digital storytelling

Rice University has undertaken an initiative to start using the things that their students are already using.  Students indicated that they don't use email (email is for old people).  They use their social networking tools.  Watch this video.

Comments from the audience:

In this podcast we feature a conversation with Bryan Alexander, Director for Research at the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE) , and Gail Matthews-DeNatale, Associate Director for Academic Technology at Simmons College . This discussion was recorded at the ELI 2008 Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Texas.

Digital storytelling merges leading-edge technology with age-old storytelling processes. Digital stories are typically in video format but can also include Web pages, digital maps, and other emerging technology mashups. With the addition of a Web 2.0 focus, audience also becomes co-author. How do these concepts apply to pedagogy and how can instructors evaluate and assess the process and final product?

Gail Matthews-DeNatale presented a session at ELI 2008 entitled, "Digital Story Making: Understanding the Learner's Perspective".

In my last learning partner update, I shared the NMC and Educause Horizon Report from 2007. My post was a retrospective look at their findings nearly a year ago.

The report included key trends, critical challenges and technologies to watch, and I highlighted one of the urgent things to notice was a lack of information literacy. Combined with that is an opportunity to look at the skills gap identified in the Horizon report:

There is a skills gap between understanding how to use tools for media creation and how to create meaningful content. Although the new tools make it increasingly easy to produce multimedia works, students lack essential skills in composition, storytelling and design.