Digital Storytelling | Week 8
Conclusions
Closing Playlist: This is a long post. You need music.
Week 8 winding down. Are you feeling like you have Head Full Of Doubt/Road Full Of Promise? This is my final week of grad school, so right now, I’m the latter. This class changed me as a learner and inspired me as an instructor. I couldn’t have asked for a better note on which to sign off.
Now, here’s what I look forward to doing for bit:
You’re invited on my Hero’s Journey! Click Here.
*Navigate the path using your arrow keys.*

The Semester Stretch
When I started this course, I didn’t know what to expect. Storytelling has always scared me a bit, like when someone asks you to tell a joke and your mind goes blank. I never have considered myself a storyteller, preferring to defer to more gregarious folks around me.
I’m usually fairly shy about sharing my work, especially anything media based, so a major stretch in this class came in the form of posting assignments and blog posts to Twitter. However, I feel I embraced this challenge with enthusiasm. I also used the space to share additional resources, give feedback and encouragement and interact on a different level outside of hypothes.is.
Where I tried to stretch the most was finding ways to blend media to make full-scale projects. I’m familiar with many free tools out there. What I didn’t want to do was create one-off animations or stand alone products each week. This was not about the tool, for me. It was about presenting a full narrative. I wanted a week’s work to have a tie-in. A good example of this blending would be my Jabberwocky interactive site followed up with tweeting the poem. The site used all types of media and the social component was related. Additionally, week four’s X-Files theme showcased web objects and graphics within remixing and Your Library Life podcast, Typeform and Twitter conversation used a theme and learner participation to set the stage for a continuous narrative.
I certainly could go further, for example, trying new types of video production. Given more time, I’d like to hone my skills with design software like Photoshop in order to make my graphic productions more polished and cohesive.
I really enjoyed the web assignments (Thimble, and X-Ray Goggles) despite some technical difficulties. I even threw in a 6-word challenge (featuring Dorothy on her hero’s journey) this week. Storytelling through code or web design is pretty fascinating business, and really quite attainable for a spectrum of learning levels. This was a medium I found challenging in the moment, but satisfying with the completion of each project.
Knowledge Me
In From Knowledgeable to Knowledge-Able, Michael Wesch suggests that “real learning happens in the intellectual throw-down as opposed to acquiring information.” Expanding on that, INTE5340 pushed us to think of our digital instructional spaces as places not of information dumping, but as space for collaboration and innovation based on social change motivators.
Storytelling plays a substantial role in this quest for whole learning in that it is immersive, inspires empathy and elicits desire for learners to become involved. From Maxine Greene:
“We also have our social imagination: the capacity to invent visions of what should be and what might be in our deficient society, on the streets where we live, in our schools.”
Certainly, this described the experience of participating in Learning Through Digital Stories. I found myself bringing together the intellectual with the artistic and I stitched together different narratives each week. As I grew more comfortable with the layout of the class, I began to envision how I would use storytelling as a tool in my own professional projects.
Creative Cultures, About Us & Changes I’d Make
Listen below for my reflection on the questions posed in our week 8 module.
Assignments By Media Recap
The following video outlines my use of the required media types in this class. A linked list of individual assignments lives here, and outlines primary media use as well as the types of media used each week.
Some 6 word Thimble advice for future INTE5340-ers.

Final Daily Create (for this class, anyway).



Unrelated to INTE5340, but one hell of a good blog post on re-imagining the syllabus!

It’s not goodbye. It’s to be continued.

