Travis Past
Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan
Hi! I'm Travis Past. I've been living and teaching English in Japan for 10 years and I'm currently at the School of International Studies at Kwansei Gakuin University in Hyogo, Japan. My research interests include CALL, Extensive reading, Digital Storytelling, Group interaction, and Peer feedback. This time I'll be sharing about an action research project I carried out in one of my asynchronous English communication classes this past school year. I asked students to participate in a collaborative storytelling assignment on flipgrid (video sharing platform) with the goals of enhancing student interaction and community building. I'm excited to be a part of this year's KOTESOL conference and am looking forward to joining many interesting sessions!
Sessions
Once Upon a Time: Digital Storytelling to Enrich Asynchronous Classrooms
This presentation reports on an action research project that used collaborative digital storytelling activities to help increase student communication, engagement, interaction, and motivation in an asynchronous classroom. An intact class of university students participated in a 3-week study where they used Flipgrid (a video-sharing platform) to co-construct narrative stories. Participant motivation and engagement were measured through a qualitative survey. Storytelling has been considered a useful exercise for language learners because it offers an opportunity for meaning-focused use of the target language through narrative structures. While there is a gap in research on collaborative storytelling, an added benefit of it is that learners must negotiate for meaning as they co-construct a single story. With the current need for online classes, platforms such as Flipgrid enable learners to easily create, share, and respond to each other’s videos. While preliminary, results suggest that online collaborative digital storytelling will enrich the asynchronous classroom.