Exploring Empathy and Compassion Using Digital Narratives (the Learning to Care project): A Study Protocol (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Digital stories – first-person, self-made, 2-3-minute videos – generate awareness, impart knowledge, and promote understanding around topics like mental illness. Digital stories are a narrative-based art form often created by individuals without formal training in filmmaking to relate personal experiences. Somewhat like digital narratives, video testimonies created within the social marketing or fundraising campaigns of government agencies and private or public corporations aim to reduce the stigma of mental illness while supporting research and services. In video testimonies personal stories are captured on camera by professional filmmakers. Sharing critical life events greatly benefits tellers and listeners alike, supporting catharsis, healing, connectiveness, and citizenship. OBJECTIVE The proposed study explores digital stories and video testimonies featuring mental illness and recovery in their ability to elicit empathy and compassion while reducing stigma among viewers. METHODS Using mixed methods, Phase 1 will involve a search of Canadian social marketing activities and fundraising campaigns concerning mental illness and recovery while organizing digital storytelling workshops in which participants create digital stories about their own experiences of mental illness and recovery. During Phase 2, a pilot randomized controlled trial will be undertaken to compare marketing and fundraising campaigns versus digital stories for their impact on viewers. RESULTS Ethics approval was received in March 2021.Data on feasibility of the study design and results of the controlled trial will be generated. This study will produce new knowledge on effective ways of promoting mental health awareness and decreasing stigma with practical importance for future social marketing and fundraising campaigns. Anticipated time to completion within the two-year study period includes nine months for Phase 1 (preparation), eleven months for Phase 2 (feasibility assessment and data collection: RCT) and two months for Phase 3 (knowledge dissemination). CONCLUSIONS The knowledge generated will have practical implications for the public and for future social marketing and fundraising campaigns promoted by government agencies as well as non-profit and for-profit organizations by enhancing our understanding of how individuals and societies respond to stories of suffering and what prompts citizens to help others. CLINICALTRIAL ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04881084

Multimodality and Digital Narrative in Teaching a Foreign Language

The article focuses on the authors’ pedagogical experience of exploiting digital narratives in a foreign language education at a modern university (on the basis of National Technical University of Ukraine “KPI” named after Igor Sikorsky). The study aims to consider multimodality in terms of foreign language didactics. It was designed by the constructivism theory and narratology in terms of teaching a foreign language. The research exploited the set of theoretical methods: analyzing, summarizing, and interpreting scholarly sources on the issue under scrutiny; generalization and conceptualization of the authors’ pedagogical experience. Applying those methods in coherence logic enabled the effective study and interpretation of the concepts of “narrative” and “digital narrative” in their interrelations. In the study, the narrative is viewed as a sociocultural tool that provides students with deeper self-understanding, and complements the communicative system of foreign language acquisition with metacognition and values of life meaning. The digital narrative as a form of expression, empowered and determined by digital technologies incorporates multimodal communication and narrative as a cognitive unity. The authors have stated that multimodality, grounded on information technologies, is introducing entirely new semiotic resources into the communicative environment of foreign language learning. It is also generating innovative ways and forms of oral and written interaction. Multimodal learning activities illustrating the specifics of creating digital narratives by learners of English as a foreign language, are highlighted. The significance of the study lies in the fact that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is unquestionably a rather fertile condition for active implementing digital technologies into foreign language education, and developing different multimodal learning activities in this area

Multimodality and Digital Narrative in Teaching a Foreign Language

The article focuses on the authors’ pedagogical experience of exploiting digital narratives in a foreign language education at a modern university (on the basis of National Technical University of Ukraine “KPI” named after Igor Sikorsky). The study aims to consider multimodality in terms of foreign language didactics. It was designed by the constructivism theory and narratology in terms of teaching a foreign language. The research exploited the set of theoretical methods: analyzing, summarizing, and interpreting scholarly sources on the issue under scrutiny; generalization and conceptualization of the authors’ pedagogical experience. Applying those methods in coherence logic enabled the effective study and interpretation of the concepts of “narrative” and “digital narrative” in their interrelations. In the study, the narrative is viewed as a sociocultural tool that provides students with deeper self-understanding, and complements the communicative system of foreign language acquisition with metacognition and values of life meaning. The digital narrative as a form of expression, empowered and determined by digital technologies incorporates multimodal communication and narrative as a cognitive unity. The authors have stated that multimodality, grounded on information technologies, is introducing entirely new semiotic resources into the communicative environment of foreign language learning. It is also generating innovative ways and forms of oral and written interaction. Multimodal learning activities illustrating the specifics of creating digital narratives by learners of English as a foreign language, are highlighted. The significance of the study lies in the fact that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is unquestionably a rather fertile condition for active implementing digital technologies into foreign language education, and developing different multimodal learning activities in this area

Challenges of digital narratives in the apprehension of the cultural and natural heritage of the nation

En los actuales debates sobre conocimiento y descolonización de la memoria se pregunta por el lugar que tiene en la política pública el saber ancestral y su relación con la sociedad. Articular el trabajo de las narrativas digitales en museos comunitarios y centros locales de memoria se convierte en reto para la supervivencia de este medio de comunicación para la apropiación social del patrimonio cultural material e inmaterial y natural de la nación. La Netnografía como método de investigación en línea permite indagar en estos sitios esa relación desigual entre el centro y la periferia. Se identifican prácticas centralistas con fuerte tradición colonial que se niegan a desaparecer e impiden la implementación de iniciativas locales y regionales en favor de la verdad y la recuperación de la memoria colectiva.

The “Shaken Photos” Project as a Stimulus for Developing Creative Thinking with Preschoolers

Using a digital camera to achieve a successful result requires from the user, first and foremost, to be familiar with the proper use of the medium and to have obtained basic knowledge of the principles of the art of photography. What is the result in those cases where the photographer either does not know the basic principles of photography or cannot apply them effectively in practice? Is the product considered a “failure” thus leaving photos with no clear and recognizable objects? This paper focuses on designing and implementing an applied educational intervention, themed on ”shaken” photos taken by preschoolers and using this material to create digital narratives. This case study examines "shaken" photos as an opportunity to develop imagination and creativity through photography.