Digital storytelling is a widely used and much-researched method in education. It is an engaging learning method that also develops media skills. In our earlier project students created dialogs and plots for an educational computer game. These stories differ from traditional stories in that they can branch, in other words, they are non-linear. Non-linear storytelling is a novel learning method with several possible pedagogical benefits.
GOALS
The goal of this project is to develop an educational method based on non-linear storytelling. The method is especially applied on teaching computational thinking related skills. More precisely, the project
- implements a new training course that develops participants computational thinking and information technology skills
- make that method known for the wide audience of professionals and target groups
- test the developed training course by carrying out pilot studies
- promote the method by publishing full course materials and reporting the experiences of pilot studies
ACTIONS
The project develops a training course based on the latest scientific knowledge and the experiences with our earlier projects. Requirements for the training course and course materials are defined and implemented.
Storytelling software is developed in the project. The software is based on a non-linear open-source storytelling software Twine which was already localized in the Finnish language in our earlier project. The localization is updated and the software is developed to fulfill requirements for the planned educational use. This includes integration with Arduino based electronics for educational applications in automation and robotics.
The method is piloted with our partners in the cities of Mikkeli, Pieksämäki, and Savonlinna.
The training course and its course material are documented and published in open license. The results of the pilot studies are published.
Results
The project provides us with substantial experiences with an education based on non-linear storytelling. The result of the project is a training course for teaching computational thinking fully published with open licenses. The development process and experiences from the pilot studies are reported.