Tag: Digital Media Arts

International Voices in Digital Storytelling Education

Empire State University, USA, and North-West University, South Africa, facilitated an international conversation Inspiring Global Voices Through Digital Storytelling. This virtual event highlighted several authors who contributed to the book Teaching Digital Storytelling Inspiring Voices Through Online Narratives by Drs. Sheila Aird and Tom Mackey for Rowman & Littlefield.

This engaging conversation brought together thought leaders from South Africa and the United States. They explored how digital storytelling empowers learners. It also fosters intercultural connections. Each author discussed their chapter with a particular focus on metaliteracy. They then engaged in an interactive conversation about the transformative role of digital storytelling in education.

Opening remarks were provided by Empire State University President Lisa Vollendorf, Ph.D. In addition, Prof Dorothy Laubscher also contributed. She is the UNESCO Chair on Multimodal Learning and OER and Associate Professor: Self-Directed Learning, Research Unit Self-Directed Learning, Potchefstroom Campus. 

Inspiring Global Voices Through Digital Storytelling

The panel participants for this event included:

  • Sheila Marie Aird, Ph.D. and Tom Mackey, Ph.D., from Empire State University will introduce their chapter Metaliteracy and Global Digital Storytelling: Building Shared Learning Communities.
  • Dr. Brenda van Wyk, Ph.D., from the University of Pretoria, South Africa will discuss her chapter Digital Storytelling and Cognitive Justice in Academic Information Services in Southern Africa – A Story Waiting to be Discovered.
  • Beth Carpenter, MLIS, from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo will explore her chapter The Metaliteracy of Memes: Having Students Track the Flow of Information.
  • Muchativugwa Liberty Hove, Ph.D., from North-West University, South Africa will discuss his chapter Voicing and Agency Through Autoethnography.
  • Logan Rath, Ph.D. and Kathleen Olmstead, Ed.D., from SUNY Brockport will introduce their chapter “It Was Awesome. No One was Telling Us What We Had to Write!”: Empowering Young Writers Through Digital Book Making.
  • Thandiwe Matyobeni, MA, from Rhodes University, South Africa will discuss his chapter Reflections on Digital Storytelling as a Learner-centred Approach to Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Classrooms.

Digital Storytelling Featured as Core Course in New Digital Media Arts Program

Empire State University is launching a new B.A. and B.S. Program in the Digital Media Arts. As part of these two new undergraduate degree options, Digital Storytelling is featured as one of the upper-level core courses.

The international section of Digital Storytelling co-taught by Drs. Sheila Aird and Tom Mackey unites Empire State University students studying in Prague, Czech Republic and the United States. This innovative virtual exchange is for students studying in the Digital Media Arts who are especially interested in gaining international perspectives as part of the program.

As noted in the press release for the two new degrees in the Digital Media Arts:

The program is designed to be flexible, accommodating both full-time and part-time students, as well as transfer students. Employing the “learner as producer” model, students will learn by doing while receiving personalized support and guidance from mentors and faculty with expertise in the field. The duration of the degree program will vary depending on individual course load and prior credits.

https://www.sunyempire.edu/news/releases/2023/empire-state-university-announces-launch-of-new-digital-media-arts-program.php

Drs. Mackey and Aird wrote about the “learner as producer” model that is informed by metaliteracy and central to the new Digital Media Arts Program and the Digital Storytelling course:

This collaborative course creates dialogue among international learners who support each other when providing feedback on individual projects and by working together on a team narrative. The effectiveness of this approach in a fully online COIL course demonstrates that educators need to prepare global learners as both individual and collaborative producers of digital narratives. Metaliteracy is central to this process because it encourages not only the ability to apply digital technologies but to also learn about oneself in connected environments.

https://openpraxis.org/articles/10.55982/openpraxis.13.4.442

The launch of the new Digital Media Arts Program at Empire State University is an exciting development that offers considerable potential to support learners in telling their digital stories with multiple modalities. As a fully online course, Digital Storytelling reinforces these goals while providing opportunities for students to produce and share original narratives with learners from around the world. They develop selfie videos, mobile stories, empowerment stories, and a final collaborative narrative about a social cause.

In addition to Digital Storytelling, the upper-level core requirements also include: Ethics of Digital Art and Design, Information Design, Digital Art & Design: Advanced, History & Theory of New Media, Digital Media Arts, Advanced Drawing, Illustration and Capstone in Digital Media Arts.

Mackey, T. P., & Aird, S. M. (2022). Integrating Metaliteracy into the Design of a Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) Course in Digital Storytelling. Open Praxis, 13(4), 397–403. DOI: http://doi.org/10.55982/openpraxis.13.4.442