Yesterday I was pointed to this wonderful iEARN collaborative global digital storytelling project ‘Folk Tales/Storytelling around the world’. This has been a popular global digital storytelling project since 2006 with variations on the project title from year to year… and it is still going. The current project runs from September 2014 – March 2015
I took a look at the description of the current project, found at http://collaborate.iearn.org/space-2/group-83/about in the IEARN project space and was impressed to see how many countries are participating currently – 37 in total.
I have included an outline of the project below:
Students will share their stories in traditional and digital forms and through live storytelling sessions, sharing pictures and videos prepared by students about folk tales.
Storytelling is an old tradition and is found in all cultures and countries. With the advancement of technology and communication tools, the ways and modes of storytelling have changed. This project aims to revive the tradition of storytelling through digital tools and connect students from different parts of the world on the project forum to share their stories, experiences and aspirations.
Students will share their stories through any digital form they wish to use (video, audio, text, or photos). They will also record their elders and community leaders telling stories and will share them on the project forum. This will help them learn and practice digital tools and media production skills and get connected with students from around the world.
Live communication is an important aspect of today’s global citizenship. Skype and other tools will be used to conduct live storytelling sessions. Another important feature of this project is inclusion of student-facilitators and student- trainers who will co-facilitate the project activities and train their peers through face to face and online training workshops. This way they will play their role as active and responsible digital natives.
Imran Khan, Pakistan
Student Age levels
5-11 (Primary), 12-14 (Middle), 15-18 (Secondary)
September 2014 - July 2015
Possible classroom activities
Writing essays and making power point presentations and sharing them on the project forum; discussions on the project forum to learn more about the folk tales issues of project partners.
Improvement in ICT and media production skills, better understanding of different cultures and countries, promoting students’ role as media producers, awareness of digital divide and steps to bridge that divide and realization of the importance of digital connectivity.
Group contributions to others and/or the planet:
Increase in digital connectivity and platform for youth to share their stories, improvement in 21st century skills and students’ role as digital media producer, access to technology by underprivileged and underserved students.
The goal of the project
• To develop research skills using a variety of sources such as interviews, letters, diaries and books.
• To form and develop academic skills, thinking, reasoning and teamwork skills.
• To form and develop key foreign language communication.
This is a website full of useful links from a previous version of the project’. I like the link to the resources especially the one called ‘Once upon a time’which has some great ideas for writing folktales.
George Lucas Educational Foundation article
This is an interesting article from Edutopia about one teacher’s experience of the project in 2008
Watch a short Animoto video of the project
Project plan for grade 6-8 students by US teacher
This shows how one teacher went about planning the way forward with a class
If you are interested in getting your class writing folktales along with students from 37 countries, this is a project to investigate joining!