For my discussion board post this week I selected a quote from Digital Storytelling Cookbook by Joe Lambert, which states “When we hear stories, we listen for answers that we can relate to our own lives. Honoring self-narratives through creative expression with an audience in mind, even an audience of one, offers the opportunity to not only record and string together your insights, but change how others think and feel.”
A little over a year ago I created a blog (www.pamcomer.blogspot.com) and started writing.I initially started it because I had lost a lot of the journals I had compiled over the years as a result of Hurricane Ike and figured the web might be a “safer” place to record my thoughts.I began by documenting some of the events of the hurricane as well as the total loss of our home to a fire.Another reason I started the blog was to reach a specific audience with a message of faith and hope.What I discovered was that my writing became a very therapeutic for me as I recorded the insights I gained through the recovery and rebuilding process. I agree with Lambert that telling a story not only provides an opportunity to change others, but it also changes the storyteller as well.
A post by one of my classmates, Michael Alves, reminded me of a video that I watched yesterday from Ted Talks by David McCandless. McCandless states "It feels like we're all suffering from information overload or data glut. And the good news is there might be an easy solutioin to that, and that's using our eyes more. So, visualizing information, so that we can see the patterns and connections that matter and then designing that information so it makes more sense, or it tells a story, or allows us to focus only on the information that's important. Failing that, visualized information can just look really cool."
The Beauty of Data Visualization
I agreed with Michael that we have to teach students the importance of not only visualizing information, but also creating connections that enable them to make sense of the information or tell a story.
Katherine Wade, another classmate, mentioned sermons in her post and I was glad because I have heard plenty in my lifetime. Since I am married to a preacher / pastor and am probably his world's worst critic! Her post reminded me that the greatest teacher who ever lived used parables, earthly stories with heavenly meanings, to get his message across to his followers (learners). He used illustrations or examples of things that they could relate to and brought it down to their level of understanding. I agree with Katherine that the most effective speakers are able to engage their audience and hold their attention by telling a story in such a way that it evokes emotion and leads to greater insight and transformation.
Lambert, J. (2007, February). Digital storytelling cookbook, p.15. Story Center. Retrieved August 24, 2010, from http://www.storycenter.org/cookbook.pdf.
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