Resource Number 14

URL http://www.ourstory.com Keywords digital storytelling, writing, creative

Our Story
Category V Digital storytelling Rationale

The traditional text-oriented teaching/learning cannot offer a global vision of the learner's needs. As educational landscape is constantly growing, also the incentives need to be multifarious and creative. Our Story format offers possibility of engaging students actively in composing texts and stories inspired by their everyday life, and searching for additional material. Our Story also fosters teamwork and collaboration with classmates and develops student's ability to reflect critically on their own L2 experience which are the core necessities for making progress in L2. The rational for using this tool, and simultaneously its greatest benefits, are: To improve students writing skills. To support students creativity. To express their personality. To encourage research by helping students invest in issues and engaging them in interactive processes of learning. To reinforce connections between teacher student lesson content and improves communication. To lowers students constraints and inconformity related with productive skill. It is a proved fact that some students prefer to share their digistories rather then read them loud. To promote classroom discussion, community awareness, global awareness, and a connection between what students do in the classroom and the wider community. This tool utilizes audiovisual aspects to support a learners digital text-based product and allows a professional result that learners can feel proud of displaying, even if their writing skills are limited. Its enjoyable format also helps enhance students motivation to learn languages by using an active learning tool. Description In today's digitized world, visual storytelling is an important classroom tool popular as well for its affordability and accessibility. Our Story is a tool that offers creating stories to express information. It is an innovative platform for capturing and sharing life events using text, photos and video. After you write and save a story to your profile you can share it with your friends by email. You can create a contact list using your current online contact lists. It is possible to embed your story into your MySpace, Blog, or your own website. There is also very useful Recent Stories Mosaic tool which provides links to the most recent stories created by your family and friends, and the most recent comments added to those stories. By clicking on an image in the mosaic you can read the story and comments. Resources required No special equipment to use this tool is needed. Obligatory resources Desktop computer or laptop Internet browser and connection Optional resources Printer if required

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The project Autonomous Personal Learning Networks for Language Teachers has been funded with support from the European Commission. This document reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Cost Partly Free Basic options are free. Premium features like font size, colour, bold, italics and spell-check are paid services. If you are a premium member you can add as many photos per story as you wish (standard members can only add 6 photos per story for free).

Setup and Configuration Registration is required. An account has to be found choosing Username and Password. After logging in you can start using the platform easily. Results can be embedded in a blog or wiki or other web page, or either shared by email.

Styling The website is very simple and user-friendly. Its an easy and clean way to create and present a story. In section Add Story you fill in Title of your story, Timeline Date, write the text of your story, add photos and/or video and click on Save to save the story. You can view all your saved stories in section My Timeline and Stories. They are ordered according to the date of saving. Navigation and operation Navigation is intuitive and as a mature tool is normally reliable and consistent. The main window is clearly-organized and the icons visibly marked. By clicking on Add Story you can start writing and adding stories. You can also add photos and video to go with your story. No special IT skills are required. This ease lowers barriers caused by unfamiliar e-environment and concentrate on the result. Once you have finished, you click on Save and your story will be saved to your profile in section My Timeline and Stories. A date of creation of each story is automatically added to enable creation a timeline of all your stories. There is also Quick Add button which allows you to quickly choose a topic of your new story. You just choose an icon from Life, Family and Friends, Children, Education, Work or Travel section and it automatically creates a template with chosen title so you can start writing your story straight away.

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The project Autonomous Personal Learning Networks for Language Teachers has been funded with support from the European Commission. This document reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Implementation methodology The entire process of digital storytelling consists of three phases: (1) pre-production, (2) production, and (3) post-production. Usage in classroom situations: Reflect on a particular life experience or event. Express opinion on certain topics. Illustrate a language problem. Collect vocabulary illustrating with examples. Talk about family, education, travel, work. Draw attention to each student's life experience and adventures. Deal with a topic or problem given which might be personal or wider social. The results can be printed, emailed, embedded into a website or blog, and/or placed in the classroom. Another possibility is to select the most interesting or the funniest story between all the students and place it on school websites or in a school magazine. Example of implementation Type of lesson: General English course Level: B2 of CEFR Lesson Title: Childhood stories Age group: Young adults (aged 18 - 21) Number of students involved: 17 Duration: 90 min. Introduction: T presents the content and aim of today lesson to use Our Story format to present funny and interesting stories from each student's childhood. Lead in: T asks SS about their childhood, their family and family members, family trips and adventures. Modelling: T presents to SS the new resource showing it on a projector screen connected to a PC with Internet access. As an example, T shows SS how to set up an account and create a story. T produces a sample story adding a photo or/and a video to give them a clear idea of how to work with the application. Task: In the lesson, or as homework, SS are asked to create a story introducing some experience or adventure from their childhood, including photographs and videos. The task is supposed to be carried out individually so that each student makes his/her own active approach. Lesson flow: SS choose a single adventure or event from their childhood and they use a text, videos and photos to describe it. After this, they email their results to Ts email address. Output: T receives to his email account SSs stories and comments on them in the next lesson. Follow up: As a final step, the result can be shared by email, embedded to a website or blog or seen directly in the screen. In the classroom blog, results can be compared and commented. Students can browse for videos in the platform You Tube.

Useful tips .

This Factsheet is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 2.0 License. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

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The project Autonomous Personal Learning Networks for Language Teachers has been funded with support from the European Commission. This document reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.