Storytelling

Overview

Storytelling is possibly the most effective way to convey knowledge and understanding. For generations, traditions, beliefs, and morals have been shared through stories...hearts have been stirred and passions ignited. Even today, our most popular leisure pursuits (movies, books, video games) have at there core a process of telling (or creating) a story.

Why are stories so popular? Why are they so effective for learning? Many explanations are possible, but I think the heart of their success relies in how they draw in emotions and intellect. Educators have long known that the most effective learning requires high involvement (interactivity) that stimulates various senses. The more senses involved, the greater the learning.

Stories arouse and hold the attention of learners. For example, in a classroom, a teacher who begins a lecture with "When I worked at CNN..." has a far more effective opening (and captured student interest) than an instructor who hands out a course syllabus.

Resources

Storytelling at a Distance
"Storytelling is one of the most effective techniques for conveying information in a compelling and memorable way. The use of stories is more fun for presenters and students than unidimensional exposition. Stories build tension and suspense in anticipation of a resolution, making them entertaining and engaging modes of explication. Good storytelling is an art in the classroom; but, at a distance, storytelling becomes problematic."

5 ELEMENTS OF DIGITAL STORYTELLING
"In the first decade of its existence the World Wide Web has been used primarily as a new content distribution channel. It has not yet come into its own as a new medium. In order for the Web to achieve full status as a new medium, content developers and users must take full advantage of its attributes, environment, and functionalities."

Grassroots KM through blogging
"Explicit knowledge is knowledge that is very definable, and very objective. Hence it can be easily documented, and transferred. Tacit knowledge on the other hand, is the knowledge that lives in peoples' head and in their practices. It's the knowledge that hides itself from their consciousness even though they put it to use every day. Tacit knowledge manifests itself only through the practice in which it is used. And, it is this tacit part that is more important of the two."

Bringing Us Back to Life: Storytelling and the Modern Organization
"Storytelling is one of the oldest and most powerful devices for building community.
For thousands of years, human beings have gathered in community to share their stories, to listen and learn about themselves, to what their lives are about, and how their common values are acted out in the world."

Two shakes of action, a dash of context and a pinch of communication: two scholars attempt to define the essential ingredients of online stories
"Since the Institute for New Media Studies launched in 2000, Paul has challenged journalists, academics, students and a cross-section of non-journalist creatives: artists, gamers, musicians, among others, to play with new forms of storytelling in a series of workshops and meetings. Her goal is to explore, then pull lessons back to real-life efforts."

Introduction to storytelling
"Humans have told stories since the cave, and there is a resurgence of interest in the art among today’s business leaders. What is new is the purposeful use of narrative to achieve a practical outcome. In this seminar, four leading thinkers on knowledge management explain why storytelling will become a key ingredient in managing communications, education, training and innovation in the 21st Century."

Stories, Curricula, Master's Degrees and Dragon Slaying
"Once upon a time there was a kingdom that was overrun with dragons. The people were terrorized by the dragons so they decided to build a new curriculum in their finest university to train young warriors in the art of dragon slaying. The university faculty met and formed a curriculum committee to establish a master's degree in dragon slaying. The committee drew on all the wisest faculty in the university from the arts and the sciences. There were business faculty and law faculty and medical faculty. The engineering faculty was represented and so was the humanities faculty. Surely from such an erudite group, the best and the brightest could instruct those who wished to learn how to slay a dragon."

Imparting knowledge through storytelling, Part 1
"There has been an ongoing interest in storytelling as a component in knowledge management over the last few years, but it has never really become a major focus. Storytelling has been touted as the best way to make the leap from information to knowledge, and as the best way to capture and transfer tacit knowledge."
Imparting knowledge through storytelling, Part 2

Online Storytelling Forms
"Telling news stories online is exciting and challenging because of all the tools at our disposal. Online journalists must think on multiple levels at once: words, ideas, story structure, design, interactives, audio, video, photos, news judgment."

WisdomTools
Story-based elearning.

Digital Storytelling
"The Center for Digital Storytelling is a non-profit project development, training, and research organization dedicated to assisting people in using digital media to tell meaningful stories from their lives."

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