Digital Storytelling 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, an overview on the occasion of the ‘New ways’ book launch

The CICERO symposium overall goal today was to launch the new book ‘New Ways to Teach and Learn in China and Finland‘. My talk aimed to present our chapter and, by the way, I made a quick overview of our Digital Storytelling research experiences and insights. Our involvement with digital storytelling is not new. With the team of researchers at Cicero learning and with Hannele Niemi and Jari Multisilta as Principal Investigators at that time we have been investigating the way teachers integrate digital technologies into their professional practices and how the students use the technologies to build and exchange ideas, to ask questions, to experiment with language and in the lab, since 2012.

Throughout this time digital storytelling has been the glue to tie these projects together.

Digital Storytelling 1.0: The FINNABLE2020 -‘Boundless Classroom’ (2012-2014) project, whose aim was to seek new ways to connect formal and informal learning environments and encourage students’ active learning and knowledge creation with video stories. One of the goals was also to promote tools for knowledge sharing and to advance 21st century skills, especially problem solving and creativity. This phase involved diverse school environments in primary and secondary education in Finland, Greece and California.

Digital Storytelling draws from Global Sharing Pedagogy framework that was discussed by Hannele and Jari in their studies. The framework places the focus of interest on learners and one primary objective is to understand what factors interact for learner engagement in learning.

The second phase (2.0): ‘Video Inquiry Project: STEM Learning and Teaching with Mobile Video Inquiries and Communities’ (2013-2015) and was part of a joint Finnish-American project. This one aimed to create innovative tools and provide research findings supporting new pedagogical models that foster learners’ and teachers’ interests in and joint attention to the power of science and mathematics in explaining phenomena ‘in the everyday world’. The project activities took place in primary schools in Finland and California. In both projects, students created video stories collaboratively.

The third phase (3.0): the Sino-Finnish collaboration project (2015-2017) that aims to build bridges of collaboration at the academic and research level between the Finnish and Chinese Universities. Currently, we are working on our studies in China, reflecting upon our joint efforts with colleagues from PKU and BNU to introduce digital storytelling as a new way of thinking pedagogy and teaching practices in primary schools in Beijing.

Our involvement with digital storytelling is not new. With the team of researchers at Cicero learning and with Hannele Niemi and Jari Multisilta as Principal Investigators at that time we have been investigating the way teachers integrate digital technologies into their professional practices and how the students use the technologies to build and exchange ideas, to ask questions, to experiment with language and in the lab, since 2012.

Throughout this time digital storytelling has been the glue to tie these projects together.

Digital Storytelling 1.0: The FINNABLE2020 -‘Boundless Classroom’ (2012-2014) project, whose aim was to seek new ways to connect formal and informal learning environments and encourage students’ active learning and knowledge creation with video stories. One of the goals was also to promote tools for knowledge sharing and to advance 21st century skills, especially problem solving and creativity. This phase involved diverse school environments in primary and secondary education in Finland, Greece and California.

Digital Storytelling draws from Global Sharing Pedagogy framework that was discussed by Hannele and Jari in their studies. The framework places the focus of interest on learners and one primary objective is to understand what factors interact for learner engagement in learning.

The second phase (2.0): ‘Video Inquiry Project: STEM Learning and Teaching with Mobile Video Inquiries and Communities’ (2013-2015) and was part of a joint Finnish-American project. This one aimed to create innovative tools and provide research findings supporting new pedagogical models that foster learners’ and teachers’ interests in and joint attention to the power of science and mathematics in explaining phenomena ‘in the everyday world’. The project activities took place in primary schools in Finland and California. In both projects, students created video stories collaboratively.

The third phase (3.0): the Sino-Finnish collaboration project (2015-2017) that aims to build bridges of collaboration at the academic and research level between the Finnish and Chinese Universities. Currently, we are working on our studies in China, reflecting upon our joint efforts with colleagues from PKU and BNU to introduce digital storytelling as a new way of thinking pedagogy and teaching practices in primary schools in Beijing.

During this whole time, there have been several actors and networks involved, teachers, students, and digital stories made by students, while 2 web-based environments were developed. Movie (Mobile Video Experience) shifted from version 1.0 to 2.0, while EdVisto, a contemporary web-community-based platform, took in shape based on our research insights.

We have also published the findings of our studies and opened up our research experiences and insights in conferences in Europe, the US, China and elsewhere. In our studies, we have used quantitative and qualitative methods and tackled topics such as student engagement, learning with fun, the creative use of interactive web-based platforms, the use of technology for student initiative, the pedagogies of the future and others. In the New Ways to Teach and Learn we come up with a typology of student generated digital stories.

In our chapter: Student-driven knowledge creation through digital storytelling we discuss how it can be possible to break classroom boundaries with Digital stories. These can present different sets of events. Some focus on instances of the object of study and others present have more complex plots. While the former act like zoom-in lenses of the classroom narrative, the latter build up networks of actions. In both cases the students can act as storytellers and as characters. The characters of the stories can be real or fictional. Stories can have a close relationship with themes grounded in curricular requirements, or can be indirectly linked with it.

Overall, digital storytelling for student-driven knowledge creation produced subject-based, interdisciplinary and student-initiated stories in multimodal formats. These artifacts required both on-site and out-of-school settings to result in enriched and embodied learning experiences. 21st century learning outcomes, therefore, necessitated the development of multiliteracies and multimodalities as well as holistic and integrative approaches to teaching and learning.

Learning with digital storytelling, therefore, seems to be a dynamic and spiral, rather than linear, process.

Wrapping up this presentation: the findings of our research indicate that breaking the boundaries of formal learning entails the consideration of all aspects of sharing pedagogies globally: the content of learning, the medium of communication (whether linguistic or technological), willingness for collaboration and the confluence of networking resources for more diverse and flexible communication.

Digital storytelling in a Global Sharing Pedagogy framework, indeed, seems to be able to enrich the scope of formal learning experiences.

‘In order to survive, we should keep telling stories’ U. Eco 

to be continued…

Sino-Finnish Joint Learning Innovation Institute Forum on Learning and Mind

Within the framework of Sino-Finnish collaboration, Beijing Normal University organised a 3-day conference in Zhuhai and a symposium in Beijing late last October (23-25 & 29.10.2016). The two events aimed to inaugurate and to provide a forum for exchange and discussion on research and themes related to the Sino-Finnish Joint Innovation Institute. Both Chinese and Finnish scholars delivered keynote speeches and presentations, and participated in discussions aiming to deepen collaboration links and exchanges between Finnish and Chinese Universities. From the Finnish part, there were delegates from the Universities of Helsinki, Tampere, Oulu and Jyväskylä, and the Academy of Finland. From the Chinese part, there were academics and researchers from Beijing Normal and Peking University.

The main goal of our team was to present the research project on ‘Teaching and learning with digital storytelling and digital pen’. The project takes place in November-December 2016 and aims to investigate the use of digital technologies and a digital pen with digital storytelling as a 21st century pedagogy in two primary classrooms in Helsinki and 2 in Beijing. Through the pedagogical interventions and the findings of the study, the project also aims to offer suggestions on how to implement student-centred methods and open up opportunities for active involvement and engagement with learning math in school.

Professor Hannele Niemi, who is the Scientific leader of the project, gave a comprehensive talk on the main aspects of the research plan, and discussed the need for new pedagogies, practices and tools. Hannele, who is also the Chair of the Joint Institute, gave keynote speeches in BNU, Zhuhai & Beijing, and was invited speaker by the Graduate School of Education, Peking University. In PKU, Hannele discussed student-driven knowledge creation in relation to the new Finnish Core Curriculum and 21st century pedagogical approaches, such as digital storytelling and game-based learning.

Professor Anna Mauranen, the Vice Rector of HU, delivered a keynote speech in BNU, Zhuhai. The Faculty of Behavioural Sciences, HU, also represented the Head of Teacher Education, Professor Jari Lavonen, the Vice-Dean Professor Heikki Ruismaki, & Professors Inkeri Ruokonen, Pirjo Aunio, Markku Niemivirta, Lotta Uusitalo-Malmivaara, Katariina Salmela-Aro, & CICERO Research Director Mari Tervaniemi with research presentations and participation in fora & discussions in Zhuhai and Beijing.

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Conference Proceedings: zhuhai-conference-proceedings-part1 zhuhai-conference-proceedings-part2

Experiences of travelling

Watch video!

Here is a compilation of mine and Veera’s trip to Beijing some one and a half month ago. Our focus was to work with teachers in primary schools and meet with scholars at the Graduate School of Education, Peking University. But, still, there is no such thing as a one-way directed experience. So, this is an effort to tell our story visually and multimodally and draw a more comprehensive picture. Like the video, this was a multi-level experience in the sense that we wanted to get into as many dimensions of living in Beijing as possible within one week. In a sense, we compacted time in a similar way that the still and moving images recount 7 days’ events into 6+ minutes. Technically, the musical background has been selected by the editing software. So it cannot be really seen as personal touch. But there are interruptions of still images with very short edited clips to show what are our reactions were like or how we felt during the visit.

Some new approaches to storytelling may be on the way?

Digital Storytelling goes Beijing

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Last November Digital Storytelling traveled in Beijing where Veera Kallunki and myself discussed previous research experience and findings with Primary School Teachers, Principals, Professors and Post-graduate students at the Department of Educational Technology, Peking University. It was a warm welcome for our presence there as members of CICERO Learning-University of Helsinki Research team specialising on the integration of digital technologies in pedagogical practices. The interest in Digital storytelling as pedagogical method developed during the Round Table discussions that Professor Hannele Niemi (Faculty of Behavioural Sciences, HU & Scientific Leader of our team) hosted and co-organized with Professor Jiyou Jia (Graduate School of Education, PKU).

The delegation of Chinese scholars agreed about the potential of digital storytelling to enhance student engagement and deeper learning and a joint plan for research collaboration between PKU and HU was established.  Our visit in Beijing was an opportunity to meet with professionals and scholars and get further and deeper into the details of storytelling. Also it opened up new perspectives in approaching storytelling from both a scientific and a pedagogical lens.

And, most certainly, this new twofold experience and how it develops and grows is something that we are all looking forward to.

FINNABLE 2020

FINNABLE 2020 is a value network project that will create and develop

• a new ecosystem in learning, enabling people to learn regardless of time and place
• technologically enabled practices which bring added value to learning and teaching
• social practices that connect learners to global collaboration promoting life-long learning
• new forums for sharing knowledge and experiences promoting 21st century skills with an emphasis on creativity and problem solving
• new pedagogical models on how to break barriers between formal and non-formal learning settings using new technological tools
• a new prototype of Global Sharing Pedagogy and its applications globally and locally.