Students learn to tell a story and communicate in English as a foreign language using a variety of 2.0 web tools. They first create a Tackk webpage to gather information about a famous celebrity of their choice and then a video fictional interview with the involvement of a peer.
This video storytelling project was carried out with 11th grade students of a High School in Northern Italy. These students learn Classical Ballet & Modern Dance at school, along with more traditional academic subjects among which English as a Foreign Language. The project aimed at stimulating students' creativity and motivation to learn, by focussing on their priviledged learning style, which is definitely more of an aural-visual-chinaesthetic type rather than logical-rational.
Students created fictional interviews with their favourite dancers, singers, artists. All videos were uploaded on Edmodo and uTube
(see uTube Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjKx35VlMDof1PVtrnJk-PCKrqRCvHcSP)
By combining narrative with digital content and including their own images, sound and video, students were able to create a short movie with a strong emotional component. Moreover, working on a project helped students develop a wide range of communicative and cross-curriculum competences.
- Use the English language in known contexts, also beyond classroom walls
- Gather and reuse information in different ways using a variety of digital tools
- Use vocabulary related to jobs & professions, and personal past experiences
- Improve pronunciation, fluency & oracy
- Learn how to construct knowledge in a personally meaningful way
- Provide peers with quality feedback and comments on each other's work
Because of unreliable wifi connectivity and little IT available at school, only two iPads, a laptop and the students' own smartphones were used.
Methodology: Cooperative & Peer Learning through groupwork & pairwork; personalised learning, digital storytelling
Students took turns on the two iPad available in class to create videos. They used their own smartphones to source and share digital material on the Internet, and to rehearse their interviews or listen with their ear-phones to the trial tracks recorded on their smartphones.
Students could use a variety of digital tools, among which:
- Edmodo eLearning platform for sharing and posting digital resources.
- Text-to-speech option on the iPads or Google Translator for correct pronunciation.
- Spreaker podcasting tool to record all interviews.
- iMovie for the creation of the introductory trailers.
- Wevideo for video.
20
Building a narrative and communicating it effectively requires the students to think carefully about the topic and consider the audience’s expectations. Moreover, it is of paramount importance in our digital world that students learn how to shift from mere digital content consumers to digital content creators. In few words, digital storytelling can facilitate across-curriculum teaching of 21st century skills, and in particular:
Critical Thinking
Communication
Personal Responsibility
Digital Literacy
Creativity
Collaboration
As such, Video Storytelling could be efficiently applied to almost any subject at school, because the digital stories can incorporate any type of content. Depending on the focus, a digital story can be instructional, persuasive, historical or reflective. In any case, telling a story through a video gives students the possibility to become active learners.
Video Storytelling can not only unleash students' creativity in class, but it can also prove very rewarding for the classroom teacher. Shifting from a teacher-centred approach to a more learner-centred one can help release tension and build up teamwork in the classroom. Moreover, the mandatory choice of Creative Commons images is an excellent lead-in activity to teach about responsibility and digital citizenship.