Sinead was in Year 6 at Bishop Parker Primary School in Milton Keynes. Despite the best efforts of her teacher Kathy Olsson, Sinead was just not achieving. She was unhappy, had a very poor self image and was sidelined by many of her classmates. She never completed any work and was struggling both academically and socially.
The school took part in a pilot project on digital storytelling run by the East of England Broadband Network. The brief was to tell with a story, which had to be true, and produce pictures or ideas for video clips that could be shot very quickly.
For some reason, this really captured Sinead’s imagination and she told the story of her dog Rex from his days as a puppy, chewing her Teddies and Barbies, through to his death. A lovable rogue, he brought down the curtains and opened the bathroom window until he got too old.
When her story was shown to the rest of the class they saw her in a different light. She had become a person in her own right, an individual and not just the surly girl at the back of the class who did as little as possible. Some of the boys started asking her to help them construct their story boards and to decide what to include and how to tell their stories. Her confidence grew and this had a knock on effect on her reading and writing. She was much more likely to have a go and try to do things instead of hanging back and feeling a failure.
Brendan Routledge was not part of this original pilot but has seen many examples where the power of digital storytelling has changed young people’s lives: “Once you have learnt something personal and interesting about someone, you never see them in quite the same way again and that can have a major impact on how they behave and how they see themselves.” He is now a partner in Suffolk Education Consultants delivering training and consultancy to local authorities and schools throughout the eastern region.
Brendan believes digital storytelling has many applications across the curriculum. He worked with Orwell High School in Felixstowe where Food Technology teacher Nick Day was tearing his hair out over his year 8 group.
"They were really good at the practical work," Brendan explained, "but they could not write it up." Often they would just get as far as writing the date and title before inspiration failed.
Brendan and Nick gave them the tools and skills to document their work. After a quick demonstration, pupils were left to make apple crumble and then they used digital cameras to chronicle each stage of the process before recording a voice-over. The end result is excellent. It includes demonstrations, descriptions of processes as well as an evaluation and it can be used as a resource for future classes.
This was their first attempt at working in this way but despite not being familiar with the technology, it took them no longer to make their digital record than it took the rest of the class to write up results on paper. ‘This is an important point,’ said Brendan, ‘because if it takes two hours to do then it will be a non-starter in most classrooms but this is an immediate and very direct method of capturing and recording achievements.’
Digital storytelling can also bridge the gap between generations. One class did a history project about the 1950s where they collated memories and photographs from their grandparents. There is also a striking example from Stoke Ash primary School in Suffolk. During the Second World War, there was an American airbase at Mendlesham. The school decided to use this as the lynchpin for a project for the whole of KS2. They looked at local history books and moved on to a more extensive research project based on correspondence and archive records. The pupils also visited the American War Cemetery at Madingley, near Cambridge, where they found the graves of airmen who had been based at their airfield.
Last year they met a number of the veterans on their annual visit to the airfields of East Anglia. The pupils produced digital stories based on individual airmen, particular planes and a tour of the airfield then and now. They also coupled poems written by one of the airmen with digital images. The stories were eventually turned into a DVD with additional material from a memorial service held at the school which was attended by senior US Air Force officers.
"The head teacher was able to travel to USA in September and present the finished work to the veterans at their annual reunion,’" said Brendan. "This was a very emotional experience. The veterans were overwhelmed by the interest taken in their stories and by the quality of the work produced by such young children."
There’s no doubt about it, digital stories are making an impact in all sorts of different areas. Brendan has been involved in projects with health authorities using digital storytelling as a way of letting patients have a voice in the service. ‘In 2004, we entered some of our stories in a film festival in Vermont. We were delighted to win two awards, including the People's Choice award.’ The BBC too is getting in on the act with projects such as Talking Teenagers, Talking Lives and Capture Wales.
It seems to be that digital storytelling is a medium is well suited to fostering a sense of kinship and community. It has an immediate appeal because it combines images, sound and text and gives us the sense of drawing back the curtain on someone else’s life if only for a few moments. Certainly this technology offers a rich resource and way of working for pupils who are not succeeding with more conventional methods.
What makes a good digital story?
- It should be short – people get restless after a few minutes and the story loses its power.
- The best examples are based on personal experiences so that we learn something about the individual storytellers, their life and their attitudes.
- Go for a few carefully chosen images, a voice-over and/or background music and simple titling. Don’t let the technology overwhelm the story.
- Find sources of copyright free music. In Suffolk the Regional Broadband Consortia (RBC) has entered into an agreement with the music production company Audio Network
- Get good pictures, these might be digital camera or scanned or drawn but the more pictures you have to choose from the better the end result.
- Don’t let the work drag on. Many pupils can make something quite good in a short space of time. Too much time leads to loss of impetus.
What technology do you need?
Brendan Routledge mostly uses Windows MovieMaker. This is because Windows XP is the operating system in many schools and MovieMaker often comes as part of the system.
However, schools may prefer to use different software such as iMovie (Mac), Pinnacle Studio, Premiere Elements or the recently released Revelation Sight & Sound from Logotron. They are all based on the same storyboard or timeline technology which is essential for planning and use the same special effects and transitions so pupils find it easy to transfer their skills.
