Storify - to Form or Tell Stories Using Social Media

I experimented today with Storify. Storify is a social network service that lets the user create stories or timelines using social media such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.  The website got its current name from the obsolete, former dictionary word: storify. Storify means "to form or tell stories". Users search through multiple social networks from one place, and then drag individual elements into stories. Users can re-order the elements and also add text to help give context to the readers.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storify)

I'm interested in story as an instructional strategy and this is a tool that could easily be used by students to create a story around the content they are learning. 

Below is a story I created around the 7 Futures of American Education schMOOC. 

Great resource http://cybraryman.com/digitalstory.html

Story – A Strategy for Generating Ideas

We know that stories make information come alive and are a great way to connect learners to new information and concepts.  Meaning and involvement become more personal for the learner when stories are involved. This is an example of how story was used during an advisory committee meeting as a way to generate ideas from members.  In this case advisory committee members were asked to individually create their own story.  This story would be rich in detail  and would depict someone in the community that would benefit from completing an associate degree in the Business Management program.  They were given five minutes to write their stories.  Each member shared their story while someone outlined the important details on an individual flip chart page.  Next, the group was paired up with an advisory committee member and a college representative.  The pairs reviewed the various pages and brainstormed ways to connect with the person in the story. Ideas were captured on post-it notes.  What resulted from this activity were new ideas and very rich information.  The advisory committee members reported enjoying the experience.

This example comes to us from Karen Barr, Beth Kost and Dianne Lazear.  October 2011

Creating a Story from a Picture

Story can be used in every phase of the learning cycle.  This is an example of how story is used in the “generalizing” phase. It comes to us from Sherry Nazer, a student in Dianne Lazear’s Business Management class.  Dianne was teaching a unit on ethics.  The students were asked to create a learning activity around the concepts they had been studying and then facilitate the activity in the class. If they created a game they needed to supply the answer key to the game. While studying this unit, Dianne displayed various ethical principles on posters around the classroom.  Sherry gave each student a different picture and asked them to create a story from the picture that pulled in one of the ethical principles. Dianne reported a high level of intense engagement as the students developed their stories which were then individually shared. The photos combined with the stories made the information come alive in a personal way. You can see how various aspects of the brain were engaged. The pictures evoked emotion and triggered memories.  Both the right and left sides of the brain were involved with the right brain looking for the big picture and meaning while the left brain fills in the details. 

Welcome and Our Experience Using Story as an Instructional Method

Good morning my true believer friends,

I thought this might be a great space for us to share what we are learning about learning and leadership. Also a place for us to keep in touch. 

I will get us started here with a place to share what we are learning about storytelling as an instructional method.  Some of us got together this week (September 16th) and during the conversation there were some comments made about how many of you had recently used story in some form with your teaching.  I invite you to share what you did and how it worked.

I'll start by sharing that the 30 minute teaching demonstration that I did on using story as an instructional method went very well.  I used a story/poem to start the demonstration titled "The Naked Truth and Parable." I also used a story review strategy as a way to discover what people had learned at the end of the demonstration. Thanks to the feedback I got from many of you through the opportunity to practice twice. I previously sent you all a copy of the document I put together summarizing the research I had done on the topic.

Have a great weekend,

Beth