(6/3) Takeaways from Digital Storytelling Readings

1. I think that Lankshear and Knobel did an excellent job of exploring notion of what it means to be “literate” today. Sometimes, I find myself overwhelmed with the amount of music, film, images, information available out there, and blame it on technology. However, I have come to realize that children today see it completely differently. They are instead energized and engaged by this, and their definition and perception of writing itself—for kids under 15, is completely different. For instance, the most popular app especially with the preteens and teenagers today is Snapchat. Snapchat is based exactly off this notion of storytelling:  we take images or videos of our day, caption them, or draw on them, filter them, and then add it to “My Story”, or add it to another group story, such as “New York Story” or “4th of July Story”, etc. The shared stories are collaborative works, and allow for users to gain more exposure and views. These stories may be frowned upon as being frivolous or unacademic, but I believe this is incorrect. There has been a very thorough story following the upcoming election, with links to relevant news articles that are easily accessible with just a swipe. This encourages learning about new topics—increasing children’s exposure to other stories of typically more serious themes by presenting it via a digital storytelling format.
2. Coming in from an adult or an educator’s point of view, it’s easy to be affected by our own prejudices and frown upon “copying”. Read/Write, and building off the information out there is not plagiarism, and should NOT be frowned upon. Not everything has to be a novel and fresh concept, sometimes building off pre-existing work can alleviate “writers block” and take off the stress of school work or an assignment. For instance, Ryan Adams did an entire album that covered Taylor Swift’s 1989 album, and with proper copyright approval and support from Taylor, this was a method in which Ryan was able to gain additional exposure for his own stylistic take on her original music. 
3. The power of storytelling itself is beautiful platform for children to express themselves. Digital storytelling opens up a whole new realm of possibilities: iMovie, PhotoStory, MovieMaker, seem to be relatively learnable and teachable programs, and the merits of incorporating them into the classroom are infinite. Children are beginning to build their voice and their identity and are very curious creatures. Sitting down and writing their emotions through prose and researching via traditional literature can be intimidating. Furthermore, as Peppler mentions, teens absolutely love photos (even myself, I love photos too), and the immediacy of feedback on this virtual story can be more gratifying than having an English teacher read their paper and give comments back about a week later. Comments can be hurtful, but at the same time, the virtual world can be comforting for otherwise more shy children in the classroom.