The social context of DST

When reading Hall and Katz’s article “Crafting an Agentive Self: Case Studies of Digital Storytelling” I couldn’t help but think of my dialogical teaching class with Dr. Fecho that I took last summer.  This weeklong, summer camp-like experience really highlighted the importance of dialogue and exploratory conversation in learning.  I didn’t really think that digital storytelling was connected with dialogue, but I’m now realizing that they are both way of exploring identity individually and collectively.

Digital storytelling is simply a vehicle for negotiating one’s self, learning about narrative, and experimenting with genre.  I think there are many ways to achieve these goals, but digital storytelling seems to be an incredibly efficient vehicle for creating a recursive state for identity exploration. The examples of Dara and Randy in this article speak to the simple power of DST as a way for someone to find his/her voice.

One thing that stood out to me in this article and when viewing our digital stories was how important the audience was.  The connections that watching the stories built absolutely surprised me.  Katz and Hull (2006) point out the importance of the “social context” and “the  interwoven processes of identity development and multimedia composing as they occur in the context of daily activities” (p. 65).   I saw my classmates in a totally new way last week, and that was so powerful.   

It’s important for me to realize that so much learning goes on outside of the traditional classroom.  DST can seem like “fluff” but Hull and Katz (2006)point out that “alternative spaces for learning can sometimes effectively support adolescents’ interests in literacy and foster their developing sense of agency” (p. 61).  Just because I’m not explicitly teaching a lesson doesn’t mean that incredibly powerful learning isn’t happening.