Helen Barrett’s discovered some interesting research directed by John Sanders at Leeds University. Reflect 2.0 is case study research into reflective practice and digital storytelling across disciplines, building on the work of Jenkins & Lonsdale.

The researchers ask that those that are interested join them in the i reflect community where you can find resources, watch stories, and contribute to the community forums.

OK so I’m thinking about learning environments but this book looks pretty cool and no Shelfari is not working for me.

Technology-Mediated Narrative Environments for Learning (Hardcover)
by G Dettori (Editor), T Giannetti (Editor)

http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=HNDMY5YwCPkC&dq=learning+environments&printsec=frontcover&source=in&hl=en&ei=We7CSbv5GpKWsQP4p8T-Bg&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=10&ct=result#PPP1,M1

I liked this too:

Been dipping into a great book by Liz Wells called Photography: A critical introduction seems to cover Foucault, Barthes and many more and takes a postmodernist approach. More when I read more. Like it a lot.

In NZ there’s lot of talk about Second Life and its abilities and functionality for learning and teaching. There’s a BIG project underway called SLENZ which aims to develop and explore some material for teaching and learning opportunities in SL. We’re all getting excited about using it…and there are some interesting projects proposals of which I’ve seen one or two. Had a nice session yesterday with fellow SLers Isa, DanP, Lindis and Enomec……I like the collaborative and sharing nature of it and it reminds me of the old hippie days when we thought it was good to share, give and support. Hmmmm seemed to go during the 1990s so it’s good to see that philosophy return to education. Maybe the postbabyboomer generation has something to offer after all (that’s irony, of course they do).

Two more worth noting: Learning2.008 with Alan Levine and George Siemens as two of the many speakers of note. I could link you to their names, or you could find out about them using the Ning link above. More and more conference hosts are using Ning to advertise their conferences.

E-fest this year in in Auckland (gosh moved away from Welly) on 8-10th September. Theme is about connections: learners, education, organisations and content. Always good to go and hear/see what’s happening in Aotearoa, and having been involved in some projects that don’t seem to get shared about, I’d be keen to get talking about how we can get sharing better…..

ascilite is in Melbourne this year and its theme is ” Hello! Where are you in the landscape of educational technology”….

While I’m still awake: there are difficulties about getting up to go to a conference - you don’t read the list of activities properly, so thinking I was on later event to visit Harlem (yes I did read the pre-conference material) I went back to bed after the opening speech. Yup! I missed Harlem but did get to walk around by myself. There were problems getting into SL and then problems teleporting (maybe too many people teleporting at once?) so I was late to very event then had trouble finding everyone. Sigh. I did get to eat some pork and vegetables though. Great organisation -imagine everyone at the beginning trying to sort out who they were and where they were going. Not all audio worked for everyone.

So - it did seem that Harlem was working as a teaching space and the opening event where Bryan Mnemonic spoke made it all sound really interesting. He stressed the research aspect of it and the assessments students are asked to complete. The Lincoln island was interesting - clearly well researched although I gather some sims were ‘out of time’. At the end-of-conference panel several questions were asked about assessments and collaboration. The general response was that students collaborate better in SL than RL and are energised by it, while one comment was that since people worked in project teams, SL replicated RL.

One of the major issues seems to be that the SL is mature and the audience educators are trying to reach are under 18. I gather some historical worlds have been created in Teen SL.

It was an interesting conference - I’ll write more detailed notes if anyone is interested. There is another conference on August 4th and August 6th - looking at using literature in SL. Might be worth investigating.

I’ll updated this with links- after another coffee. Meantime here’s Iphi at the back as usual.

Higher education’s storytellers were busy “connecting and reflecting” at last month’s Educause Learning Initiative 2008 meeting. Bryan Alexander ran a pre-conference Web 2.0 Storytelling workshop, the resources for which he has graciously shared, while Gail Matthews-DeNatale expanded on her earlier classroom digital storytelling experiences by examining the story-making experience from the learner’s perspective. Both Bryan and Gail feature in this 30 minute conversation also recorded at ELI2008.

Meanwhile, for those that like their teaching practice evidence-based, digital storytelling advocate Wesley Fryer unearths some educational research supporting the use of classroom digital storytelling.

Just been at a metadata seminar where there was a lot of jargon! It was an interesting if at times overfull day. Good to hear what the Ozzies are up to and to wander around the thoughts of Gavan McCarthy who wondered about archiving and Douglas Campbell who deconstructed identifiers for us. Judith Pearce at the Australian National Library and Jane Hunter were impressive too. It was a full day with a lot to take in. Can’t help wondering about the energy that goes into sharing information in relation to the quality of content…….ah perhaps I had too much information.

Ah the more you know, the more help you get, the more you find.

I’ve made contact with a couple of mentors and it helps. It’s a nice analogy for life really - ya need someone to show you the ropes. Really it’s just like the first day at university, school or well, play group. If someone helps you out you get to know more.

I’m still finding the need to use information literacy skills pretty important, however. And in a sociological kind of way it’s interesting working out the aforementioned gender identifiers. In a group meeting I reckon I could spot the true men - they were the ones talking jargon. Or is that unkind? Perhaps we women were off changing our appearance again. LOL. But I found this - a comment on gender stereotyping in SL.

Two successful workshops in Hamilton this year……the fruits of which (!) will appear on the Ethnic Communication website being developed.

Watch this space.

It’s heart warming to hear the stories and to see the different ‘take’ we all have on life. Digital storytelling is a fantastic way to illuminate the horrors of racism and alienation, yet do it with humour, and tell the stories of our journeys here, our successes and triumphs and our love for this place. Good stuff.

Mention storytelling in education and the image it conjures up is one of new-entrants sitting cross-legged on a mat listening intently to their teacher reading from a storybook; however, two down-to-earth Dunedinites have been influential in redrawing that picture.

Janice McDrury and Maxine Alterio’s seminal Learning through Storytelling links storytelling to reflective practice and has influenced Helen Barrett’s work on ePortfolios and now, I imagine much to the surprise of the modest Southerners, Chris McKillop, who has transferred their five-stage storytelling model to the online environment.

Watch Chris at the recent Curverider conference explain how she adapted the model to structure her online storytelling environment and how she sees blogging being used in the next generation storytelling environment.

Storycorps
An American site encouraging people to record their own stories. A good way to start and an important part of digital storytelling ethos - getting people to tell their own stories in their own words.