Comments on: Design + Storytelling

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 00:26:33 +0000

Good theme. Why not give it a go? Of course, no tech here, but the storytelling link is still strong, and involving the kiddies is a great idea.

By: 8 Ways Blogging Makes Me A Better Teacher | So You Want To Teach?

8 Ways Blogging Makes Me A Better Teacher | So You Want To Teach? — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 07:03:01 +0000

[…] Dan wrote an awesome article entitled Design + Storytelling where he discusses the corolation between storytelling and teaching skills. Awesome stuff. He […]

By: dan

dan — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 22:48:58 +0000

Toastmasters has been a temptation for some time. Gotta find a local chapter.

Mr. K, I’m not so pumped on storytelling as a teaching/educating tool (though, structurally, I can’t avoid it). As evidence of learning, an artifact of the process, I’m pretty sure it’s the greatest, best hope for a cross-curricular assignment we have.

By: Neal

Neal — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 16:19:11 +0000

Re: controlling your intonation, etc.

I wholly recommend joining your local Toastmasters club if you want to hone your storytelling skills. After all, any kind of effective public speaking demands the ability to tell a story in a manner meaningful to your audience. Toastmasters has certainly helped me in this regard, and I was a perfectly confident public speaker before joining. While I dig information design, it’s incredible what some of my club members can do with nothing but their voice.

By: Ben Bleckley

Ben Bleckley — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 07:29:44 +0000

Your thoughts on storytelling make me think of multigenre research papers that we discussed in some of my college classes – research papers that present information using poems, songs, vingettes, art and other genres to best convey the information. My exposure to them has only been in English classes, but the use of them in science or math classes would truly be cross-curricular and more meaningful to students.

I think you could be on to something here as a common cause for the 2.0 community and “right tool for the right job” community.

I have yet to get to do multiple genre papers in a classroom of my own, but there’s a book out there by Tom Romano, I think.

By: Mathew

Mathew — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 05:14:38 +0000

Thanks for bringing Tom’s post to my attention.

I’ve posted on my digital literacy blog a bit about the design tools filmmakers have… http://tinyurl.com/3ydx2g

By: Mr. K

Mr. K — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 00:53:33 +0000

I was really exposed to story telling as an educational skill through the ojai foundation. I'm not sold that it's a perfect solution, but the nature of the councils they run really downplays back and forth communication, and brings storytelling to the front. It's less a vehicle for persuasion, and more an opportunity to share experience. There is something powerful that happens when it works well, but it is all centered on the story telling abilities of the people in the circle. And generally, those people have no training other than regular participation in that forum. That's where they learn their skills. As Tom says, it's something that is best improved by just doing it, analyzing your efforts, and then doing it again.

By: dan

dan — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 00:24:54 +0000

Good to hear music affirmed as an instrument of storytelling. Such has been my suspicion, but I’ve got a lot less credibility in that arena (read: none) so thanks for chiming in.

By: Joel

Joel — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 00:08:30 +0000

I love it! As a band director, controlling the emotional responses of others is very important to me. My students tell me that I’m a good story teller, so maybe that’s a good thing.

When we got back from Christmas vacation this week, I had plenty of stories to tell. On Monday, I told my classes about my dog being hit by a car and my trip to Walt Disney World for Christmas and everything that I did (well, not EVERYTHING).

On Tuesday, and even throughout the week, they were asking me if I had any stories to tell. Of course, I obliged them. :)

Sometimes I wonder if they just want to hear stories because it means they don’t have to work as hard. At the same time, it builds an emotional connection, which ends up producing better results in the end anyway…