Overcoming Future Professionals’ Fear of Digital Storytelling

ABSTRACT

Digital storytelling assessments at university can develop emerging human service and social workers’ skills in contemporary social media production and related advocacy. Despite growing interest in digital storytelling in these disciplines, there is little support for developing the technical sides of the practice. This article shares key learnings from an Australian teaching and learning project used to develop a digital storytelling module for social work and human services students at university who are not filmmakers. Students across a range of courses undertook digital storytelling assessments using the module. A key finding was that students still experienced considerable fear but were able to turn that into significant personal and professional development. This article explores these and other key learnings from the project and offers tips for others wishing to implement digital storytelling.

IMPLICATIONS

• Emerging social work and human services professionals studying at university often exhibit fear and resistance to new tasks such as digital storytelling. Such students need to be supported to navigate that discomfort to achieve learning.

• Students can be supported using online modules that support the technical and creative sides of digital storytelling.

• This project found that students were able to develop confidence and skills in digital storytelling after completing this module and assignment.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital Storytelling
• Human Services and Social Work
• Higher Education
• Social Media
• Pedagogy of Discomfort

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Griffith University Health Group, School of Human Services and Social Work, and Griffith Film School for funding and support to conduct this project. The authors acknowledge the important contributions of colleagues who collaborated on the teaching and learning grant including Glenn Woods, Mary-Ann Shuker, Chandra Rao, Jennifer Cartmel, Paul Harris, and Victoria Stewart.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Griffith University [Grant Number: Learning and Teaching Grants].