Next Generation Storytellers presentation. With Dr. Brown are Chris Millet and Justin Miller.

Chris offered a general background of digital storytelling. Simply, it's storytelling using a variety of the available multimedia tools. The Stories revolve around a theme- not the technology. It could be a photo montage, a podcast, or a collaborative voice thread. Remixing- using existing media- to tell a new story, is currently a popular method. There are a number of pedagogical benefits: engagement, motivation, dual-coding, authentic learning. And, it can serve as a "hook", as in a great Astro001 video example on the Composition of a Comet. Poor Steven.

Kathleen showed example video from the Follow Me Home initiative- a smart cottage that's equipped with 80-100 sensors on appliances, doors, plumbing, all wired by students. The cottage allows seniors to live independently while computers monitor their safety. The video was developed by Kathleen, her students, and the Digital Commons.

The students in COMM 471 use iPods with microphones to record oral histories. They need to listen, reflect, plan, produce, publish, and promote the content that they've recorded. The process has led to students talking more with aunts, uncles, grandparents.

This is project based learning. It begins with an end product, or "artifact" in mind, and production requires content knowledge or skill. The activity is a catalyst for learning about local history as well as for developing storytelling skills. Another aspect of the project involves seniors using computers loaned by Penn State. Students show the seniors how to use the laptops to write their life stories, and a specific website to facilitate the process was shown- URL forthcoming. Students all blog openly about their experience throughout the course.