Sources: Julie de Chantal, Digital Storytelling: A Beneficial Tool for Large Survey Courses in History, The History Teacher 54, no.4 (August 2021): 709-729. & Edward Tufte, Beautiful Evidence, Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press, 2006, pp. 156-185.
“…The digital storytelling process—with historical research, the production of a detailed script, storyboards, and short documentary-style presentation—allows students to hone their critical thinking skills, develop their visual and digital literacy skills, and improve their writing skills, all while deepening their engagement with historical narratives….”
Julie de Chantal, Digital Storytelling: A Beneficial Tool for Large Survey Courses in History, The History Teacher 54, no.4 (August 2021): 710.
The quote above speaks to the major themes seen this week as we as a class explore digital storytelling through our OMEKA sites. Along with this, looking at our lesson plans, we are striving to teach using more digital formats and ways that engage the student in new ways. As current history students ourselves, we are currently gaining the perspectives of different historical narratives and improving our own writing skills, so developing this in our own classrooms is extremely important. Establishing digital literacy in classrooms is very important and as seen in the excerpt positively affected classroom learning. Through digital storytelling, one is able to personally explore and interact with the information, better retaining it.
“…Nonetheless, PowerPoint may benefit the bottom, 10% of all presenters. PP forces them to have points, some points, any points…”
Edward Tufte, Beautiful Evidence, Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press, 2006, pp. 158.
In the source Beautiful Evidence, Edward Tufte explores teaching in the classroom, that no longer involves PowerPoint. The idea of switching the traditional style of teaching establishes a new way for the student to learn. The quote above truly sends the point home that students don’t inherently benefit from the style of teaching. I found the score interesting because it made me establish the question: if the main goal of power points is to present points, and the main goal of establishing lesson plans and following along with the criteria supposed to be taught, what are better routes for teachers to take that better teach points of information, but do so in the more integrative way?
“…Many students admit shamelessly at the beginning of the semester that they “hate” history, often because they found their high school history courses difficult, dry, or as one student described, “lobotomizing.” They spoke of instructors who required them to memorize and regurgitate dates and events from their textbooks, yet offered no context with which to connect to the material…”
Julie de Chantal, Digital Storytelling: A Beneficial Tool for Large Survey Courses in History, The History Teacher 54, no.4 (August 2021): 710.
Julie de Chantal’s quote above stood out to me because of the way that I related to it heavily, especially in high school. I think the way that history time in high school specifically is a key factor in the wide gap in polarity of opinions on history as a subject. Although the teachers are doing what they’re supposed to, I think the way that teachers go about presenting the points truly affects how the student ultimately feels about history itself. I think it’s important for us as teachers to be able to have, and bring new ways to teach history, but also provide more context to the history of us, making the students visualize and, in a way, relate to it more.
Going forward I believe this, the style of presentation/how it is taught, should be the main thing teachers should focus on. As future historian teachers ourselves, our research and work are observed to be no good if the audience and main reason for teaching are not giving the desired outcome of knowledge. For students to try to understand, we need to establish ways in which to teach it, to them.
