Bringing Social Media And Digital Storytelling To Jordan’s Public Schools

After having worked for so long in Jordan’s educational sector, it was good to be back to a Jordanian public school again. This time not as a student nor as an evaluator, but as a trainer to introduce students and teachers to the possibilities that digital storytelling can offer in the education field. In coordination with the Jordan Education Initiative, 7iber held two digital storytelling workshops to demonstrate the use of  blogs and multimedia content like audio slideshows. The first workshop was held for 15 students from the Princess Rahmeh Public School, and the other for ten teachers from  both Princess Rahmeh and Al-Shifaa Bint Awf Schools. One would have never expected the energy and enthusiasm coming from teachers and students sitting through an after-school training, where the only incentive or motivation offered is self-development.

Public schools teachers are challenged with meeting what the Ministry of Education promotes as “21st Century Learning”, especially in the face of big constraints like intense curricula, maximized classroom sizes and limited Internet, and computer resources. However, these constraints have also served to inspire them to look for learning opportunities beyond the borders of their schools and classrooms. How can these digital tools help out in the classrooms of Jordan’s public schools? For teachers, using tools like blogs or producing content like audio slideshows can even help reduce the class time needed to offer students feedback on their assignments and projects. Teachers noted that students generally shy away from engaging in self expression and participation in front of their peers. Thus, teachers viewed digital storytelling as a tool to encourage and build higher standards for constructive dialogue and critique between peers. Most teachers in the workshop agreed that utilizing blogs and multimedia creates an opportunity to move away from traditional teacher-students paradigms to increased students-students interactions.

It was surprising to know that despite the participants’ daily access to Internet, they never heard of “blogging”. Students even wondered outloud how they could have missed such a common communication tool, especially given the fact that it has been so influential throughout the region. Thinking about how blogs might help “spice up” their learning process, students found blogs a great tool for group-based projects where they can communicate and share ideas without having to physically be in the same place. Some of them expressed their willingness to anonymously blog about educational realities that they would otherwise shy away from expressing.

Most interesting was the way teachers and students separately looked at the issue of credibility of information presented on blogs given their independent nature. Students were more excited to publish anonymously in order to be able to speak their minds. On the other hand, teachers were more concerned about “controlling” the open commenting and contribution environment of blogs to assure appropriateness of content.

By the end of the two workshops, most teachers and students started their own blogs and produced a total of five audio slideshows, applying both the basic concepts of storytelling  and photography. One of the produced slideshows done by teachers can be accessed here..