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Using Digital Storytelling in Education

By Linda Abel
Communications Office

APRIL 13, 2009 | The University of Wisconsin-River Falls Learning Technology Development Council (LTDC) is planning a three-day digital storytelling workshop this summer.

Mary Wright, an assistant professor of teacher education in the College of Education and Professional Studies, held an informative seminar in February about the summer workshops and introduced the concept of digital storytelling used in education.

“Digital storytelling is a multimodal approach to meaningful narrative from many perspectives, layered with rich and vocative imagery, audio and video,” says Wright. “It is often a transformative experience for both the storyteller and the recipient.”

The purpose of the three-day workshop will be to inform faculty about the use of digital storytelling in their field of work. During the workshop attendees will create their own digital story, which combines still photos, audio, video and a personal voice.   Upon finishing the workshop, participants will be able to incorporate digital storytelling into their field of work, understand new literacies and how to apply them to education, and complete a digital story on a CD/DVD.

Six-faculty members from throughout the UW System will be invited to attend the workshop, which is being sponsored by a grant from the LTDC.

“As of now the workshop is closed to the public for financial reasons, but we would like to expand its availability to other educators in years to come,” says Wright.

As communication, education and training increasingly employ technologies such as videos, YouTube, blogs, podcasts and others, it is becoming essential to use digital storytelling to provoke classroom discussion and broaden the range of learning tools, says Wright.  

Digital storytelling is already being incorporated into the classrooms at UWRF. Leland Lueck, a lecturer in the department of teacher education, has been using digital storytelling in his classes for two years.  

“At first, I simply used Powerpoint productions in my teacher education classes. Then three semesters ago, I began using free online open base sites, such as Garageband and Audacity, to have my students create autobiographies which incorporated audio and video,” says Lueck.  

Lueck continues to use digital storytelling in many forms throughout his lectures. He says it is a great supplemental way to get a message across in the classroom or in online courses. “This is great for any instructor teaching an online course. Students can rewind the video, pause it, or boot up the actual program.”            

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Last updated: Thursday, 22-Apr-2010 16:09:33 Central Daylight Time