Flickr and Digital Storytelling

Collecting Colour : January is Yellow, a photo by ejorpin on Flickr

According to the University of Houston’s Digital Storytelling site, “Digital storytelling at its most basic core is the practice of using computer-based tools to tell stories.” I like their definition, because it leaves the genre wide open – open both to the individuality of the storytellers themselves and also to the technologies used. 

As the Storycenter explains, "People see, hear, and perceive the world in different ways. This means that the forms and approaches they take to telling stories are also very different. There is no formula for making a great story - no prescription or template." As teachers who are interested in equipping our students with the means to make a difference in the world around them, it is important for us to help our students find and learn to use the tools they will need to express themselves -- but also to give the the freedom to do just that. We can create guidelines and suggestions as a class, but allowing students to go through the process of deciding how to tell a story and what story to tell is a part of their learning experience. The people at Storycenter understand that, too, arguing that, "...new media and digital technologies will not in and of themselves make a better world. Developing thoughtful, participatory approaches to how and why these technologies are being used is essential."

Having the capability of incorporating photo and video into storytelling can be a huge help for language students, who may not feel very confident in their writing abilities without a visual aid. Being able to use photos as the backdrop for simple sentences can allow for creativity (and tap into students’ intrinsic motivation by allowing them to choose topics and images that interest them) and also reinforce learning by involving multiple sensory platforms. Sites like Flickr make it possible for students to use basic digital cameras – or even their cell phones – to take photos of everyday objects and activities and incorporate them into narratives. In a second language classroom, especially teaching ESL, this could be a great way to initiate conversations about culture and communities.

The photo above is a great example of a way that students could use digital storytelling to share their experiences and viewpoints digitally and practice their language skills with tagging and making notes on their photo with Flickr. The photos could be connected by a theme – color, in the case of this photo, but anything pertaining to the current unit your class is working on, or let the students come up with their own ways of organizing objects or idea.

Game-based Learning

As anyone who’s ever watched – or been – a kid playing a video game could tell you, games are engrossing. Gamification is the process of applying the theories and ideas of game design to other activities -- in this case, academic ones -- in order to make those activities more engaging, perhaps even entertaining. Games tap into our intrinsic motivation, which is why understanding how they work and how we can apply game-based learning to language learning is important. As Stephan J. Franciosi explains in his article A Comparison of Computer Game and Language Learning, “[digital game-based learning] is not a revolution in the understanding of how people learn, or what content should be taught, but it does offer a fresh perspective on, and powerful tools for dealing with an important, but perhaps somewhat neglected, aspect of foreign language education—intrinsic motivation.” 

Using an escape the room game, such as Polleke’s Blue Room, with language learners would provide a fun, game-based way to practice some basic vocabulary and reinforce location prepositions. The simple phrases and questions about the rooms and objects are great for reading comprehension. Depending on the ages and language levels of the students, I think that rather than using a walkthrough to help the students solve the game, I would give them several questions or hints to guide them.  In terms of assessment, the students would then use the information they gathered to write a walkthrough (or fill in the blanks on one, depending on language level) – or we could all write one together as a class after the students worked through the game in pairs or small groups, depending on access to computers. A game like this one would be particularly fun with ipads or anything with a touch screen rather than a desktop computer.

               

Tackling more complicated issues using a game-based approach gives students a chance to problem-solve and explore topics that might not typically seem relevant to them at first. The Garbage Dreams game, for example, provides some perspective on class and environmental issues while requiring the use of math skills and strategic problem solving in relation to economics and investments. Having to pay a fee for trash that can’t be recycled and having penalties for incorrect sorting of goods can also promote consciousness about recycling and bigger picture environmental concerns in ways that are tangible to students, perhaps causing them to think twice in real life before tossing a plastic bottle in the trash instead of the recycling. I played this game several times, trying different strategies each time – and I was hooked.

Garbage Dreams is not specifically geared towards language learners, but I could definitely see using it in a foreign language classroom to meet ACTFL’s Connections and Culture objectives. Using a game that links to environmental issues and economic/business topics would reinforce what students learn about in other disciplines, and talking about ways that different countries and cultures approach trash/recycling and environmental issues is also important. Possible activities related to the game that would specifically involve language could be having the students track their families’ trash/recycling related habits for a week and blogging or journaling about them; having the students create a template for what this game would look like if it were set in Buffalo – breaking it up into neighborhoods, figuring out what areas would have which kinds of recyclables, using current pricing to come up with figures for what it costs to recycle glass, plastic, how much it would cost to buy a truck to haul things, etc.; creating a website (or writing a paper) explaining what can be recycled in our area and how or where, why certain things (like paper contaminated with organic matter) cannot be recycled, how composting works and where people can take organic matter to be composted or how to do it at home, etc.

Tweeting for Teachers

For me, the most immediately apparent use for microblogging as an educator is professional development. Keeping up with trends in technology and seeing other educators respond to political and social phenomena in real-time is increasingly necessary as teachers struggle to prove their relevance in a world where their work is perpetually undervalued. No one can be everywhere at once, and with the alarming speed at which the world around us -- and the technology we use to navigate it -- is changing, it's helpful to have a small army of twitter users who can help you keep up! 

Much like social networking sites devoted to education, such as Classroom 2.0, Twitter allows teachers to connect with other educators around particular topics and to share information and ideas with one another. Due to the limited nature of microblogging, it's good to have other forums for more elaborate discussions and exchanges of information, but to share thoughts and links quickly with a wide audience, Twitter can certainly be useful. 

At this point, I don't think I would be likely to use Twitter with students, but it's possible that in time, that could change. 

Social Networking for Educators

Classroom 2.0 looks like a great resource for teachers who want to integrate more technology into their teaching. There are multiple forums where educators can join discussions about things like which smartphone apps other ESL teachers find useful or the pros and cons of using cellphones in class. It's easy to find and join conversations, because everything is organized by tags. I like the idea of having such a large network of educators to interact with, but also appreciate the way there are smaller groups formed around shared interests or topics, so a sense of community can exist. 

Roots and Networks

Learners are like plants. Each one is unique, but they all need a few basics like, soil, light, and water in order to grow. To understand how they truly thrive, however, one has to consider the environment—the entire ecosystem, really: climate, shade, protection from wind or heavy rains, proximity to other plants (both beneficial and harmful), other creatures in the soil such as worms and insects, etc. A plant’s connections to its environment enable its growth, much like a learner’s interactions with other learners enable his or her learning.

While this is not a perfect analogy, I do think the vastness of the systems that interact to affect a plant’s life make for a fair parallel to the systems of knowledge we have available to us—not to mention the information that will be available (and different!) tomorrow or five years from now. A plant sends down roots to gather water and forms leaves to gather sunlight to sustain itself and grow. We, as learners, send our quests for knowledge and information out into the universe and then create meaning with and make decisions based on what we find and how we found it. In his article "Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age," Siemens writes,  “The capacity to form connections between sources of information, and thereby create useful information patterns, is required to learn in our knowledge economy.” A critical part of learning is figuring out how to make sense of the information available to us—deciding what is useful or credible, sorting facts from opinions. 

In his video "The network is the learning," Siemens argues that “What we know today is not as important as our ability to continue to stay current.” The implication there is that knowing how to gather and sort through information in order to solve problems and make decisions is a critical skill in an age when the knowledge available changes by the second. Knowing the "right" answer is less important than knowing where to find it or how to convey it. If a plant didn't use it's knowledge to produce flowers or seeds, it would die out. Similarly, learners in the digital age need not just knowledge, but ways to find and stay connected to knowledge as it grows and changes or they risk getting left behind as the networked world grows around them. 

Technology is not Neutral

I want to learn how to use technology in my classroom in ways that are meaningful, in ways that encourage creativity and problem-solving and critical thinking. I'm not entirely sure what that will look like all the time, which is part of why I'm taking this class, but I do know that I don't want it to look like this:

Scott McLeod at the edublog Dangerously Irrelevant often posts insightful questions about what it means to truly integrate technology and learning, sometimes citing columns or comments/questions written by others that spark a discussion. Recently on his blog, he shared a link to another educator's thoughts about Three Competing Visions of Educational Technology. 

The author of that post, Gary Stager, emphasizes the importance of using technology for student-centered learning rather than simply using shiny, new gadgets to add some glitter to otherwise outdated and uninspiring approaches to teaching and learning. The line that really caught my attention was, "Technology is not neutral." Technology--and how we use it in the classroom--is always going to reflect how we think about learning in general. We can use to technology to stifle creativity and reduce "learning" to regurgitating knowledge, albeit through a more modern interface--as in the cartoon above, or we can give our students the opportunity to use technology to explore and create and construct knowledge that is meaningful to them and useful for participating in a world that is constantly re-creating itself. 

Engaging students through the technologies they use

Anyone who's forgotten their cell phone at home for the day can tell you how strange it feels to be disconnected from their device for a few hours. People often say it's like being without an appendage -- like a part of you is missing. Of course, it is not the phone itself that they miss so much, but rather the way that phone connects them to people and the world in which they live. We interact with each other through facebook, twitter, instagram, texting, facetime, and perhaps, even the occasional phone call. Most people I know only wear watches as fashion statements, because we even use our cell phones to tell time. 

These technological platforms are so well integrated into our daily routines that life without them is hardly imaginable. Is it surprising, then, that students would feel the same connection to technology? The statistics in the video below are from the early 2000's and show quite clearly, that even almost a decade ago, our students were well on their way to becoming "Digital Learners"!

As shown in the video, Pay Attention, our students, and even children under the age of 2, are using computers and looking at screens for several hours a day. They wouldn't do that if it weren't fun, interesting, or engaging for them. They would find other things to do. The level of interactivity provided by the technology we have today provides us with the opportunity to engage with communities and information in ways that can dramatically enhance education. However, there's no point in using technology in the classroom if we're not using it effectively. 

As this next video suggests, how we find information has changed drastically just in the past decade. Being able to share ideas and opinions with people you care about -- or even with people you don't know -- is a vital part of learning. Asking questions and having those questions acknowledged, or having to sort through a variety of answers, is a big part of using the internet for educational purposes, as shown in this video, The Networked Student:

The way that "21st Century Student"(in the video above) uses technology in his education is a logical extension of how the majority of people already use technology in their daily lives. We read an interesting news article and post it on facebook or twitter. Our friends and  the people in our communities respond with their opinions or post other articles that either add support or offer another perspective. People who have different backgrounds and experiences can engage with each other on topics that interest them. Reading the comments section on just about anything posted online will illustrate the importance of learning how to engage critically and thoughtfully with the viewpoints that others share in these forums. These are the kinds of skill for "real life" that education is supposed to provide!