building a community of practice around digital storytelling
DESCRIPTION
I gave this talk at CLAC 2009, held at Occidental CollegeTRANSCRIPT
building a community of practicearound
digital storytelling
Eric BehrensAssociate CITO, Swarthmore College
what is digital storytelling?
Digital storytelling uses personal digital technology to combine a number of media into a coherent narrative.—Jason Ohler, Digital Storytelling in the Curriculum
http://www.storycenter.org
Many individuals and communities have used the term "digital storytelling" to describe a wide variety of new media production practices. What best describes our approach is its emphasis on personal voice and facilitative teaching methods. Many of the stories made in our workshops are directly connected to the images collected in life's journey. But our primary concern is encouraging thoughtful and emotionally direct writing.—Joe Lambert, Center for Digital Storytelling
combined media
personal voice
facilitative teaching
direct writing
1440
3-day workshops
participants
year
the t-word
training
1. get them to sign up2. get them to show up3. get them to use what they learned
hard
harder
wow, that’s hard
Frustrations for technology trainers
If we are really so concerned with
his nourishment, maybe we’d
better think about how we teach the
man to fish.
COMMUNITIESof
PRACTICE
Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.—Etienne Wenger
Beginners pick up on a group’s practices through interaction with peers and more experienced members.
Meaning is made through sharing of collective experience.
Allowance for varying levels of legitimate participation; with increased participation, one learns more.
Attributes of CoP’s
CLAC is a thriving community of practice
developing our community of practice
workshops are just the starting point
academic technologies staff are participants
share our work
support ongoing work and new explorations
case: learning 4 life
“Because the sessions utilized so many ITS resources, participants seemed to become more comfortable in these spaces and going to ITS employees for resources. Learning the names of everyone in Beardsley made the space seem less foreign and more open to all members of the community.”
—Gina Grubb ’10, Learning 4 Life
advice for other digital storytelling CoP’s
recruit, retain, keep a waiting list
faculty like workshopping with staff, and vice versasome people don’t see themselves as storytellerscareful scheduling essential to participation
be an educator-participant, not a trainer
find brokers
thank you for listening to our story.