Storytelling has been a critical component of the PJHC (Poverty, Justice, and Human Capabilities) Summer Service Internship since its inception in 2007. Initially, PJHC minors wrote short colorful essays and designed poster presentations about their summers serving under-resourced communities. The PJHC Summer Service Internship reception provided a forum for the presentations and for distribution of collections of the essays. “The reception has been great for the poster presentation, but we wanted to find a way to more vividly convey students’ experiences to guests,” explained Anne Dayton, PJHC Program Manager.
Dayton became familiar with digital storytelling as an instructor in COMM 103 “Academic Writing and Argument,” the precursor of today’s Freshman Writing Intensive Seminar. Dayton explained how digital storytelling takes the form of a short film that can be produced using desktop software. Components of the 3-5 minute film include still shots, spoken words, and music. The films are typically produced in iMovie or Moviemaker, video-editing software with features like maps and title sequencing.
PJHC Director Diana Strassmann describes the internships as “purposefully designed to avoid treating community members as research subjects. Instead,” she explains, “students are encouraged to spend their internships listening to people and learning from them rather than trying to fit their experiences into academic theories.” Watching brief clips from the digital stories, it is easy to see the intense dedication fueling the students’ incredible journeys to make a difference in the lives of people around the world. Upon returning to Rice, the students learn to share their stories through compelling narratives and exceptional photos. Dayton explains, “We want the students to go out into the world, hear the stories of the people and come back to Rice to retell the stories.” Dayton takes great pride in the students’ grasp of digital technologies, which enhance viewer’s responses to the stories.
“In 2013, PJHC alumna Kristen Gagalis (Lovett ‘12) suggested we ask interns to make films about their internships instead of writing essays,” noted Dayton, “and I thought of digital storytelling, which does not require technical experience and would allow each student to tell their individual story in a short film.” Dayton said that the interns were enthusiastic about participating in this pilot project. Then she smiled and added, “But we knew they were adventurous students – they were seeking internships in developing countries –many traveling to the Global South. They would definitely be up for an adventure when it came to telling their stories!”
It Takes a Village to Create a Workshop
As the instructor for HUMA 300 “PJHC Service Reflection” –a half-semester course — Dayton’s biggest challenge was envisioning the whole process. “I had to take the end result – a short film – and then work backwards. How could I design a course as a collaborative workshop for digital storytelling?” mused Dayton. Elizabeth Festa of the Center for Writing and Oral Communications guided Dayton in structuring the assignment and provided the class with an overview of the history of digital storytelling in a guest lecture. Paul Hester, of the Department of Visual and Dramatic Arts provided guidance on digital images. “He came in after the photos were already taken,” said Dayton, “but he was impressed with the quality of the students’ photographs and helped them choose the best images for their stories.” Jane Zhao and Bradley Selke of the Digital Media Commons showed the students how to put their stories together with desktop software such as Photoshop, iMovie, and Audacity.
Carlos Solis, Assistant Director for Academic Technology Services, provided crucial technical support and collaboration, suggesting tools like Ensemble [see related IT News story] and WordPress. The first challenge was to enable the students to share their photographs. “Initially we planned to use Google Drive,” Dayton recalled, “but we had difficulty ensuring that everyone in the class had access to each other’s images. When Carlos learned about the challenges we faced, he set up a private Word Press blog for the class. Once we had the blog set up we used it for several subsequent assignments including the script drafts and revisions.” The class blog proved invaluable for sharing students’ work. “Students were comfortable sharing their work on the blog because it was only accessible to members of the class. They were able to comment on each other’s scripts and photographs. It was easy to refer back to earlier versions of scripts or look for a particular photo since all of the material was in one location,” explained Dayton. “I enjoyed working with the Word Press blog,” added Dayton, “and we will set up the course blog over the summer for our 2015 interns so they can share images and stories during their internship experiences.”
“I Can’t, We Can”
“The students’ final stories were even better than we expected,” Dayton said. “We were so pleased with how well the students responded to the challenge, and with the touching, creative stories they produced. The subtitle of one of the films is ‘I Can’t, We Can’ and that just sums up our project. The positive outcome and vision for digital stories could not have been accomplished [by anyone working alone]…through working together, we were able to produce highly impressive digital stories.”
To view video interviews with the students with brief excerpts from their films, watch the documentary, “PJHC Internship Digital Stories” available on the Academic Technologies web site: http://edtech.blogs.rice.edu/faculty-support/.
For more information on using WordPress for sharing and commenting on image collections or using Ensemble to create private, public, and course-related video playlists, see the related IT News story.