477 – Keeping an audience in mind

Whelp. I’m finally coming up for air. This past week has seen the world change forever in my neck of the woods and probably yours too. You maybe are even a week or more into it. Fortunately I was a bit ahead of myself in my coursework – but I know that I haven’t even looked at other blog posts from last week yet. Now that we are no longer in class, I will have a bit of time to sit down and catch up.

Everything that I have written below in black font, was written in the world before. Now, as we in Manitoba enter this new world, my coursework seems to be even more important and relevant. How do I teach students to do these things from a distance, with no consistent technological access? Stay tuned.

Keep calm, wash your hands and stay at home, friends.

Last week, I set up a beginning outline for my final vision assignment. The project would be posted using Adobe Spark Page, and would be a digital trove of information on Digital Storytelling. I envision it as a website/article hybrid. This project would be designed mainly as a resource for teachers who don’t know where to start with digital storytelling in the classroom. The outline is tentatively as follows,  

1) What is digital storytelling? 

2) Why you should be doing it. 

3) A step by step guide – featuring a digital story how-to video made with the Adobe Creative Cloud.

4) Lists of helpful apps and programs.

5) ‘Tips and Tricks’ videos.

6) Some sample project ideas. 

7) Useful handouts for students.

8) Some examples of digital storytelling projects.

It’s funny how the human brain works. Until I sat down and looked at this week’s question, I had never really thought of framing this project in any way other than at other teachers. It is interesting to me that my brain went so automatically to something aimed at educators rather than students. There probably is a definite need for resources on digital storytelling for students, in student friendly language. In many ways the best learning is that which is self-motivated.  

I was reminded of this on Sunday, driving while listening to the program Tapestry on CBC Radio.  Frank Kadillac, the Juno nominated singer of pop duo Neon Dreams, was being interviewed. I was struck listening to Frank as he talked about falling in love with the guitar as a kid – wanting one so badly that he drew out a paper fret board and strings on four sheets of paper and practiced playing chords and songs from tabs that he found on the internet. This kid took a marker and the internet and turned it into a career. I want to help kids do that. 

But, then I am torn by the knowledge that frequently the teacher is the person who makes project decisions in the classroom, and so I need to make them more likely to buy into this as an option. And what is it that makes some of our staff such reluctant technology integrators? Factors that get in the way of teacher usage of technology have been reported to include things like “negative attitudes towards computers, technology incompetence, passive school support policy, different pedagogical beliefs and limited access to technology tools” (Chen et al, 2019). Another study concluded that beliefs about what makes a “good” education needs to be a part of any professional development for teachers (Tondeur et al, 2016). My main audience are the teachers who are less likely to use technology in innovative ways with their classes. 

To counter this, I am going to include rationale in my project, connecting Digital Storytelling to 21^st century skills to help tie this to modern knowledge about what constitutes a good education.  To help with feelings of technological incompetence and negative attitudes towards computers, I will provide step by step instructions and offer to join teachers as a co-teacher when they are providing Digital Storytelling opportunities to their class, or run smaller sessions where I completely take the lead. I hope that this project will work towards providing support to teachers, alleviating feelings of a lack of support from the school. To ward off limited access issues, I have planned to teach basics using operating systems and programs that we have access through our division and/or that are available across different platforms.  

Why was I so set on planning this for educators? Ultimately, I do see my main audience as being teachers. However, I want many of the materials (especially videos) to be accessible to a student audience. They should be able to be used by educators as part of the digital storytelling experience in their classrooms. This is important for me to consider as I continue storyboarding and planning over the coming week –  this project will hopefully create a grab-and-go kit for teachers to use with their students. While teachers are my main audience, I must keep students in mind. 

Sources

CBC Radio. (2020, March 13). “I’m gonna do my best to make music for people to heal to,” says Juno-nominated Frank Kadillac of Neon Dreams. CBC. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/tapestry/i-m-gonna-do-my-best-to-make-music-for-people-to-heal-to-says-juno-nominated-frank-kadillac-of-neon-dreams-1.5492657

‌Chen, M., Zhou, C., Meng, C. et al. How to promote Chinese primary and secondary school teachers to use ICT to develop high-quality teaching activities. Education Tech Research Dev 67, 1593–1611 (2019). https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/10.1007/s11423-019-09677-0 

Tondeur, J., van Braak, J., Ertmer, P.A. et al. Understanding the relationship between teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and technology use in education: a systematic review of qualitative evidence. Education Tech Research Dev 65, 555–575 (2017). https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/10.1007/s11423-016-9481-2 

Image Source

Numerous targets on a wall with darts in them. [Photo]. Retrieved from Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest.
https://quest.eb.com/search/167_3991301/1/167_3991301/cite