This week we are digging further into the core of what we mean by storytelling as well as how we can deliver meaningful, powerful stories through visual means.
I recommend the top four links on Diigo EDU 571 Summer 14 Week 2 as good places to start your thinking. If you've gotten your hands on the course texts, Austin Kleon would treat you well as both a source of information as well as a source of inspiration -- look at how those two books are designed.
BEFORE We Get Further Into the Content for the Week . . .
Here are some thoughts regarding the course.
The Thinking Behind Digital Storytelling Challenges for the Week
I'm adding this little heading to help clarify the intent of the weekly work. Over the space of the course, you must identify, explore and demonstrate facility with three digital storytelling tools. These weekly challenges serve as structured explorations to meet that goal over the space of the course. The weekly challenges are not required -- you'll note the rubric doesn't identify them as part of your formal assessment. They are there to give folks concrete challenges to push their thinking and to serve as examples of the sort of digital storytelling formative and summative assessments we might use in our various impact areas.
Course Design & Continuous Evolution
One challenge for me as an instructor: providing a balance of self-determination and structure to meet all of the learning styles evident in this course. Thus, the course will bend and flex, shift and adjust with each week. As always, ask questions. Advocate for your needs. Let me know what I can do to help.
Assessing Course Work, On Going Dialogue & Honoring Privacy
Expect weekly, if not more frequent, commentary on your blog and Twitter posts. As you complete the more robust assessments, including the artifact work, expect feedback as soon as possible.Working in a digital environment presents interesting challenges in commenting on student work. I've found that general public praise (favoriting, retweeting, Google +1-ing, forwarding, etc.) provides a quick thumbs up and that more specific public praise feels good -- let's folks know they are on the right track.
I've found public dialogue around ideas, pressing critical questions, pushing folks to challenge their comfort zones, may create some discomfort at first, yet yields pretty good results in terms of building understanding.
I've found constructive criticism works best in private.
Thus, I may challenge your ideas on Twitter and I may ask a question in a blog post comment. If I feel you aren't quite hitting the mark or I'm worried about the best way to phrase a comment, I will send an e-mail.
And now, the rest of the content for this week . . .
FIRST Digital Storytelling Challenge for the Week
Tell a meaningful nine-image visual story that reveals something important about who you are using ________ content source and ___________ digital tool.
Suggested Content Menu
The Noun Project
Creative Commons Licensed Images
Personal Digital Photos (Why Sift Through Flickr or Google Images? Take Your Own. Do What You Want.)
Personal Drawings (Why Take a Picture When You Can Draw Exactly What You Want?)
Suggested Digital Tool Menu
Google Drawing/Document/Presentation (Found in Google Drive)
Padlet
Real Time Board
Slideshare (In Conjunction w Keynote/PowerPoint)
Key to this challenge: Visuals only. Only nine. No more. No less. Save the text. Dig deep into the core of story.
In so doing, it can be very helpful to learn from folks who manipulate the power of image professionally: graphic designers and brand marketers.
The business world has a tremendous amount to teach us about looking at story from a less traditional point-of-view. Dan Pink's Whole New Mind includes some fantastic insights around employing story to transform business -- one of the reasons we are reading that text.
The Diigo links for Week 2 include a variety of articles around this very notion.
I suggest starting with this one from Getty Images' brand Curve. Look at those criteria they use for assessing powerful, compelling images and wonder how might you apply that same criteria in digital storytelling.
SECOND Digital Storytelling Challenge for the Week (This One Is a Toughie)
Share a meaningful understanding from your content area in the form of a narrative infographic. If you haven't seen many infographics, check out http://visual.ly/ which is a fantastic archive.
Suggested Tools
PiktoChart
Infogram
Achievable Mentor Text
http://visual.ly/common-fairytale-narratives-beast-edition
Powerful & Challenging Mentor Text
http://jessandruss.us/
The key is shaping the factual information into a compelling narrative while also using simplified visuals to improve clarity and understanding. Infographics are such a robust and challenging medium, I almost saved them for later in the course. However, I wanted those folks who are ready to push the envelope to start thinking about such constructs as more than just ways of sharing raw data. These graphic designs can becoming amazing hybrids of factual data and compelling story.
That's it for Week 2! Enjoy getting into the texts -- they are are perfect source material to get your blogging thinking going. Keep following #UMFEDU571 on Twitter as I will be posing more and more questions and ideas and resources there and using that as place for dialogue.
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