Digital storytelling in teaching and research

This is a pre-print version of the paper submitted to: A. Tatnall &J. Multisilta (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Education & Information Technologies, Springer Digital storytelling in teaching and research Marianna Vivitsou, PhD, University of Helsinki @ Introduction The aim of this entry is to present digital storytelling as teaching and research method and draw from findings of previous studies in order to offer an updated definition based on both essential dimensions, the activity of telling stories and the use of digital technologies. Toward this end, the term will be considered as a metaphorical noun phrase. Words can be identified as metaphors at the level of language when they display a contrast between a target domain meaning and a more basic source domain meaning. Also, at the level of thought, when they display a contrast between concepts that belong to different conceptual domains. Finally, at the level of communication, when they are used as metaphors to indicate a change of perspective of the target domain of an utterance. In all these cases, a contrast or comparison is involved in metaphorical meaning. More particularly, the metaphorical twist in the noun phrase ‘digital storytelling’ lies in the ways stories have been communicated, orally or in writing, in juxtaposition with stories communicated with the use of digital technologies. Despite the contrast, the use of technology for storytelling is nowadays popularized and, therefore, conventionalized. As a result, the metaphor is conventional as well. However, the co-text also matters, since where, why and how a metaphor is used determine the level of novelty and the degree it constitutes an innovative use of language. The sense descriptions of ‘education’ in the dictionary (Oxford), for example, hardly relate the field with storytelling, despite the fact that this is a domain where stories are told on a daily basis. In this context, storytelling becomes part of a broader scenario. Within this context, storytelling in education for pedagogical and research purposes could be considered as novel metaphor. Here are two examples to illustrate potential metaphorical sense of storytelling for educational purposes. In education, storytelling with digital technologies in schools creates a hybrid context that opens up the space for action and meaning making for students and teachers. Within this context, learning opportunities come up both ‘unplanned’ and as outcomes of guided formal instruction, thus, transcending conventional classroom boundaries. This way of integration of digital storytelling in education introduces informal elements contrary to the formal disciplinary tradition and offers an opportunity for communicative engagement in web-based settings where exchanges can both converge with and diverge from instructional norms. Such integration has, therefore, a non-conventional character. In research, digital storytelling is a visual method that brings to the fore and reconstructs the narratives of the researched through the analysis of the message, underlying structures and techniques, how this is conveyed to audiences, and what channels of communication are used. Considering that the focus of educational technology research is mainly on how tools are used in teaching and learning, such a shift toward the discussion and analysis of the communicative integration of technologies in the classroom indicates another non-conventional use of digital storytelling. Considering these possible ways of application, it becomes evident that both parts of the noun phrase play a role in what different significations of digital storytelling can be. Digital storytelling as a 21st century metaphor This extended entry will draw from Contemporary Metaphor Theory (Reijnierse 2017, Steen 2011) in order to explicate the meaning of the term, based on applications in education that use digital storytelling to frame teaching and research. To this end, I will discuss digital storytelling as a phrase where the noun (storytelling) is used metaphorically and is modified by the adjective (digital) that designates the target domain of the utterance. According to metaphor theorists (e.g., Lakoff 1993, Lakoff and Johnson 1980, Ricoeur 1978, Steen 2011), a metaphor occurs when we talk about something by means of something else and, therefore, a stretch or twist is required for sense making. This metaphorical twist involves a movement to a target domain (in this case: telling stories) to explain what, for instance, technologicallyenhanced practices in the field actually mean nowadays. In this sense, ‘digital storytelling’ is a 21st century metaphor @ marianna.vivitsou@gmail.com that signifies mapping of two domain areas in the meaning making process. In this mapping, ‘digital’ signals the comparison between the domain of technology and that of telling stories. The sense descriptions of ‘storytelling’ in the dictionary (Oxford) involve both traditional and contemporary notions of telling or writing stories. These descriptions point to the medium, or the channel, used to communicate the story, with illustrative examples that refer to the hero/character as an integral feature of tales, myths and legends, but also personal narratives, political commentaries and evolving cultural norms through mainly visual technologies. The meaning of storytelling, therefore, although metaphorical, is quite conventional, if we consider the general scope of its meaning. And yet, looking into storytelling as a whole whose parts are inscribed in different modes and, as a result, mediate the communicative event with different means, changes the perspective on the metaphor and the degree of its novelty. In oral storytelling, the communicative event involves a dialogue between a speaker and a hearer, where something is expressed and communicated to another (Kaplan 2003: 30). This is a shared dialogical experience for mutual understanding and reciprocal recognition. To this effect, the speaker produces an experience for the hearer in which the latter recognizes the intention of the former. This means that to understand the meaning of the dialogue is the same as to understand what the speaker means. To resolve misunderstandings, the speaker and the hearer can ask each other questions. In written storytelling, the story takes a life of its own, as the meaning is no longer dependent on the co-presence of speaker and hearer. In this way, the story must be interpreted in the absence of a speaking subject or a shared dialogical situation that acts as common reference. Therefore, the meaning of the author and the meaning of the written story may or may not coincide. The difference here is that while the shared dialogue mediates oral storytelling, it is the different forms of emplotment that mediate written storytelling. We will therefore need to consider the narrative dimension of written expression. In a similar way, digital storytelling involves multiple modes of expression through language and other symbols and media. However, contrary to traditional visual and cinematic storytelling, digital technologies have offered the possibility for interactive ways of telling stories online through the use of web-based platforms and internet services. A contemporary definition of digital storytelling should take into account these dimensions. In addition, if we consider storytelling to be an essential feature of education, the perspective changes. As the sense descriptions in the dictionary do not connect the words with each other, storytelling for teaching and research purposes has the potential to constitute a novel metaphor for the field of education. In the following sections, dimensions of such novelty will be discussed. The narrative dimension of storytelling with digital technologies To this end, Ricoeur’s narrative theory (Ricoeur 1978, 1992; Kaplan 2003) will be used as framework to validate the definition of the term by looking into digital storytelling as series of actions organized for pedagogical and research purposes. Classroom interaction as a meaningful whole Education has long been characterized by sets of practices that assign the central role to the teacher and the task to orchestrate the classroom event and be the protagonist on the pedagogical stage, the basic decision maker and handler of the bulk of talking time. Looking at the metaphor anew, if by storytelling we refer to practices that change the good old script, then the term acquires a novel meaning. The content of learning, for instance, is set by the specifications of the curriculum that the teacher has to put into practice with pedagogical means. While the teacher can choose from a repertoire of methods and techniques, the frameworks set by the curriculum leave a restricted space for teachers to truly author the pedagogical scenario, especially nowadays when the need for standardization becomes more and more marked. As a result, the teacher’s agentic action becomes limited (Eteläpelto et al. 2015). Moreover, as the use of digital technologies is part of such standardization, it is doubtful whether their integration into classroom practices constitutes a novel experience in the school. And yet, the teachers’ pedagogical purposes do not only draw from the official script. They are also informed from other domains such as wider socio-political developments (Vivitsou in press), which opens up the space for teachers to contribute as essential authors of the narrative in education and develop agentic action. As it is the case with every narrative, the story of the classroom should consist of a number of events organized in a unified whole. Digital storytelling constitutes one case of holistic approach. As such, it requires the organization of sets of tasks and activities, being the parts (or events), so that the advancement of the narrative can be achieved in a meaningful way. One way to put the events of the story together in order to construct a meaningful plot would require recounting of the involved agents’ (i.e., the teachers’ and the students’) actions. As a result, bringing together the agents’ goals and means is needed for classroom pedagogy where all agents are contributors. Within this context, teachers and students become co-authors in digital storytelling. As actions develop, the agents develop as well. It is therefore the development of both agents that needs to be accounted for. Such development occurs in dialogue, through the co-ordination of social (e.g., group work), symbolic (e.g., a myth) and material (e.g., mobile devices, software) tools. Dialogical practices reflect the view of development as a dynamic space of reciprocal meaning-making interaction (Macy 2016, Moll and Whitmore 1993, Thomson 2013, Zaretskii 2009). Within such learning environments, development is achieved recursively as assisted performance aiming for artifact construction. As Mariotti (2009) argues, constructing artifacts enables learners to both build shared meanings and relate with personal understandings. In this way, the process is reciprocal and takes place at the inter- and the intrapersonal level. Nowadays, the view that development can happen in interaction with a knowledgeable other is disputed. Not only can the young learner learn from the teacher and peers, but, teachers can learn from their young students, by observing how tasks and activities are performed, decisions are reached, meanings negotiated and so on. while development is common for all the agents, it is purposefulness that makes it relevant. Furthermore, it is interaction on the course of dialogical situations that makes development meaningful. In digital storytelling, dialogical situations involve face-to-face communication in the classroom where the co-presence of students and teachers is required. Such communication involves both a teacher-to-student and a student-to-student pattern. In addition to the classroom, it can also occur outside the school in natural, or informal settings. In these cases, the communication event takes place in dialogue or in writing and corresponds to oral and written storytelling, which were mentioned in the previous section. Furthermore, communication can be asynchronous, when taking place on the internet through a web-based platform or service. While in the first case language is the main mode of exchange, in the second communication is achieved through a computer and with multimodal ways of expression. As the digital media facilitate the use of technologies of transcription, modes such as speech, moving and still image and writing, appear and are available for use. In this sense, digital stories are expressions of multimodal design (Kress 2011). As such, digital stories are themselves parts of digital storytelling and use multiple modes to make the meanings of events tangible, or, according to Kress (2011), to realize or materialize meanings. The fact that meaning is multimodal has implications both in the way it is produced and communicated. On the one hand, the production process impacts the organizational and the material setting of the classroom. On the other hand, basic parameters of the communicative event shift toward new directions, from real-life to virtual settings, from spoken language used for oral communication to written language used for oral communication and so on. This means that the boundaries of what is spoken and what is written blur. Therefore, different types of choice are required for meaning production and interpretation and, naturally, not all choices are relevant. The way, for instance, a response to a question is structured in face-to-face communication does not follow exactly the same rules as a response to a question on a social network, where punctuation and emoticons are essential to make up for the absence of gestures and other body language. Linguistic expression therefore remains relevant, only in different ways. As a result, these shifts open up the space for a whole new array of topical areas to be considered in education. One such area concerns choice itself and, to be exact, what constitutes the best choice. It is therefore timely to rethink what critical judgement means and how to achieve it in education. Choice does not apply to the linguistic domain only. Also, it presupposes the act of interpretation, which, in turn, presupposes a degree of critical thinking of how to both interpret the problem and get to its solution, and evaluate its relevance to a certain kind of reality. Choice therefore relates to the context where critical judgement is exercised. Although critical judgement is essential, it is not selfevident. Rather, it should be one primary pedagogical goal aiming to support development in relation to what the learners’ needs are, as these are defined within their own reality. As choice is task-based, it depends on the task as well. The more the task is bound to subject matter, the more it applies to the reality introduced by the curriculum. On the contrary, the more the task is shaped on the basis of real life needs, the more communicative it becomes and the closer to the learner’s reality it gets. This entry aims to define digital storytelling as a metaphor in education. To this end, it will draw from research projects of pedagogical integration of digital technologies in order to lead to sense descriptions of the term based on a discussion and analysis of the tasks around which the whole experience was organized. The tasks themselves signify the events being the parts of the whole of the digital storytelling narrative. These relate to the actions of both teachers and students, being the agents of digital storytelling. Thus, the development of events is a correlate of task development, which, in turn, links with the development of agents. Such development is performance-based, aims for communication and involves the use of competence in several domains. As this account focuses on the whole experience, pedagogical implementations, applications and products (e.g., the digital stories) are examined as the inside parts, or co-text, of the digital storytelling ‘text’. In addition, ‘outside’ elements (e.g., who the participants are, where from and so on), or context, are taken into account. Therefore, both co-text and context are important for a valid and reliable explanation of metaphors. To be more accurate, in this case co-text and context overlap. Storytelling as a metaphor in education The co-text is, therefore, important to the way we attach meanings and determine the degree of metaphorical novelty of terms. In Contemporary Metaphor Theory (e.g. Steen 2011), novel metaphors add an external perspective to the target domain of the utterance, in the sense that they indicate meanings different from what used to be the norm. These are called deliberate metaphors and, in terms of communication, indicate a perspective-changing function of meaning (Reijnierse 2017, Steen 2011). If, for instance, storytelling is used to refer to practices that shift the discourse in education, in terms of the ways teaching is delivered and research is conducted, with the ‘characters’ involved taking on agentic roles, then this sense constitutes a deliberate metaphor. Considering the whole noun phrase, ‘digital’ makes more explicit the target domain of the noun it modifies and, as such, constitutes a domain adjective. The domain adjective can work in three different ways (Reijnierse 2017). As a novel metaphor signal when it indicates that the noun has to be interpreted metaphorically, as belonging to or linked with the source domain. This would mean that the ‘digital’ in ‘digital storytelling’ always points to the field of education domain, which is an improbable sense in the current era. As disambiguation of meaning, where the domain adjective modifies a metaphor-related noun for which a conventionalized meaning is available in the dictionary. In this case, ‘digital’ further specifies the target meaning through a contrast with oral and written storytelling. This is the most generalized use of the term and is to some degree applied here to indicate the different communication channels. However, this paper will focus on the function as conventional metaphor signal that revitalizes the metaphorical meaning of the noun. In this case, the noun is a potentially deliberate metaphor. To further illustrate this point, Reijnierse (2017) offers examples of multiple metaphorical propositions where more than one lexical units are metaphor-related words. In “rebuilding governmental machine” and “throws a spanner on the Whitehall machinery”, for instance, the function of the adjectives is not novel per se. But the overall co-text signifies a revitalization of the metaphorical use of the noun (machine). In such cases, the adjectives work as signals of the revitalized metaphors and the nouns are identified as potentially deliberate metaphors. In a similar way, this paper will draw from empirical research on digital storytelling for pedagogical purposes and principles from narrative theory in order to discuss and analyze the innovative dimensions of the metaphor noun storytelling and bring forward digital as a practice that has the potential, not only to disambiguate between means, but also revitalize contemporary education. Digital storytelling for pedagogical and research purposes The research projects: background and methods In the studies discussed in this paper, multiple technologies are used systematically to create a unified and coordinated learning-for-engagement with fun experience by combining and dispersing integral elements of a fiction across multiple web-based, digital, connective channels. The digital story is one in which separate elements of a larger narrative can be experienced by different audiences through a range of technological platforms. In addition, digital storytelling draws from learner-centered approaches aiming to enable student learning through the use of connective technologies, digital mobile devices and language toward the production of meaningful outcomes (McGee 2015). The aim is to give students a chance to tell their own stories about the topic under discussion; highlight participatory practices; increase engagement on the topic; sustain collaborative efforts and encourage shared learning and creativity (e.g., Lambert 2013, McGee 2015, Niemi et al. 2014, Woodhouse 2008). The studies build on the Global Sharing Pedagogy model introduced by Niemi and Multisilta (2016) to provide a framework for learner-driven knowledge and skill building by working with peers, networking and developing digital media competences and literacies. For research purposes, the studies involve surveys, field notes, observations and interview data resulting from the international projects that were organized and coordinated by the University of Helsinki, between 2012 and 2014. During that period, 12-15-year-old students from Finland, Greece and California, and later, China (2015-16) were involved in making and sharing digital stories with peers across classrooms and countries on a web-based environment. These young people, therefore, being speakers of different languages, were in intercultural encounters online. Digital storytelling activities combined formal and informal settings, while the use of English emerged as a need to tell the story to international audiences of peers when sharing on a web-based platform. Thus, they transcended the boundaries of the classroom. To deal with the situation, the students turned to available resources, including friends, class, subject and English teachers, parents, dictionaries and the Internet. This use of language is evidence of the young people’s agency and reflects the desire to sustain the intercultural dialogue online. At the same time, it uncovers the need to further understand the complexity of using language to communicate when social and digital technologies are involved. For the analysis, both qualitative and quantitative methods were used. Qualitative methods were applied on students’ and teachers’ interviews, the scripts of the digital stories, and the comments the students offered on the web-based environment. During the interviews, the students’ perspectives came forward as well as how they looked at themselves not only as students but as computer and language users as well. Also, the teachers’ beliefs and attitudes about the reasoning underlying their pedagogical decisions and choices came to the fore. To analyze the data, different ways of content analysis were used (e.g., thematic and metaphor analysis) for patterns underlying the participants’ speech to be traced and valid conclusions to be reached. Quantitative methods aimed to show trends in participation and measure the level of student engagement. In this way, a multi-dimensional, in-depth understanding of the digital storytelling process was aimed for. Within this framework, Niemi and Multisilta (2016) found that technology promotes engagement and allows for student-generated stories to come up (Niemi and Multisilta 2016, Niemi et al. 2014). Student stories recount single or multiple events, while the types of stories vary depending on the background teaching approach (Vivitsou et al., 2016). Development through interaction and communication To make digital storytelling work, the teachers introduce the use of a web-based platform to connect students across classrooms. This indicates an orientation to practices that favor blended learning in school communities through interaction and online participation. As this is a dynamic, newly-introduced experience in schools, it does not require proper connectivity and infrastructure only. It also takes a comprehensive view of learning with digital technologies and entails time and effort, and different types of organization and support. Therefore, different types of action are required. Constructing professionalism in action Using web-based platforms for pedagogical purposes opens up a whole array for activities and collaborative work that aim to both structure and problematize the digital storytelling process and support student work (Vivitsou et al. 2017). This type of support is determined when the teachers plan the classroom work and design the course of action. The complexity of digital storytelling, however, does not allow for every single major or minor decision to be made in advance or every single detail to be predicted. The teaching plan, thus, is more fluid than static and, thus, rather than pre-defined, teaching practices develop in-action here. This means that the teachers construct professional knowledge in-action, as while observing students performing tasks they modify their earlier decisions. In this sense, digital storytelling is a dynamic developmental experience for teachers as well, as it allows for emergent and, thus, recursive (Kvale & Brinkmann 2009) practices in situ. Recursive practices match the current needs for flexible and adaptive teaching to guide and support students adequately through the complexities of the digital era. It also serves the need for agentic action. In an era when the digital technologies are greatly favored by the media, the market and educational policy, whether their integration into the classroom practices is a manifestation of agency is debatable. Eteläpelto and colleagues (2015), for instance, claim that, although notions of autonomy and professionalism have guided education in Finland for decades, new systems of governance and monitoring, reporting and evaluation move the profession toward more limited possibilities to practice agency. Therefore, if professional agency still exists, it should be traced in the ways technology is used in combination with the pedagogical practices, in the ways the work of teachers advances. Supporting student group work In the digital storytelling case where students need support to manage hard learning, tasks that both structure and problematize the process are needed (Vivitsou et al. 2017). The former aim to reduce complexity by, for instance, distributing the work to groups, asking students leading questions, teaching how to edit a video and so on. The later aim to allow students to raise questions and think deeper about the process and the content. A great deal of support is needed during class work. To this end, the teachers introduce a range of social (e.g., group work), symbolic (e.g., a myth) and material (e.g., mobile devices, software) tools. Such practices reflect the view of student development as dynamic space of reciprocal meaning-making interaction (Macy 2016, Moll and Whitmore 1993, Thomson 2013, Zaretskii 2009) where development is achieved recursively as performance aiming for artifact construction. As Mariotti (2009) argues, constructing artifacts enables students to both build shared meanings and relate with personal understandings. In this way, development is reciprocal and takes place at the inter- and the intra-personal level. Moreover, as they evaluate own and peers’ digital stories in groups, the students develop oral, written and digital literacies while they exchange with peers, solve problems together, give and get feedback about their strategies and adapt them when needed. In this way, students engage actively for deeper learning. In all schools, the teachers set up digital storytelling activities in informal settings. These include topic-related places such as a museum, the local open market, the school yard, an island to study a natural phenomenon, as well as the home. In terms of knowledge creation and skill development, student background knowledge is a significant aspect of organizing digital storytelling work. Organizing digital storytelling activities in informal (natural and technological) environments allows students to investigate the phenomenon in situ, do research with internet-based sources, decide what aspects of the topic to study, what pictures to take, how to put them together and so on. In this learning environment, students have choice, as they work with tasks that open up opportunities for making decisions and solving problems in interaction with peers. In addition to devices and applications, teachers combine a wide range of tasks and activities to shoot photos and videos, and edit them with mobile cameras, cell phones and tablets. In this way, they develop digital literacies and skills, for instance, when material devices (i.e., hardware and applications) are used for digital story creation, while both a ‘bring your own’ and a ‘use the school’s’ approach are applied. Overall, teachers handle technical requirements and perform a seamless introduction of digital tools into the classroom with a balanced use of older and newer technologies. However, the main underlying purpose here is to structure toward storytelling (Vivitsou et al. 2017) and thus mediate development through assistance, more than raise the problematic about, for instance, the digital divide, despite the fact that these complex tasks create the space for such problematizing to occur during the multiple stages of the process (Wass and Golding 2014). Problematizing the process Although it is structuring the work that seems to be favoured, the teachers’ decisions indicate a turn toward problematizing the established school reality. One way toward this direction is the integration of principles from diverse disciplines to teach content and a movement away from a ‘teaching-the-subject-matter’ orientation to a ‘guiding-fordevelopment’ approach in natural surroundings and informal settings (Vivitsou et al. 2016, 2017). In addition to rethinking of the classroom as the only viable option, the collaborative mode of work is a work pattern that is preferred by teachers in all digital storytelling classrooms across countries. Collaborative work can reduce task complexity and get the activity going, as well as cater for development through peer interaction for evaluation, negotiation of the content of the story, its structure and so on. Therefore, it offers choice for students to work on aspects and areas that they would like to, and allows for personalized learning. As well, the teachers can observe classroom action and reflect on own decisions. In this way, collaboration is one step to take their thinking further and weigh between the need for structure and critical judgement. In addition to common approaches and characteristics, it seems that there have been choices that can potentially mark unique teaching styles able to move the profession toward more concrete agentic action, as a counteract to the loss of autonomy the ‘new public management culture’ has invoked (Eteläpelto et al. 2015) on the grounds of tightened accountability. To further illustrate this point, three examples will be mentioned here from the digital storytelling situation (Vivitsou et al. 2017). One concerns a mid-career male Finnish teacher who explains when interviewed that his intention is to build a narrative and draw connections between the past and the present. More particularly, the aim to allow the students to explore what the Ice Age has influenced the evolution of the Finnish landscape and, in this way, get a deeper understanding of history through geography in field trips and observations and a freer way to learn. A second example is about an experienced female Finnish teacher who defines herself as a constructivist and, as such, committed to finding ways that allow students to draw connections for knowledge building. For this purpose, she chooses storytelling as one way to make students’ thinking visible. She does so, like a ‘magician in a theatre or a circus’, always in search for something new. A third example concerns a female mid-career teacher from Finland who believes that the classroom needs to open up and expand its boundaries, especially now when the school becomes more and more multicultural. Intercultural encounters, therefore, using digital storytelling as teaching method seems to be a pathway for her students from diverse backgrounds getting motivated and engaged with learning. Moreover, digital storytelling is one way to collaborative practices that make schooling more democratic and less authoritative. Although more research is needed on the matter, these choices point toward particular styles of teaching that, at the time of the digital storytelling implementation, made teaching a singular, individual work. Partnering with methods and techniques that give more choice and more voice to the student, individual stances to historically-grounded teaching aiming to bring the young people’s thinking to the fore through freer schooling may form the basis for bottom-up practices for a restored agency in the profession. Thus, singular, theoretically-grounded choices combined with universal approaches mark the teachers’ orientation in digital storytelling. Performing multimodal storytelling tasks As we look into digital storytelling as narrative, how the classroom events develop matters. Therefore, the students’ actions and how they achieve meaning construction plays a role. In digital storytelling meaning is made through a multiplicity of modes that present evidence of learning in different ways. Under this lens, learning results out of the engagement with an aspect of the world that is the focus of attention on-task, on the basis of the principles the individual brings to that engagement. Such engagement is thus leading to a transformation of the individual’s conceptual resources (Kress 2011). Conceptual resources include both a better understanding of the object of study (i.e., the content or subject-matter) and an updated sense of identity. Initiative plays a crucial role in this development. Student initiative The studies discussed here show that the students developed initiative for mainly two purposes. One type of initiative emerges out of group and individual work aiming for story completion and task accomplishment (Vivitsou et al. 2016, 2017). In order to make the stories communicable, the young people turned to friends, teachers, parents, and the Internet for language and other types of support. In this way, they were able to subtitle, structure, publish, share and comment the stories. In this way, the stories are not only testimonies of the young people’s taking action, but also of the desire to sustain the dialogue in group work and with connected peers online. While developing a sense of being storytellers, students enter a dialogue with peers where cultural characteristics show up, as, for example, when Greek student stories reveal elements that connect the historical past with the present, by drawing upon mythology and History. In this learning space students develop an embodied rather than exclusively cognitive appreciation and display an ability to respond with new initiatives. In this sense, the students do not just carry out, but perform the task. Thus, commitment to hard work, seems to be intertwined with performance. This becomes obvious through mainly three ways of student action: By taking on a role and acting-as director, script writer, narrator and so on, student appreciation of the story making process changes. By entering into dialogue with peers, they act-with rather than acting-over others. By acting-to explore and understand better, student appreciation of the surrounding space and those found in it as well as of the process and the content of learning changes. They also re-establish relationships with peers and develop a sense of being-in-the-world by getting involved with other people, other species and the surrounding space, whether physical or virtual. In this sense, students do not simply enact a pre-assigned role, but learn and grow by changing through own efforts and encourage others to change as well (Vivitsou & Viitanen 2015). Ultimately, student initiative, embodied action and ongoing decision making, although not in a mutually exclusive way, are related. Intercultural exchanges with peers online Within this context, the use of English as common medium comes up ‘unplanned’ rather than as outcome of guided formal instruction to transcend conventional boundaries. This opens up the opportunity for learners to use diverse texts from ‘out-of-school’ domains and, thus, pushes the boundaries of formal schooling to get unsettled at the intersection of the ‘script’ (i.e., the curriculum) with the digitally-mediated lifeworld contexts (Lund 2006, Ørevik 2015). In this sense, digital storytelling is a generative device that proceeds from practice and work toward the production of artifacts and works of discourse. In other words, digital storytelling constitutes a (pedagogical) genre (Vivitsou 2016) that encompasses the ways of acting and the purposes of those who act (Fairclough 2014, Swayles 2014). In terms of communicative purpose, digital stories can generate cross-cutting text types, ranging from descriptive to expository to narrative to dialogic and reflective (Ørevik 2015). As the findings of the empirical studies show, student-generated stories can be single- or multiple-event based when they tell the story of one or several instances or aspects of a phenomenon (e.g., a historical event, a chemical reaction etc.). When they tell the story of the young story makers’ everydayness, the stories are student-initiated (Vivitsou et al. 2016). Both event-based and student-initiated stories use language to pass the message through. Language use mainly comes up in the form of oral expression in the speakers’ L1 (mother language) and can be pre-planned (e.g., as in the case of event-based stories) or more spontaneous (e.g., in student-initiated stories). It can also come up as written speech in the shape of, for instance, subtitles (or annotations, i.e. short verbal explanations of the content of the story). Subtitles aim to summarize and provide the gist (i.e., the main idea) of the story. Use of language for authentic purposes As students share digital stories with peers on a Web-based environment, storytelling activates discussions and exchanges in the form of comments. Such interactions can offer insights into the content, the production or the purpose underlying the story and can offer the ground for deeper reflection on these areas. The aim here is both to set and expand social relationships, and meet the pedagogical purposes. Storytelling by using web-based platforms and the services of Web 2.0 involves social networking practices. When, for example, the young people share stories online and respond to their peers’ comments in the designated area of a webbased platform, they type capitals and post emoticons to signify gesture and other body language markers. In this way, while interaction turns become enriched through comments (Penttilä et al. 2016), semiotic markers make up for the absence of other signs of communication and introduce a contemporary popular practice into the classroom event. Emoticons are not the only symbolic system. The story itself is based on signs and symbols, in terms of the ways storytellers represent the events, and how the characters express themselves. The young people, as mentioned above, use their L1 to communicate the message of the story. In addition, they need to use a language other than their L1, in order to share and communicate with international peers. Language can come up in the form of oral expression and can be pre-planned or more spontaneous. It can also come up in the form of subtitles to summarize and provide the main idea so that the story can make sense. In this way, the young people are engaged in symbolic work in multiple ways. In digital storytelling, symbolic work concerns both text-based and video-based exchanges. It is, therefore, essential that future practices will consider the need to set a common ‘language’ that does not involve the linguistic code only. Furthermore, it becomes clear that when the young people work on the story, they already have the distant peers in mind. The distant peers are imagined. According to Norton and Toohey (2011), imagined communities can represent a reality as strong as that of learners’ daily engagement, and can have an intense impact on the learning process. Norton (2001) even argues that a lack of awareness of learners’ imagined communities could narrow the possibilities of development in that learning environment. Identity scholars (e.g., Norton 2001, Norton & Toohey 2011, Pavlenko & Norton 2007) link imagined communities with the learners’ imagined identities, as the one assumes the other. As Norton & Toohey (2011) argue, a target (language) community is not only a reconstruction of past experiences and historically reconstituted relationships. It is a desired community offering a range of identity options and a way for learners to look to the future. Nowadays, webenhanced encounters in multilingual settings make even more pronounced the need to consider how young people construct identities, as the fluid time-space and the lack of boundaries of the electronic medium can create ambiguities of subject positions (Kramsch 2009: 172-3). The computer, therefore, is a window that looks through and at the world, and, as such, frames reality through the symbolic forms that appear on the screen. As a result, the young students are nowadays engaged with identity work, as they author and narrate their pathways to their audiences by using computers and digital technologies. According to Thorne and Black (2011), as diverse language-cultural backgrounds of participants intersect in heterogeneous textual inspirations, participants are engaged in symbolic work by actively contributing to a transcultural blend of literary and popular culture fictional worlds. In this way, members of the community enter a process of interpreting one another’s work, while they author their narratives sitting behind the screens of their computers or navigating through the screens of their mobile devices. Digital stories for pedagogical purposes When it comes to digital storytelling tasks, it is not only the digital story that matters. It is also the ‘about the story’ or meta-story that should be taken into account. Attributing meta-features contextualizes the story and extends the digital narrative. In this sense, the digital story is part of the whole of digital storytelling, not the whole per se. Following this, the following section will focus on issues about the stories. One such issue concerns the different sets of events that the digital stories can present. Some stories focus on instances of the object of study and others present more complex plots. While the former act like zoom-in lenses of the classroom narrative, the latter build up networks of actions. In both cases the students act as storytellers and as characters. The characters of the stories can be real or fictional. As a result, different types of stories come up. The types of digital stories (Vivitsou et al. 2016) relate to the underlying teaching approach and are categorized into: (1) subject-based digital stories, (2) interdisciplinary digital stories, and (3) student-initiated stories. The latter had an indirect connection to curricula, introducing themes and events that were interesting and important to students. The topic and perspective in subject-based stories focus mainly on a school subject, whereas interdisciplinary digital stories cross these borders. Following this initial categorization, the digital stories are reviewed from the perspective of narrative: on one end of this scale there are stories that describe student observations on instances of a phenomenon; on the other, the stories are longer and demonstrate a tighter narrative structure. Subject-matter focused stories Instances of a phenomenon. These subject-specific stories present the students’ efforts to capture a particular aspect of a phenomenon, in this case a chemical or physical one, in order to study and obtain a deeper insight into it. The production of these stories varied from rather unedited video clips to more structured ones, yet the key attribute was that they consisted only of a single scene that had been captured at once. These clips were about tasks carried out during lessons or events observed on field trips. In a sense, they were captured ‘in the heat of the moment’ in order to document what the students considered relevant and interesting. The possibility of filming seemed to increase student motivation when science learning was transferred to off-school sites (e.g., field trips, a chemistry laboratory, science centre etc.). In the lab, students could focus on and observe experiments very attentively through video lenses. Selecting a phenomenon and trying to understand and explain the event, (e.g., a chemical reaction) to a potential audience were important parts in the students’ study process. In some cases, subject-based stories were recorded at home or during a holiday trip. When conditions permitted, stories were filmed in classroom settings (e.g., the science lab). Multiple phenomena-based stories. These include clearly distinguishable clips that together form the story. In this way, they build a tighter narrative than the aforementioned instance-based stories. One of the most elaborate multiple phenomena-based digital stories about science was related to air and was captured on a field trip. This story combined different themes, which mainly enriched the curricular content taught at school. The storyteller also put significant effort in structuring and framing the scenes with relevant scientific explanations in the form of annotations (i.e., a type of subtitles that can be added during the editing process for further explanation or descriptions of the object of study). The story grouped different air-related exhibitions into four scenes. The first scene consisted of a short video clip of a scale model of Earth. The second portrayed a student testing the effects of air pressure with a pump-like device, where a weight is dropped inside a tube in order to achieve a causal effect in a tube placed next to it. As a result of dropping the weight, a tennis ball flew up in the other tube. The third clip dealt with a hot air balloon that was rose and fell. The final scene was captured during a live performance where a scientist demonstrated the space requirements of gases by inserting a straw into subliming dry ice. Interdisciplinary digital stories Most of these were multi-event stories. As a single event, a story could be a picture or snapshot of the single phenomenon, for example a video clip from a forest. In interdisciplinary stories the attention is placed on a series of actions. Therefore, the plot displays a more elaborate structure by, for example, introducing a conflict or reaching a climax and resolution. Interdisciplinary stories cross the borders of different subjects for production. For example, stories about myths were created during History and Greek Language lessons. Overall, they build a tighter narrative and introduce fictional characters. The multi-event stories focused on the following themes: Themes from the human sciences. These stories build a more structured narrative by recounting multiple events in the characters’ lives using dramatization (e.g., body movements and gestures) and other narration techniques to support storytelling. One example draws upon ancient Greek mythology to provide alternative versions of myths. A secondary aim is to enhance student understanding of a natural phenomenon such as season alternation during the year by drawing links with mythical explanations from ancient times. In the story Euro, the birth of Europe, two narrators support action with scripts delivering the message to the international network of peers using English subtitles. Dramatization techniques are efforts to free the communication of meaning from language barriers. The storyline centres on three main characters: Zeus, Europe and the people. In another story, the Myth of Persephone, oral narration pulls plot strings together and the eight-year-old storytellers alternate text slides with action to support the narrative. This filmic practice not only mimics silent movie logic, but also aims to overcome language barriers arising from the fact that the students have just been introduced to learning the English language. Combining complex themes. Some digital stories presented variations of a more complex phenomenon, such as recycling. To produce the videos, the students worked together to create a plot and convey the message through the interaction in the story. Unlike the myths, these stories introduce ‘real-life’ characters with using several filmic practices. In this classroom, the students decided what kinds of stories they would like to produce and what aspect of recycling they would like to explore in their videos. All stories aimed to inform and give instructions about how to recycle and, in general, were dramatized and acted. In some of these videos, one character does not know how to recycle and another advises on to do that. Alternatively, a character seeks information on ways of recycling from the Internet. Some stories were more documentary-like, where filmmakers showed how recycling can be done in an authentic place. In contrast to the subject-based stories discussed above, interdisciplinary stories are produced at the end of a series of lessons. While in subject-based stories the students used annotations to offer explanations, the students added subtitles to the theme-based stories on recycling in the post-production phase. In both cases they did so in order to pass the message to international peers online. In addition, some stories were performed in English. Hanging out So far, digital stories have a close relationship with themes grounded in curricular requirements. In these cases, the teacher’s initiative is often primary. However, not all stories are based on teacher initiative to put forward a topic for student work. Some build on student initiative and aim to present a theme that projects, for example, instances of home life and culture or their hobbies. In this respect, digital storytelling relates to the formal content of learning both directly and indirectly and requires both aspects of engagement, as fun and as commitment to hard work, in order to produce meaningful outcomes. As these also provide evidences of how these young people relate and hang out in their free time, they constitute an authentic way developing different types of competence and literacies. In the following examples, the students put forward their own ideas and filmed digital stories aiming to introduce themselves to peers, present instances of their lives and culture and tell stories about who they are, and what their dayto-day life is like during school or after school hours. These are deviations from the original teacher plan for curriculum-based digital storytelling and are, therefore, student-driven in terms of themes and production mode. The products could be single- or multi-event stories but, in most cases, they focused on a series of events. Telling the story of who we are. Stories that deal with self-presentations are descriptive with videos that use a static camera and mainly long shots. Self-presentations can serve as pedagogical icebreakers and are produced within the school timetable. Overall, the filmic practice seeks to give a picture of the class as a whole. However, in the A few things about us story, filmic practice shifts the focus of presentation away from the long shot class view to groups of students presenting themselves. This is the English version of introductions that students publish in order to address the international audience one month after posting the Greek version. This story not only shifts the focus of attention to the group level, but it also evidences how student digital skills have advanced as they can now put together a series of clips to come up with a remixed version of the story. The local museum is an example of a story produced as part of flexible zone activities. Flexible activities in Greek primary schools are part of the school timetable but, unlike subject-matter oriented teaching, are project-based and thus interdisciplinary in nature. As with the myths, thematic and filmic student choices allow for a longer, more complex narrative to take shape. The museum contrasts the fictional character of the myths. However, the students’ effort to construct a plot to hold the narrative together is evident. Background music is used here to create a sense of reverence and respect for the past. Telling stories in after-school hours. The students tell stories about their hobbies during their free time. In one of these videos a female student tells a story about riding and taking care of her horse. The story, filmed at a horse farm, documents the process of grooming, taking care of the horse, a demonstration of riding equipment and offers some advice on how to keep the horse. Long shots alternate close-ups. Tracking shots following the horse transport the viewer into the scene and add to the truthfulness of the story. The message seems to be clear: this is a story of young people who care about nature and non-human beings. In addition, as the students take care to make the sub-themes of the main topic explicit, this story belongs to the multiplerather than the single-event type. Similarly, in a digital story about computing and playing computer games, the main character (a male student) presents the kind of computer he has and gives tips to beginner and experienced gamers. The video includes both long shots of the student’s room and close-ups of the computer-machine. Clearly, technology is the subject here. The camera follows the human character and at some point, close-ups reveal the internal part, the anatomy of the computer. At the end of the video, four male filmmakers apply the screenshot technique showing their faces to tell the audience who the video-makers are. In this way, faces replace end titles. Overall, the tighter to the curriculum the stories are, the less space is left for interpretive action. In subject-based stories, for example, the students test a chemical reaction. In terms of narrative theory (Kaplan 2003 pp. 52-3), the students perform a configurative operation that mediates a pre-understanding and a post-understanding of the chemical phenomenon. The narrative arc is narrow here, while the reality the students refer to is the textbook reality. A lot more co-text is, thus, needed for this event to offer something other than sticking to the formal interpretation of what knowledge is. In comparison, the configuration of action in interdisciplinary stories creates possibilities for an array of new meanings from a diverse narrative arc. Within this framework, the notion of digital literacy becomes increasingly vague. A multidimensional approach to digital literacy aiming for communicative competence is therefore needed. A contemporary metaphorical definition of digital storytelling Considering the above discussion and analysis, storytelling online with digital technologies can be overall seen as one expression of computer mediated communication that opens up the space for non-unitary, non-finite digital literacies and promotes reflective ways of using technologies as well as the context of use. Non-finite digital literacies are dynamic, embedded in everyday life as social practice and fit better with the current need to develop a critical understanding of digital media (Buckingham 2015, Engen et al. 2015, Lankshear and Knobel 2015). This view is linked with agency gained at the click of the mouse, while the computer and multimedia technology both manipulate and recreate reality (Murray 1997). Given the needs of the digital era, in order to be able to tell what is fake and what is true, it is not enough to be competent computer user. It is not enough for schools to educate competent computer users either. Users should be agentic, taught by agentic teachers aiming for communication. This view of agency in relation to a dynamic approach to digital literacy opens up the space for analytical modes of research for deeper understanding, a shift of perspective in pedagogy including structure and critical judgement, and a space for endless storytelling that the narrative perspective in education opens up. Concluding, this paper draws from findings of empirical research, metaphor theory and narrative theory in order to offer a holistic view of digital storytelling as a method where, not only digital technologies are introduced into classrooms, but as a metaphor that has the potential to revitalize the sense descriptions of education in the terms of ways: Teaching is practiced As an interactive experience within formal and informal settings As an interpretative experience that aims for communicative purposes As a developmental experience through agentic action As a narrative experience that is both the whole and its parts As agentic professional action that has singular, individual and universal characteristics As aiming for students building identities as computer users and as language users Research is designed and implemented For explaining and attaining in-depth understanding of the process and the participants For a narrative understanding of the research focus as historical reality and as empirical reality Competence-based education is conceptualized With digital literacy as part of a wider communicative competence References Buckingham, D. (2015). Defining digital literacy - What do young people need to know about digital media? Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy, 10: 21-35. DOI: 10.18261/issn.1891-943X Engen, B., K., Giaever, T., H. & Mifsud, L. (2015). Guidelines and Regulations for Teaching Digital Competence in Schools and Teacher Education: A Weak Link? Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy, 10: 172-186. DOI: 10.18261/issn.1891-943X Eteläpelto, A., Vähäsantanen K. & Hökkä P. (2015) How do novice teachers in Finland perceive their professional agency? Teachers and Teaching, 21:6, 660-680, DOI: 10.1080/13540602.2015.1044327 Kaplan, D. M. (2003). Ricoeur’s Critical Theory. N.Y.: SUNY. Kramsch, C. (2009). The Multilingual Subject. Oxford: OUP. Kress, G. (2011). Multimodal discourse analysis from: The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Routledge. Accessed: 29 Sep 2017, https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9780203809068.ch3 Kvale, S. & Brinkmann, S. (2009). Interviews - Learning the Craft of Qualitative Research Interviewing. London, UK: SAGE. Lakoff, G. (1993). The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor. In Metaphor and Thought, edited by A. Ortony, pp. 202-51. Second ed. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live by. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Lambert, J. (2013). Digital storytelling: Capturing lives, creating community. New York, NY: Routledge. Lankshear, C. & Knobel, M. (2015). Digital Literacy and Digital Literacies: - Policy, Pedagogy and Research Considerations for Education. Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy, 10: 8-20. DOI: 10.18261/issn.1891-943X Lund, A. (2006). The multiple contexts of online language teaching. Language Teaching Research, 10(2), 181–204. DOI 10.1191/1362168806lr191oa Macy, L. (2016). Bridging Pedagogies: Drama, Multiliteracies, and the Zone of Proximal Development, The Educational Forum, 80:3, 310-323, DOI: 10.1080/00131725.2016.1173750. Mariotti, M. A. (2009). Artifacts and signs after a Vygotskian perspective: the role of the teacher. ZDM Mathematics Education, 41, pp. 427–440. McGee, P. (2015). The instructional value of digital storytelling: Higher education, professional, and adult learning settings. New York, NY: Routledge. Moll, L., & Whitmore, K. (1993). Vygotsky in educational settings: Moving from individual transmission to social transaction. In E. Forman, N. Minick, & A. Stone. (Eds.), Contexts for learning: Sociocultural dynamics in children’s development (pp. 19-42). Oxford: O.U.P. Murray, S. J. (1997). Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. NY: The Free Press. Niemi, H. & Multisilta, J. (2016). Digital storytelling promoting twenty-first century skills and student engagement, Technology, Pedagogy and Education. DOI 10.1080/1475939X.2015.1074610. Niemi, H., Harju, V., Vivitsou, M., Viitanen, K., Multisilta, J., & Kuokkanen, A. (2014). Digital storytelling for 21stcentury skills in virtual learning environments. Creative Education, 5(9), 657–671. DOI: 10.4236/ce.2014.59078 Norton, B. (2010). Language and identity. In N. Hornberger & S. McKay (eds.), Sociolinguistics and language education. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters, 349–369. Norton, B. & Toohey, K. (2011). Identity, language learning, and social change. Lang. Teach., 44(4): 412-446. DOI: 10.1017/s0261444811000309 Pavlenko, A. & B. Norton (2007). Imagined communities, identity, and English language teaching. In J. Cummins & C. Davison (eds.), International handbook of English language teaching. NY: Springer, 669–680. DOI: 10.1007/978-0387-46301-8_43 Penttilä, J., Kallunki, V., Niemi, H. M. & Multisilta, J. (2016). A Structured Inquiry into a Digital Story: Primary School Students Report the Making of a Superball. International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning, 8(3), pp. 19-34. DOI: 10.4018/ijmbl.2016070102 Steen, G.J. (2011). The contemporary theory of metaphor – now new and improved! Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 9(1), 26–64. doi:10.1075/ ml.9.1.03ste Ørevik, S. (2015). From book to screen: Changing genre patterns and communicative purposes. Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy, 2: 102-120. DOI: 10.18261/issn.1891-943X. Reijnierse, W. G. (2017). The Value of Deliberate Metaphor. University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Doctoral Dissertation. Ricoeur, P. (1978). The Rule of Metaphor: Multi-disciplinary studies of the creation of meaning in language. Transl. R. Czerny with K. McLaughlin & J. Costello, SJ. London, UK: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. Ricoeur, P. (1992). Oneself as Another, trans. Kathleen Blamey, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Thompson, I. (2013). The Mediation of Learning in the Zone of Proximal Development through a Co-constructed Writing Activity. Research in the Teaching of English, 47(3), pp. 247-276. Thorne, S.L. and Black, R.W. (2011) Identity and Interaction in Internet-mediated Contexts. In: C. Higgins (ed.), Negotiating the Self in a Second Language: Identity Formation and Cross-cultural Adaptation in a Globalizing World. New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Vivitsou, M. (2016). Social media and networks as communicative acts: vulnerabilities and possibilities for the pedagogies of the future – An empirical hermeneutical study of Finnish and Greek teachers’ and students’ experiences. University of Helsinki, Finland: Doctoral dissertation. Accessed online: 1.1.2018. Available: https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/161007/Socialme.pdf?sequence=1 Vivitsou, M. (in press). Values and purposes in digital pedagogies: a meta-analysis on Finnish & Greek teachers’ metaphorical thinking. In Innovative Applications of Online Pedagogy & Course Design. R. Sharma (Ed.). USA: IGI Global. Vivitsou, M., Kallunki, V., Niemi, H. M., Penttilä, J. S. M. & Harju, A. V. (2016). Student-driven knowledge creation through digital storytelling. In New Ways to Teach and Learn in China and Finland: Crossing Boundaries with Technology. Niemi, H. & Jia, J. (eds.). Frankfurt: Peter Lang, p. 35-54 20 p. Vivitsou, M. Niemi, H., Wei, G., Kallunki, V. & Miao, R. (2017). Teachers' practices to support student work in digital storytelling: A study on Finnish and Chinese school teachers' experiences. In: Seminar.net International Journal of Media, technology and Lifelong Learning), Vol. 13, No. 2, 2017. ISSN: 1504-4831. Available: https://journals.hioa.no/index.php/seminar/article/view/2306 Vivitsou, M. & Viitanen, K. (2015). The pedagogies of the future: Through young people’s eyes in storytelling experiences with the digital in Finland and Greece. In Zlitni, S. & Lienard, F. (Eds.) Electronic Communication: Political, Social and Educational uses. Bern: Peter Lang Europäischer Verlag der Wissenschaften, pp. 110-123. Wass, R. & Golding, C. (2014) Sharpening a tool for teaching: the zone of proximal development, Teaching in Higher Education, 19:6, 671-684, DOI: 10.1080/13562517.2014.901958. Woodhouse, J. (2008). Storytelling: A telling approach in healthcare education. Paper presented at the Narrative Practitioner Conference, Wrexham, England. Zaretskii, V. K. (2009) The Zone of Proximal Development, Journal of Russian & East European Psychology, 47:6, pp. 70-93.