Today, we continue OnPoint, our bi-weekly series from Jason Ohler, an international keynote speaker, teacher, writer, researcher and Professor Emeritus of Educational Technology, who has been teaching online since 1982. The following post is excerpt from Jason's latest book, Digital Community, Digital Citizen (you can check it out here).
Guideline 8- Tell Stories
Learning communities are storytelling communities.
Groups of students who learn together often want to share what they learn and how they learn in many forms, including tips and tricks, anecdotes, research findings, and detailed accounts we might call stories. We want to encourage the use of stories because they are very effective information containers and transmitters. Stories compel tellers to synthesize information that is important to them. In the process, they make what they know more understandable to others.
All of my student teachers, many of whom I teach completely at a distance, create two pieces of media for my classes: a video story about their educational philosophy and a digital story that crystallizes some concept in their professional content area. The fact is that we forget lectures, but we remember stories. And having students tell each other their stories is an effective way for the tellers to truly synthesize what they have learned and share it with their colleagues.
- Jason
This is part of a series about guidelines for effective online teaching.
- Part 1: An Introduction
- Part 2: Communication Venues
- Part 3: Teach the Unfamiliar In Terms of the Familiar
- Part 4: Use Many Social Setting Metaphors
- Part 5: Use Multimodality When Developing Online Communities
- Part 6: Blend Media and Personalize Space
- Part 7: Require Collaboration When Appropriate
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