Digital Storytelling

Digital storytelling is the art of using computer-based tools such as text, graphics, audio narration, video, and music to tell a story. The following video provides a brief introduction to digital storytelling:

Storytelling is not new to the education realm and has been used in entertainment, cultural preservation, and in instilling moral values. In fact, most of us can remember at some point

listening to a teacher or a parent read a story while showing us the pages....and we may have done the same activity with our own children.

Digital storytelling combines the use of the narrative with modern technology to deliver a story, and its use has extended far beyond that of a teacher or parent reading a book to a child or group of children.

Now, children can create their own digital stories, helping them to make sense of the world around around them as they portray the story in their own words - and pictures.

Children are not the only ones who can learn and use the art of digital storytelling.

from a recent meeting

I am the director of the MA in Community College Administration program at Lenoir-Rhyne University, and located on the Asheville campus.  Despite my being physically located in Asheville, the MA CCA was the first fully online program offered by Lenoir-Rhyne.  Program students  tend to work full-rime in a community or technical college while trying to balance work, home, family, and community - thus the need for this being a fully online program. Although we do video-conference  as a group twice each year for programmatic meetings and to bring in community college speakers from across the nation, all coursework is completed asynchronously, so these courses must be interactive and engaging with social presence, teaching presence, and cognitive presence.

This degree leads to administrative positions as mid-level managers, and sometimes students do not wait until graduation to move into these positions. while a certain amount of very basic technology experience - and a great deal of willingness to experiment - is necessary to complete this program, we do try to give students technology skills that will prove useful for them as administrators, giving them that competitive edge. Program assignments are designed to help students "give back" to their institutions (and add to their resumes). Digital storytelling is a skill they can use on their job, but they need some experience with making their own "stories" in their online courses to prepare them for applying this skill to an administrative position.

An online program can easily allow students to become disconnected from one another and the stories each of us have to tell. Digital storytelling can help students become more connected with one another....and with their institutions.

Digital storytelling assignments can be used to enhance written communication skills, oral communication skills, technology skills, collaboration skills, and critical thinking skills - all skills required for successful administrators...so.....how might we craft such an assignment to help these adults foster these skills? Let's explore the application of digital storytelling in several courses...and its use on the job.

EDU 630: The Adult Learner

For an initial discussion forum or icebreaker in this course students could create a digital story of their own pathway through learning that brings them from their earliest memory of learning to the current day. They would then view each others videos and comment. This assignment could help them begin to build their learning network with their classmates, while helping them begin to think about how the impact of their past learning on their current learning, setting the stage to enter an exploration of adult learning theories.


Workplace application: Students could eventually build on this assignment by creating something such as this video, College Can be Scary,  created by Tina Maestas, Director of the Resource Center of the Community College of Denver. Using family photos  and newspaper clippings, Tina gives us a glimpse into her own education and her past, along with her struggles and successes. She then skillfully shows how her very past enables her to work with and understand the issues of those coming to the Resource Center for assistance.

 EDU 604: Community Colleges and American Education

This course provides an overview of the various units within the community college with the purpose of introducing students to all aspects of the institution in which they work.  Because we sometimes acquire tunnel vision and only "see" our work sites from the perspectives of our job, this course is vital is helping students stretch beyond their cubicle and see how the college operates as a whole. Digital storytelling lends itself beautifully to another icebreaker (and later to an assignment - but I get ahead of myself).

To be effective administrators, students need to understand all aspects of the community college, and what better way than to learn from one another than to hear their classmates tell the stories of their jobs! An icebreaker in this course could be to create A Day in My Life as a . . . . a digital story sharing with the class just what each student does on his or her job every day. Such an assignment would immediately help to create social presence and allow them to begin networking...while they hone those communication, technology, and critical thinking skills. Combining graphics, text, photos, music, and voice-overs would really help them tell the story of a typical day.  College staff may not - and probably do not - already know what a faculty member does every day...and faculty tend to have little idea as to what staff does during the day...and staff in the business office by have no idea as to what staff in workforce development do every day. This assignment could handle that educational piece quickly!

Workplace applications: Students could build on this assignment in a later project in the course by crafting a digital story of the Day in the Life of a Student at ABC Community College for their institution's to use on a website, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.  The One Day at Duke  video featured below is a TV spot incorporating more than a thousand photos, videos and messages that were submitted online by Duke University community members worldwide on a single day -- April 19, 2013. This  commercial comprises 136 video clips, photos and Twitter messages from 42 people in five countries. More than 150 Duke students, faculty, alumni and partners appear on screen.  Obviously students would have neither the time nor the resources to create a project of this magnitude, but they could do something on a much smaller scale, perhaps depicting a day n the life of several different students (traditional first year full-time student, part time student who is working full time, a returning student, a first generation college student, an international student, etc.).....the possibilities are endless!

While One Day at Duke uses a lot of video footage, the same could be accomplished - far less grand but still useful - with photographs, text, and voice-overs.

or...

Students could tell the story of their institution - the history of their community or technical college. NC community colleges, for example, have recently celebrated their 50th birthday - what better way to celebrate than to tell their story? Such a project would be a great way to archive photos and leaders' voices...and could be used  as a marketing piece or posted in the institution's youtube channel. In Illinois where the first community college began in 1901, community colleges are over 100 years..imagine the history!

still another possibility...

Digital storytelling could be used to tell (show) the story of someone applying to the college - detailing how it is done... and all of the accompanying feelings and anxieties associated with taking this first step.......or follow a student applying for financial aid.... These videos would be very helpful in making new community college students feel more at ease with the whole process of entering college while introducing them ahead of time to those college staff with whom they will be working.   Research suggests that staff become front-line educators  as they work with students and are, therefore, extremely influential in student persistence (Schmitt & Duggan, 2011; Schmitt, Duggan, Williams, & McMillan, 2014) . Students often develop a relationship with staff before they meet faculty, and these digital stories will help community college students feel more comfortable with the college before they arrive...a way to "break the ice. . ."

and another . . .

Some program students are faculty moving into Department Chair or Dean positions.  Faculty can use digital storytelling a variety of ways, both within the classroom and without.   Want to know what a nuclear medicine technologist does? Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) of Cleveland, OH created this video, with some digital storytelling components.


Imagine how much stronger this video might have been had it used even more stories...and stories of graduates working in the field. Although is more video than digital story, using images and voice-overs from program participants and graduates would still be a strong tool.

EDU 631: Design and Development for Student Support and Development Programs

This course is a program elective that delves into student development theory as it relates to the design and development of community college student support programs. In addition to having students share their own educational journey, they could, in small groups, review the research on a specific community college population and then craft a digital story of that population.....or they could  take it one step further and return to their individual institutions to talk to students in those populations and have them tell their stories.

A sideways move to Digital Storytelling and Marketing

With less and less money to go around, institutions of higher education need to find creative ways to market and "sell" their institutions - the values, culture, and personality of the institution, even the services the institution offers. According to Hill+Knowlton Strategies,  digital storytelling is one way to do this, to help companies - and institutions, set and deliver their brand:

If an institution prides itself on being student-entered, then a digital story in which students relate examples of a college's student-centeredness would be an ideal way to show this trait...and digital stories as those noted above would also do this.

Community College administrators are in a prime place to begin using this form of media to showcase their students, their staff, and their institutions...all without the aid of a video camera...but with incorporating digital images, music, text, and music.

Ah, the stories we could tell . . . with only text, digital images, music, and voice......

 References

Cuyahoga Community College. (2013, September 10).  Nuclear medicine 
               program at Tri-C [video file]. Retrieved from http://youtu.be/
              eQkBSIYTKeQ

Duke University. (2013, August 31). One day at Duke  [video file]. Retrieved from 

              http://youtu.be/AZHkvw6UaZs

Hill+Knowlton Strategies. (2013, October 18). Demystifying digital storytelling:
             Why is storytelling   so important in digital marketing? [video file].
             Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ibDu7olQ6E

Maestas, T. (2014, August 6). College can be scary [video file]. Retrieved from 

             http://youtu.be/nsGqzPIpccY

Schmitt, M. A., & Duggan, M. H. (2011). Exploring the impact of classified staff interactions on student retention: A case study approach. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 35(3), 179-190.

Schmitt, M. A., Duggan, M. H., Williams, M., & McMillan, J. (2014). Front-line educators: Impact of classified staff interactions on the student experience. Community College Journal of Research & Practice. 38(12), 1-20.