1. Enhancing Teaching and Learning Through the Use of Digital Story
Shuyan Wang, Ph.D.
The University of Southern Mississippi

2. Overview What is digital storytelling
Why using digital storytelling in education
Learning theories
Current teaching and learning practice
How to create digital stories
Procedures
Tools
Our applications
Lessons learned

3. What is Digital Storytelling
uses new digital tools to help ordinary people to tell real-life stories
is the practice of combining narrative with digital content, including images, sound, and video, to create a short movie, typically with a strong emotional component.
can be instructional, persuasive, historical, or reflective.
is normally 2-5 minutes long
can be effectively applied to nearly any subject
Storytelling is a traditional means to distribute knowledge from generations to generations in different cultures.
In specific, digital storytelling uses new digital tools such as digital cameras, photo editing software, authoring tools, and Web 2.0 technologies such as Flickrs and Myspace to tell real-life stories

4. Why using digital storytelling in education?
Facilitate the convergence of four student-centered learning strategies: student engagement, reflection for deep learning, project-based learning, and the effective integration of technology into instruction
--- Dr. Barrett

5. Why using digital storytelling in education?
Learning theories
Constructionism (Papert, 1993)
“Learning by making” sharable “public entity”
Narrative paradigm (Fisher, 1985; 1989)
“man is in his action and practice, as well as in his fictions, essentially a story-telling animal”
All forms of human communication can be seen fundamentally as stories.
The notion of “learning by making” places special emphasis on the learning that takes place when learners are engaged in building external and sharable objects or artifacts, such as creating and sharing their stories enhanced by still images, voices, and background music.
 In addition to Constructionism, the narrative paradigm, a well-know theory in human communication supports the use of digital storytelling in education which is mainly achieved via communications.
The interpretations and explanation of symbolic messages normally consist of creation, composition, adaptation, presentation, and reception.

6. Why using digital storytelling in education?
Current teaching and learning practice
Educators at all levels can use Digital Storytelling in many ways:
introducing new materials
helping students learn to conduct research, synthesize large amounts of content, gain expertise in the use of digital communication and authoring tools,
helping students organize their ideas as they learn to create stories for an audience, and
presenting their ideas and knowledge in an individual and meaningful way.

7. Why using digital storytelling in education?
Research has found: DS helped students organize and express their idea and knowledge in an individual and meaningful way (robin, 2005) DS enhanced employability portfolio development (Morehead, et al, 2007) DS increased social skills for children with disabilities (More, 2008) DS increased reading comprehension (Royer & Patricia, 2009)

8. Why using digital storytelling in education?
Five advantages of using digital storytelling in education (Gils, 2005)
Provide more variation than traditional in current practice
Personalize learning experience
Make explanation or practicing of certain topics more compelling
Create real life situations in an easy and cheaper way
Improve the involvement of students in the process of learning

9. When is Digital Story Telling
Whenever, a teacher wants to
Enhance student learning
Enhance student motivation
Enhances student engagement
Build student technology skills

10. Procedures
Make your plan: define your purposes, analyze your audience, and decide the tools to be used
Write an initial script, plan an accompanying storyboard.
Collect/create images and music
Create your digital story
Evaluate/modify your story
Publish your story

11. Tools Microsoft Photo Story 3 Windows Movie Maker Apple iMovie
still images and audio. Free but requires Microsoft Windows XP Operating System.
Windows Movie Maker
still images, video clips, and audio. Windows only. Free with Microsoft Windows Operating System.
Apple iMovie
still images, video clips, and audio. OS X Macintosh only. Free with Apply OS x Operation System

12. Our applications Graduate level courses Undergraduate level courses
Computers in Education (online course)
Networks in Education
Undergraduate level courses
Computer Applications in Education
Mandarin Chinese (Second year)

13. Some Examples from Classroom
Create teaching materials: math
Describe class activities
Create a reflective tutorial

14. Lessons learned Creative challenges Technical challenges
Decide on a topic
Content matches graphics and music
Voice synchronizing with story
Technical challenges
Large file size
Uploading speed
Fizzy pictures
Wrong format

15. Resources
Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling
What is Digital Storytelling?
Digital Storytelling from Photobus
The Art of Digital Storytelling
A Multilevel Approach to Using Digital Storytelling in the Classroom
The Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling
The Power of Digital Storytelling in the Classroom
How To: Use Digital Storytelling in Your Classroom