Digital Storytelling is an integral part of NEMESIS as it is used as a learning tool as well as to document and showcases the work created in the Co-creation Labs.
On December 10th, the NEMESIS team organized a Digital Storytelling workshop for the new Spanish schools that are join NEMESIS this year. The event took place at the CEIP Los Albares school, attended by several teachers and representatives of the educational community in the area.
Digital Storytelling teacher training in @AlbaresColegio: how to tell powerful stories without relying on technical means ?+ ? + ✍? #nemesischangemakers pic.twitter.com/42k9ll3aJy
— NEMESIS – Social Innovation Education (@nemesis_edu) December 10, 2019
What is Digital Storytelling?
Digital storytelling originates from one of the oldest arts in the history of mankind – telling stories. It is based on creating and telling or sharing narrations using not only words, but also modern IT tools and multimedia materials like: graphics, video, audio or animation.
Nowadays, storytelling is still widely used in education and in everyday life. However, the development and the widespread use of technology has changed the way a story can be told. Communication evolved from having no distinct direction to joining a conversation (actually, Twitter’s motto is just that: “join the conversation”). A conversation between content producers and consumers. Think about people who watch TV shows. They don’t just watch them but engage with them; making their own blogs about them, creating memes from the episodes aired, or publicly demanding for a show to continue. Think of online fan communities like Star Wars publishing their own fanfiction.
These changes are not confined to entertainment, but have permeated culture and politics as well: think of the Arab Springs, the 15M/Indignados or Occupy Wall Street, where digital media allowed citizens to get their voice heard, and relied on collective intelligence (the ability of communities to leverage the combined expertise of their members) to transcend the digital sphere and be heard in other media and forums.
For that, digital and media literacy skills are more important than ever, even to take part in the conversation as a citizen. Is enough being done in terms education to prepare the children for this not so new anymore world?
In conclusion, from a traditional perspective, a person is not fully literate if he or she can read but not write. In the Internet era, however, a person is not fully digital literate if she/her can consume media but not produced it. In this way, Digital Storytelling and Media Literacy is one of the key elements of what we consider Social Innovation at NEMESIS.
Want to learn more about Digital Storytelling? Read our Teacher’s Guide to Digital Storytelling here