Schedule: Virtual Strand (Conference Hall 3) Day and time to be announced

Title: Innovative Ways of Using New Media Technology in Student-Centered Collaborative Projects: Digital Stories in English as a Second Language Instruction
Authors: Beverly Bickel, Heather Linville, Polina Vinogradova
Abstract: This Research & Development paper discusses how digital stories, a new multimodal narrative genre that has emerged in the past fifteen years, can be used in content-based ESL instruction to foster a creative and collaborative student-centered environment. Using such software as Final Cut Pro/Express, i-Movie, Windows Movie Maker, or Photo Story 3, ESL learners who produce digital stories as their final projects combine verbal narration with visual images and musical background to create powerful two- to five-minute messages.

The paper argues that while digital stories are individual new media projects, their use allows for creation of an interactive, collaborative, and creative classroom community of practice. The paper illustrates how throughout the process of mapping out and planning their digital stories, writing and audio recording their verbal narratives, collecting and digitizing still images, selecting music, and working with the software to produce their digital stories, the students become decision makers and evaluators of their own and each other’s work. Thus, throughout this process, the students develop multiliteracies that are crucial for the development of functional and academic literacy in the contemporary world. Participating in this student-centered community of practice, the students practice newly acquired lexical and grammatical units while applying them to themes and topics that are genuinely interesting and important to them.

To illustrate how the process of digital stories production contributes to the development of multiliteracies and fosters creative and collaborative student-centered language learning, the paper offers examples from a corpus of thirty five digital stories produced by ESL learners from summer 2007 through fall 2008. It also includes excerpts from students’ reflective journals and final semi-structured interviews collected during the four semesters digital stories have been used in ESL classes. As illustrated by the stories in this corpus and the students’ reflections, digital stories have a great potential to become educational tools of student empowerment allowing for creative and engaging student-centered educational practices in second language instruction.
Keywords: Digital stories, English as a second language, multiliteracies, student-centered collaborative projects

Main topic: Innovative e-learning solutions for languages

Biodata: Beverly Bickel is assistant research professor and Associate Director of the Language, Literacy and Culture Doctoral Program at UMBC. Her research is in globalized communication and how the public space of the Internet supports transformational dialogue and knowledge projects. She has worked extensively with English teachers and English language learners. Heather A. Linville holds a Master’s degree in TESOL from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County where she is currently the Academic Director of the English Language Center and a part-time lecturer in the Education Department. She also works occasionally with the State Department as an English Language Specialist. Polina Vinogradova is a PhD candidate in Language, Literacy and Culture Program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She researches the development of multiliteracies and identity negotiation in digital stories produced by ESL learners and extensively uses new media including digital stories in her teaching practices.
Type of presentation Online presentation (Virtual Strand)

Paper category Research & Development

Target educational sector Higher education

Language of delivery English

EU-funded project No

Schedule:	Virtual Strand (Conference Hall 3) Day and time to be announced
Title:	Innovative Ways of Using New Media Technology in Student-Centered Collaborative Projects: Digital Stories in English as a Second Language Instruction
Authors:	Beverly Bickel, Heather Linville, Polina Vinogradova
Abstract:	This Research & Development paper discusses how digital stories, a new multimodal narrative genre that has emerged in the past fifteen years, can be used in content-based ESL instruction to foster a creative and collaborative student-centered environment. Using such software as Final Cut Pro/Express, i-Movie, Windows Movie Maker, or Photo Story 3, ESL learners who produce digital stories as their final projects combine verbal narration with visual images and musical background to create powerful two- to five-minute messages. The paper argues that while digital stories are individual new media projects, their use allows for creation of an interactive, collaborative, and creative classroom community of practice. The paper illustrates how throughout the process of mapping out and planning their digital stories, writing and audio recording their verbal narratives, collecting and digitizing still images, selecting music, and working with the software to produce their digital stories, the students become decision makers and evaluators of their own and each other’s work. Thus, throughout this process, the students develop multiliteracies that are crucial for the development of functional and academic literacy in the contemporary world. Participating in this student-centered community of practice, the students practice newly acquired lexical and grammatical units while applying them to themes and topics that are genuinely interesting and important to them. To illustrate how the process of digital stories production contributes to the development of multiliteracies and fosters creative and collaborative student-centered language learning, the paper offers examples from a corpus of thirty five digital stories produced by ESL learners from summer 2007 through fall 2008. It also includes excerpts from students’ reflective journals and final semi-structured interviews collected during the four semesters digital stories have been used in ESL classes. As illustrated by the stories in this corpus and the students’ reflections, digital stories have a great potential to become educational tools of student empowerment allowing for creative and engaging student-centered educational practices in second language instruction.
Keywords:	Digital stories, English as a second language, multiliteracies, student-centered collaborative projects
Main topic:	Innovative e-learning solutions for languages
Biodata:	Beverly Bickel is assistant research professor and Associate Director of the Language, Literacy and Culture Doctoral Program at UMBC. Her research is in globalized communication and how the public space of the Internet supports transformational dialogue and knowledge projects. She has worked extensively with English teachers and English language learners. Heather A. Linville holds a Master’s degree in TESOL from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County where she is currently the Academic Director of the English Language Center and a part-time lecturer in the Education Department. She also works occasionally with the State Department as an English Language Specialist. Polina Vinogradova is a PhD candidate in Language, Literacy and Culture Program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She researches the development of multiliteracies and identity negotiation in digital stories produced by ESL learners and extensively uses new media including digital stories in her teaching practices.
Type of presentation	Online presentation (Virtual Strand)
Paper category	Research & Development
Target educational sector	Higher education
Language of delivery	English
EU-funded project	No