Monday, 10 June 2013

Activity 12 - Reflection on the Search Process



I used the OU library and a general Google search on ‘Digital storytelling’, and then on ‘digital storytelling immigrants’ and ‘digital storytelling refugees’.

The OU library search came up with quite a rich list of articles. I followed the recommended instructions and reviewed a lot of abstracts – I guess I realized that it was possible to narrow down choices to look at things which were quite similar to our project – a case study on DS and immigrants for example.

I also chose some that were not directly about immigrants/refugees but which seemed likely to have similar issues – so one of Tanzanian schoolchildren using digital storytelling to come to terms with their views on HIV and AIDS.

I really enjoyed looking at the website produced by this Tanzanian project, with the actual video uploads of the mini-dramas enacted by the schoolchildren. They all wore African tribal masks, which gave me the idea for the ‘avatar’ design principle.

I have to say that seeing these children’s videos was a very nice counterbalance to reading the academic papers – it really grounded the theory in some tangible reality.

Later in the fortnight, at the stage of thinking about Storyboards, I did another google search, this time on ‘digital storytelling tools’ and ‘digital storytelling courses’ – this search yielded a whole lot of very practical blog posts and guides on actual technologies to use and the structure of some actual courses being run. These are not academically reviewed materials, but nevertheless still very useful as we pull our thoughts together.

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