Tag Archives: digital storytelling

Negotiating Culture through Digital Stories

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Cultural Expectations and Experiences

Participants/facilitators bring to the process of digital storytelling their cultural expectations of authority and ownership.

  • Individual and collectivist approaches during production (and other cultural complexities)
  • Student voice and identity (as both an individual and a representative of their family/culture)
  • Being aware of issues in cross-cultural collaborations in story circles and peer review/feedback process

Imagined Audiences

Storytellers often imagine diverse audiences an anticipate responses to their stories involving diverse languages and cultures.

  • Multiple audiences and diverse purposes & use of languages
  • Participants as ambassadors for culture
  • Participants as individuals moving between two cultures and in borderlands
  • Cultural composition and readings of visual elements and soundscapes

Expectations of Power

Students’ and teachers’ educational expectations of curricular goals and student/teacher roles do not usually include sharing power.

  • Who controls the elements of the content and the process? What should be learned and who should be teaching?
  • Student-centeredness, creative production and the collaborative processes of storytelling in traditional classroom with various cultural expectations
  • Assessing and evaluating DS work (evaluating completion of process but not always the product’s content, evaluating 7 elements, using audience response)
  • How to structure in advance or decide in the moment when facilitators step in and drive

Stories Shown During Presentation

  • ESOL Intercultural Communication Classes
  • Somali Bantu Refugees’ Project Voice
  • The Charlestown Project
  • To view stories shown during the presentation, visit www.umbc.edu/stories

MIIS Approved for iTunes U Public Presence

The Monterey Institute of International Studies was recently approved by Apple for inclusion in the public portion of iTunes U. This means that MIIS will now show up when people search for the Institute through the iTunes Store. iTunes U can be used to distribute media content to faculty, staff, students, and the general public in the form of podcasts. Audio and video podcasts are available to download free of cost, and can then be watched on a computer or portable device whenever, wherever.

Our iTunes U presence will serve as a valuable recruitment tool, offering an inexpensive way to explain the benefits MIIS has to offer potential students. With the help of the Digital Media Commons, we hope to create an army of podcasters across the globe. Visit MIIS on iTunes U and help MIIS gain recognition as we reach out and share our stories with the world.