Athletics and Digital Storytelling

Associate Professor of English Education, Alan Brown

Question

Why did you decide to incorporate a digital story into your curriculum?

Answer

My students were always wanting to tell their stories. Their stories would come out in class, mostly connected to the young adult literature that we were reading because they were either connecting from or disconnecting from that experience those young people were having in those books we were reading. Also we read a lot of non-fiction and informational text surrounding k-12 academics and athletes so they just naturally want to share their experiences…My thought was this would be an opportunity for them to tell a story that reflects at least some part of who they are and their background with sports whether it’s participating in a sport, whether it’s having friends that participated, whether it’s being in a school where the culture was just run by sports so that was the initial goal.

Project Description

“Who Am I” Digital Storytelling Project

Purpose

This semester-long project asked students to create a digital story that involved exploring their identities as athletes—whatever that meant to them—based on a single moment or event in their lives.

Students described this moment or event in detail as part of an earlier paper in which they were asked to reflect on a story that represented their experience with sports, either during their childhood, adolescence, or young adulthood. This moment or event was one that they considered to have shaped their identity as a student, athlete, or human being.

The tone of the story could have been positive, negative, critical, or otherwise, but the central purpose was to demonstrate how athletics impacted students’ everyday lives. Ultimately, I asked students to reflect on how and why the moment influenced them so profoundly, and what influence says about their interest in or disdain for sports today.

Learning Goals

• To write a first-person narrative story about a single moment with athletics.
• To create a digital story based on their first-person narrative.

Role of Academic Technology

Brianna Derr offered scaffolding and technical expertise on the creation of a digital story. A Digital Story is about a moment or event responsible for shaping or changing one’s life. It is told through the “I” narrative and contains some level of emotion acting as a bridge to the viewer.

Technology

• Adobe Premiere Rush
• One Button Studio

Target Skills

• Engaging in a story circle.
• Writing and story boarding a personal story.
• Connecting written narratives with moving images.
• Narrating and recording a story in the One Button Studio.
• Editing videos using Adobe Premiere Rush.
• Peer reviewing early drafts of the written and digital stories.
• Presenting the final digital story for public consumption.

Outcomes & Perspectives

Showcase

Exceeding Expectations

State Championship

Student’s Perspective

“By the end of the process of creating the “Who I Am” Digital Storytelling Project, I felt relieved, but accomplished. It wasn’t until I sat in the classroom and watched my classmates’ stories that I realized how powerful the digital stories truly are. I learned a lot about my classmates’ experiences overcoming obstacles or finding their path. I then reflected on my own digital story and realized that someone can learn a lot about me by watching my project as well.” -Lizzy Boyle

Instructor’s Perspective

“I was interested in attempting this digital storytelling project because I wanted students to connect their own athletic experiences with the research and scholarship we were reading for class about the social culture of sports in K-12 schools and communities. Despite numerous lessons learned, the project was a great success not only because students made the intended connection but also because they left with a final product that made them proud. The digital storytelling project will be a fixture in my EDU 101 section for years to come.” -Dr. Alan Brown

Assessment

For next year, I plan to change the context of the written paper to allow students to write about a significant challenge they have overcome in school or sports as a child, adolescent, or young adult, and how overcoming that challenge has impacted them throughout their life. In terms of supporting students through the physical making of the digital story, I learned a lot of important lessons last fall, and there are a number of changes I want to make for next year:

• Be sure students start the story boarding process earlier.
• Talk with students sooner about finding and citing image, video, and song sources.
• Encourage students to record their own videos instead of using stock images.
• Require students to sign up to try out the One Button Studio long before they sign up to record their narration.
• Have more time to explore the video editing software.