United World College of South East Asia East (UWCSEA-East) is an International School located in Singapore. It has a student population of 2,240 who come from 68 different countries and speak 50 different languages (UWCSEA, n.d.). Around 40% of the students are bilingual and 12% speak more than two languages. As an international school drawing on an expatriate population, it has a high student turnover and the community can largely be described as cosmopolitan elite. The campus has two libraries, one for the Kindergarten and Primary students, and the other for Secondary students.
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Section
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Number
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Kindergarten
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353
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Primary School
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654
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Middle School
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587
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High School
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324
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IB
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321
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Total
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2,239
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Figure 1: Student breakdown by section
The school recently won the “21st Century school of the year award” (21stCL, 2013) and has a one-laptop-per-child program from Grade 6. Secondary school parents are ambivalent about the prevalence of computers in their children’s lives and often complain that their teenagers spend too much “non-productive” time on social media and online-game playing.
While the school offers a wide range of activities to the students, including outdoor adventure, sports, drama, music and socially driven clubs, there are no activities catering for creative writing or story-telling. There is a “techspert” club which deals with the technical rather than the creative aspects of technology and at present, besides the parents’ book club, the library does not run any programs outside of curriculum teaching, readers’ advisory, and reference or research assistance. Some teachers, learning support staff and librarians feel there is a need for a creative writing activity outside of the classroom to cater for younger adolescents who are introvert or struggle to express themselves due to shyness, learning differences or developing English skills and who would otherwise get “lost” in such a large, noisy, busy and extroverted campus.
The affordances of Web 2.0, social media and digital technology may have pedagogical and social benefits to secondary students, particularly those who are shy or socially awkward, and act as a bridge to physical relationships and interactions (Gorrindo, Fishel, & Beresin, 2012; Greenhow, Robelia, & Hughes, 2009). Educational research has indicated that exposure to technological tools in the creation of digital stories and book talks benefit students through increased motivation, engagement, ownership, control, confidence and deeper understanding. In turn, both the reading and writing aspects of textual literacy are improved (Barnard, 2011; Beach, 2012; Gunter & Kenny, 2008, 2012; Kenny & Gunter, 2004; Kenny, 2011; Ragen, 2012; Yoon, 2013). It was therefore decided to combine the creative writing and technology aspects in a “Digital Storytelling” eight-week interactive program.
This program will be targeted to Middle School students, (grades 6 to 8) for a number of reasons. Firstly, as students move into Middle School (around age 12), they loose the structure and security of one class teacher and a fixed group of classmates while at the same time academic demands become higher. In addition, besides losing part of their peer group from the previous year due to international relocations, the school adds extra classes and pupils, resulting in about a third of the cohort being new to both Singapore and the school. This is the age group where, in Eriksonian terms, students are struggling with the commencement of puberty, and the related psychological stresses of developing and discovering an identity, negotiating social interaction and affiliating with friends, causes and ideals (Greenhow et al., 2009). Finally, this development takes place within a digital and online context which may be overwhelming to young teens as they explore the boundaries of online social behaviour and interaction (Gorrindo et al., 2012) and may not have positive role models in their home or peer environments.
“One reason that an afterschool program can have such a large impact relates back to the developmental needs of teenagers” (Jones & Waddle, 2002, p. 43). These needs can be summarised as:
· Positive social interaction with adults and peers
· Structure and clear limits
· Physical activity
· Creative expression
· Competence and achievement
· Meaningful participation
· Opportunities for self-definition (Jones & Waddle, 2002 cited in Meyers, Fisher, & Marcoux, 2007)
The secondary library that will host this program is a two-level open-plan space with moveable bookshelves. Teenage students are comfortable in the welcoming library space which incorporates design thinking in creating zones for comfort, relaxation, reading and social interaction. The ground floor is mainly open plan with two study rooms with carousels and one large classroom (the Think Tank), while most of the collection is located on the first floor that additionally has two study rooms set up for audio-visual work.
Part 2: Design and develop a program
In this section, the following elements of program design will be covered: goals and objectives; cost and logistical considerations; marketing and promotion; and program delivery. Evaluation will be covered in the next section.
Goals and objectives
The primary goal is to design a program in which students can use technology in a positive and creative way to express themselves through storytelling in a safe environment that meets their developmental needs.
The program objectives, their relevance and how they will meet these needs are summarized below:
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Objective
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Relevance
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Related Developmental need
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1. Introduce students to concepts, examples and tools of digital storytelling
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Students are familiar with literature and with digital tools, however not with digital storytelling. This will broaden their competencies while scaffolding on what they already know.
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Competence and achievement
Structure and clear limits
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2. Support students in the creation of their own narratives using the tools of digital storytelling
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For successful creative output, students will need technical, literacy and social support in an encouraging non-judgmental environment
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Creative expression
Positive social interaction with Adults and Peers
Competence and Achievement
Opportunities for Self-definition
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3. Provide a forum for sharing, promotion, collaboration and interaction
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Student’s digital storytelling outputs receive validation through providing an appreciative audience while allowing them to contribute the same to their fellow participants.
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Positive social interaction with Adults and peers
Meaningful participation
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Figure 2: Objectives, relevance and developmental needs
Cost, staffing and other logistical considerations
Since the program will be run from the school library using school equipment, premises and staff, there are no associated program costs. Instruction time given to the program will count towards staff’s “educator activity contribution requirement”. Students will use their own laptops, pre-loaded with all the necessary software and digital tools for which the school has an education license.
· Image – iPhoto and Photoshop
· Moving image – iMovie
· Text – Google documents or Pages
· Music / sound / voice over – iTunes / Garage band / Voicethread
Thirteen Nikon D7000 cameras with tripods are available for loan during school hours to students and teachers. Besides the “Think Tank” meeting room where most of the sessions will be held, the library has two audio-visual rooms equipped with a television, projector and green or blue screen which will be reserved for program students during weeks 5 and 6, during the program time at lunch time. The program will run as an official school activity for eight weeks on a Monday afternoon from 15h15 to 17h00 so as not to clash with the sports and other activity programs. Sign up will be through the school activity sign up program. The activity is free and limited to 12 students selected from a pool of applicants in consultation with tutor mentors, learning support staff and the school counsellor.
Program delivery
Writing is a complex highly abstract process involving productive rather than receptive skills. These include cognitive, psychological and semiotic expertise within the social, cultural and historical context of the writer. Students often have an imbalance between their spoken and written abilities and get bored by the recursive steps of planning, prewriting, drafting, revising and editing (Thompson, 2012). Ways to encourage reluctant writers include ensuring that the topic is: relevant; of interest; taught naturally; understandable; engages emotions; expresses an inner world and is delivered in a playful manner (Vygotsky, 1978, cited in Nilsson, 2010). Fortunately, digital and technological tools have been shown to create new motivation and purpose in reluctant writers (Beach, 2012; Burke & Kafai, 2012; Dreon, Kerper, & Landis, 2011; Green, 2011; Hall, Hall, Hodgson, Hume, & Humphries, 2012; Morgan, 2014).
In the creation of this program, the above factors were considered, while the weekly structure follows the four P’s of digital storytelling (Knight, 2012):
· Plan (Objective 1 – concept and tool introduction) – weeks 1-3,
· Produce (Objective 2 – support students in their creation) – weeks 4-6,
· Publish and Promote (Objective 3 – provide a forum for sharing) – week 7
Instructors were carefully selected to ensure they had a good rapport with this age group, but were not involved with them as classroom teachers, so did not have any pre-conceptions about their writing, technological or creative skills.
An overview of the activities is given in Appendix 1.
Week 1: Experience it!
During the first session, a variety of digital literature will be made available to the group. An example of each type will be briefly introduced and then students will be free to chose and borrow the example that most appealed to them, or to find other examples in that genre.
Week 2: Telling Tales
This week the elements of storytelling will be introduced. Using the conceptual framework of Branigan (1992, cited in Kenny, 2011), story telling as a universal construct includes the interaction between a teller and the audience with the elements of time and place (background), cause (conflict or challenge) and effect (fight or flight) which result in a transformation as the story is resolved.
The acronym “I AM TOP CAMP” is a useful way to remember the principles of digital story telling, i.e. Interactive; Authentic; Meaningful; Technological; Organized; Productive; Collaborative; Appealing; Motivating; and Personalized (Yoon, 2013).
Figure 3: Storytelling process
Week 3: Storyboard
Building on the experiences of week one and learning of week two, students will be encouraged to start thinking about creating a storyboard for their own story. Comics and graphic books will be used to scaffold this activity (Hall et al., 2012). The elements of good design will be introduced, namely Contrast, Alignment, Repetition, Proximity otherwise known as CARP (Reynolds, 2008).
Week 4: Digital tool box
Each of the modal choices in digital storytelling (still and moving image, text, voiceover, music and sound (Buchholz, 2014)) requires the use of different technological tools, which can either be used separately, or in combination with each other.
Weeks 5 & 6: Production
Students are given the opportunity to create their own story. They have complete control over the type of story, tools to use and whether to work in a group or pairs or individually. Additional staff members will be available on a roving basis to trouble-shoot and assist students with any technical or story-telling difficulties they encounter. Audio-visual rooms and digital cameras will also be available during lunchtimes should students wish to work on their story outside of the activity time.
Week 7: Performance
One of the problems with creative writing is the perceived lack of an audience (Thompson, 2012). Although collaboration, interaction and sharing has been a part of all the activities up to now, this week the activity makes the audience explicit. The group’s productions will be shown at a special screening in the small black box theatre. Students can invite friends, parents and teachers.
Week 8: Reflection and celebration
In the final week, students will be able to reflect on their experiences during the last 7 weeks and provide feedback to the group (Survey – Appendix 4). This will be part of the evaluation discussed in the next section. Students will be allowed to bring along a snack for a celebratory party and will be invited to help as student volunteers in the Production stage of the next program.
Detailed activity plan – Week 1
Materials required
Laptop (MacBook) and iPads with preloaded eBook apps, screen, projector, apple TV for screening. The following digital literature should be preloaded onto iPads, available online or available for borrowing from the library catalog:
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Type
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Name
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Link
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Interactive Documentary
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A global guide to the first world war (Panetta, 2014)
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Twitterature
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100 Greek Myths retold in 100 tweets (Crown Publishing, 2012)
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Digital Novel
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Inanimate Alice (DreamingMethods, 2012)
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Vlog
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Lizzie Bennet Diaries (Su, Noble, Rorick, & Austen, 2014)
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Animated dreamtime stories
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Dust Echoes (ABC, 2007)
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iPad app and eBook
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Shakespeare in Bits – Romeo and Juliette (Mindconnex Learning Ltd, 2012)
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Figure 4: Digital Literature examples for screening
Step by step procedures of what is to be done
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Item
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Equipment / Material
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Timing
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Greet students and ask for a brief introduction with name, class, where they are from and any experience or expectations they have from the program.
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Stickers for students to write the names on
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10 minutes
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Perform a short icebreaker such as “two truths and one lie” with students in pairs.
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n/a
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10 minutes
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Ask students to do initial survey using google forms.
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Survey (Appendix 3)
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5 minutes
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Show snippets of the first three examples of digital story telling – A Global guide to the first world war, 100 Greek Myths and Inanimate Alice.
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Laptop, projector and screen. Ensure various resources are open to minimise turnover time
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3 resources, 5 minutes each = 15 minutes
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Open discussion on what appeals to the students
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Use the elements of successful digital story telling i.e. Interactive; Authentic; Meaningful; Technological; Organized; Productive; Collaborative; Appealing; Motivating; and Personalized (Yoon, 2013) to scaffold activity
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20 minutes
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Give students a break to have a snack, use the washroom, etc.
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10 minutes
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Show snippets of the next three examples of digital story telling – Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Dust Echoes and Shakespeare in Bits – Romeo and Juliette.
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Laptop, projector and screen. Ensure various resources are open to minimise turnover time.
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3 resources, 5 minutes each = 15 minutes
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Ask students to choose the type of digital storytelling that most appeals to them; they can explore the resource in the remaining class time and borrow the resource to explore further at home.
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Assist with loan and downloading of materials or searching of similar materials.
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20 minutes
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Finish in time for buses / pickup
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Total 1 hour 45 minutes
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Figure 5: Step by Step Procedure for week 1
Audience, staffing and other considerations
As discussed in Part 1, there will be 12 middle school students aged 12 – 15 years. All students should have a laptop and access to the library catalog and the Internet. The secondary school librarian will demonstrate the material and show where similar material can be found in the catalog. An assistant librarian should be on hand to troubleshoot if students have problems loading the apps or eBooks, signing in or any other technical difficulties. Ensure room shades are all working so the room can be darkened sufficiently.
Marketing and promotion
The school markets all activities through the website and has a centralized signup program, however, as this is a new activity, additional promotion will be needed. A promotional calendar has been created including a short synopsis of each activity and its relevance (see Figure 2 below, and Appendix 1 for the promotional calendar).
Figure 6: Promotional Calendar
Printed posters will be put in the library, hallways, and elevator notice boards. In order to attract those students who would most benefit from the program a combination of “pull” and “push” promotion will be needed, so flyers will be given to Middle School language teachers, digital literacy coaches, learning support teachers and school counsellors who will be encouraged to discuss participation with students who may benefit from the program. A link to the calendar will also be placed on the library portal and in the school newsletter, the eBrief.
Part 3: Evaluation and reflection
How to evaluate the program
There are two main ways in which participants will evaluate the program. In the first place a questionnaire will be completed (see Appendix 4). Secondly students will reflect on their own work and give feedback to other participants as part of the reflection in Week Eight. Students are used to the PNI method of reflecting on the Positives, Negatives and possible Improvements. The most relevant evaluation however will be whether the activity is seen as interesting in subsequent semesters with demand and over-subscription from students during the Season 2 signup period. Although the student as “client” will be the main evaluator of the program, the teachers and digital, visual and text literacy coaches will also be asked to give feedback on the content, logistics and perceived usefulness of the program.
Some digital storytelling programs have administered pre- and post- program literacy tests to students to evaluate the efficacy of the program (Barnard, 2011; Beach, 2012; Gunter & Kenny, 2008; Ragen, 2012; Yoon, 2013). But, since the primary goal of the program is to provide a social and creative outlet for students using digital tools, this will not be undertaken formally. However, the tutor mentors of the students participating in the program will be asked if they feel the program had any impact on the students socially or academically.
Reflection
One of the issues to be considered in this program will be the possible duality in the audience it attracts. On the one hand it may appeal to students with a passion for reading and writing, who already have a high level of sophistication and affiliation for writing. On the other, it may appeal to students who have difficulties in expressing themselves due to learning or language difficulties. They may be attracted by the expressive affordances of digital literature, the lure of technology or they may be encouraged to join in by their English teacher, learning or language support teacher or school counsellor. An important consideration would be how to cater to both these groups allowing each to build on their strengths without compromising the needs of either. A further concern is that students will put a disproportionate amount of time into struggling with flashy technology and this will compromise the story-telling process. For this reason, digital tools are only introduced in the fourth week, after storytelling and the storyboard has been completed. During the mentoring, digital literacy coaches should remind students of academic honesty, consideration of DRM (digital rights management) and the correct accreditation or attribution of images and other material.
In setting up this program, older students were not considered, since once they move into High School and the International Baccalaureate program; study and exam pressures result in limited time for participation in activities. In the primary school, extensive writing workshops are already in place, led by the literacy coach. At a later stage, if the program is successful it could be expanded to include other groups of students.
Finally, it is important to reflect on the developmental needs of teenagers in the light of the objectives and characteristics of the program.
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Objective
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1. Introduce students to concepts, examples and tools of digital storytelling
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2. Support students in the creation of their own narratives using the tools of digital storytelling
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3. Provide a forum for sharing, promotion, collaboration and interaction
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Figure 7: Objectives revisited
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Developmental Need
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Expression
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Program Objectives
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Program characteristics
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Positive Social Interaction with Adults & Peers
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Seek attention, socialization
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2, 3
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Small group of students with specialist teachers with a variety of skills and personalities
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Structure & Clear Limits
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Push boundaries, challenge authority
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1, 2, 3
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Program is limited to 8 sessions with a clear structure within which choice and autonomy is possible
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Physical Activity
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Running, jostling, roaming
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n/a
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Not applicable
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Creative Expression
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Vandalism, Vine, Instagram, Snapchat
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2
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Creative storytelling is the main thrust of the program
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Competence & Achievement
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Competitive behaviour, Minecraft, number of followers on social media
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1,2,3
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The program allows for mastery of technological and storytelling skills within a new format, end result is performed and published
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Meaningful Participation
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Opinionated, socialization, clique club or team membership
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2, 3
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Activities allow for interaction in the physical and virtual space
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Opportunities for Self-Definition
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Status symbols, dress and hair,
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2
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Students are encouraged to consider their culture, linguistic and social identities in producing their story
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Figure 8: Summary of developmental needs, expression, program objectives and characteristics
(Adapted from: National Middle School Association (1996). Research Summary: Young Adolescent’s Developmental Needs, 2006, cited in Gallaway, 2008).
References
Barnard, C., A. (2011). How Can Teachers Implement Multiple Modalities into the Classroom to Assist Struggling Male Readers? (Education Masters Paper 26). St. John Fisher College, Rochester, NY.
Beach, R. (2012). Uses of Digital Tools and Literacies in the English Language Arts Classroom. Research in the Schools, 19(1), 45–59.
Burke, Q., & Kafai, Y. B. (2012). The writers’ workshop for youth programmers: digital storytelling with scratch in middle school classrooms (pp. 433–438). Presented at the Proceedings of the 43rd ACM technical symposium on Computer Science Education, ACM.
Dreon, O., Kerper, R. M., & Landis, J. (2011). Digital Storytelling: A Tool for Teaching and Learning in the YouTube Generation. Middle School Journal, 42(5), 4–9.
Greenhow, C., Robelia, B., & Hughes, J. E. (2009). Learning, Teaching, and Scholarship in a Digital Age: Web 2.0 and Classroom Research: What Path Should We Take Now? Educational Researcher, 38(4), 246–259. doi:10.3102/0013189X09336671
Gunter, G. A., & Kenny, R. F. (2008). Digital booktalk: Digital media for reluctant readers. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 8(1), 84–99.
Gunter, G. A., & Kenny, R. F. (2012). UB the director: Utilizing digital book trailers to engage gifted and twice-exceptional students in reading. Gifted Education International, 28(2), 146–160. doi:10.1177/0261429412440378
Hall, M., Hall, L., Hodgson, J., Hume, C., & Humphries, L. (2012). Scaffolding the Story Creation Process. In 4th International Conference on Computer Supported Education. Porto, Portugal. Retrieved from http://www.lynnehall.co.uk/pubs/ScaffoldingTheStoryCreationProcess.pdf
Jones, P., & Waddle, L. L. (2002). New directions for library service to young adults. Chicago: American Library Association.
Kenny, R. F. (2011). Beyond the Gutenberg Parenthesis: Exploring New Paradigms in Media and Learning. Journal of Media Literacy Education, 3(1), 32–46. Retrieved from http://www.jmle.org
Kenny, R. F., & Gunter, G. A. (2004). Digital booktalk: Pairing books with potential readers. Association for Educational Communications and Technology, 27, 330–338.
Meyers, E. M., Fisher, K. E., & Marcoux, E. (2007). Studying the everyday information behavior of tweens: Notes from the field. Library & Information Science Research, 29(3), 310–331. doi:10.1016/j.lisr.2007.04.011
Musil, R. (2001). The confusions of young Törless. (S. Whiteside, Trans.). New York, N.Y.: Penguin Books.
Su, B., Noble, K., Rorick, K., & Austen, J. (2014). The secret diary of Lizzie Bennet. London ; Sydney: Simon & Schuster.
Thompson, I. (2012). Stimulating reluctant writers: a Vygotskian approach to teaching writing in secondary schools: Stimulating reluctant writers. English in Education, 46(1), 85–100. doi:10.1111/j.1754-8845.2011.01117.x
Yoon, T. (2013). Are you digitized? Ways to provide motivation for ELLs using digital storytelling. International Journal of Research Studies in Educational Technology, 2(1). doi:10.5861/ijrset.2012.204
Well done Annick Press (that does a lot of amazing things – 
it into has just loved it – depite the fact that it takes a while to get through. Why – I suspect that the range and diversity of the characters and settings is satisfying to my international audience. But it is also great storytelling. And then they go on to read all the other Pam Muñoz Ryan books, which is also an excellent outcome.
Informative Flights - Musings of a Teacher Librarian 