This project focuses on developing an 8-module library course to introduce inexperienced 12-19 year-olds with low library engagement to digital storytelling tools/methods.

In order to cultivate digital media citizenship, the Queens Public Library's Jackson Heights branch is offering high schoolers an eight module course on digital storytelling, one module weekly for two months. Each module will take approximately an hour, making the entire course an eight-hour program that culminates in a presentation to the library community. The aim is for this course to not only help students learn more about creating multimedia narratives but to encourage further, individual study after completing these modules.

• Physical Context:

  • The learners will be in a library that can be accessed by car and public transportation (subway line 7 to 82nd street, nearby Roosevelt/Jackson Heights transfer station, Q29, Q32, Q33, Q49, Q66), and the library neighborhood includes schools such as I.S. 145, I.S. 230, various charter schools, and multiple elementary public schools. Due to learners' schedules as high school students, this course will have to run as an afterschool or weekend program. Additionally, the library branch has a room of 10 computers for use and the Queens Public Library gives patrons access to Adobe Creative Cloud as well as other technology such as 3D printing and VR headsets. The former is not entirely relevant to a digital storytelling platform, but access to VR design through Adobe and VR equipment can provide an added element to students' digital stories if they would like. The amount of computers can be limiting for the amount of students signing up, therefore the workshop has scheduled computer usage to accommodate all students. (For example, students in Group A come to the library at 3 on Mondays whereas students in Group B come to the library at 2 on Thursdays).

• Social Context:

  • In addition to librarian instructors and their peers, learners will also see other library patrons in the environment. These patrons include young children from the surrounding elementary schools, as well as adult learners who are part of the library's Adult Learning Center (ESOL, Citizenship Exam Training, Basic Technology Training, etc.) This can be utilized to showcase the library as a resource for lifelong education. While these patrons are not participating in the learning project, they will receive a newsletter about learners' projects within the program and are invited to view the final presentations.

  • The stakeholders outlined in the map below are divided by public/private funding entities, Library Organizations/patrons, and other communications programs. Some of our indirect stakeholders come from the possible future use of the students' projects. Higher Education Institutes could see the library program on students' resumes, and community organizations, such as ABC7 New York and Queens Public Television, could see an influx of student interns/volunteers who had their interest piqued from the library program.

Learners will be both 12-19 year old high school students local to the area and possibly from around the borough. Some key information about anticipated learners include:

• NYC Community Health Profile shows, in 2018, Jackson Heights was recorded with a lower ratio of college-educated residents than the rest of the city, while 27% of residents age 25 and older have a college education or higher, 30% have less than a high school education and 47% are high school graduates or have some college education. This would be a great opportunity for public libraries to develop learning programs that will help increase District high school students’ college admission rates by way of increasing the programs available to them.

• About 70% of Jackson Heights identifies as Hispanic according to the NYU Furman Center. However, with Roosevelt/Jackson Heights transfer station nearby, one can expect the library might have visitors (and therefore learner sign-ups) from across the borough. Queens holds the Guinness World Record for "most ethnically diverse urban area on the planet" with 138 official languages spoken among its populace. Queens is already an extremely multiethnic, multilingual area so learners might be coming in with international backgrounds. Jackson Heights itself boasts incredible amounts of diversity. The 2015 documentary by Fredrick Wiseman, In Jackson Heights, focused on Jackson Heights as a crossroad of enclaves: Muslim schools, Jewish cultural centers, Columbian and Nepalese immigrants, and more. This diversity serves as an opportunity when considering narrative design.

• Some learners might have chosen the library as a learning environment due to its position as a freely accessible resource in the neighborhood. Learning how to use media software for activities such as video and photo editing, audio recording, etc. can be pricey. Engaging with a creative hobby for a creative career could strain budgets, especially for high schoolers. The learners might be motivated by the chance to try these creative pursuits without financial barriers.

• Both a challenge and opportunity is in students' prior knowledge of media content creation. Many teen learners are already familiar with media content creation through apps like TikTok, Youtube, and Instagram. They might already be familiar with these means of brief storytelling and therefore limit creativity to just these platforms. I believe I also read that some students have a harder time working through computer software than mobile apps due to apps typically being more intuitive to use. However, this challenge also creates an enormous opportunity. Learners and instructors likely already have a common language of narrative design, and some learners might already be coming in with the experience of having made projects. Leveraging these learners as group mini-teachers can help reinforce expertise, confidence, and community.

• Project Design Goal:

  1. Learners will use a combination of mobile phone applications/features and an Adobe product of their choice to design and incorporate up to 3 digital media technology--audio, video, photo--into multimedia digital stories that are ultimately meant to be presented to an audience.

  2. Learners will develop a motivation and passion to conduct further study in their digital storytelling mediums and roles after the completion of this course.

• Project Learning Objectives:

  1. Learners will identify and evaluate with a journal reflection 2-3 artists or works they wish to emulate and/or influence their own digital storytelling.

  2. Learners will identify personal narratives within their lives that they wish to develop a project about in order to build intrinsic motivation for the workshop.

  3. Learners will choose a digital storytelling medium for their projects and identify the most accessible mobile apps from a provided Google Drive resource.

     1. Learners will take these identified tools and gain a basic level mastery over them in order to capture/edit raw digital media content.

  4. Learners will be able to identify and use the fundamental features of one Adobe tool to edit raw digital media content.

  5. Learners will be able to combine key elements of digital storytelling, as informed by research, to build their projects.

  6. Learners will develop a 30 sec-1 minute pitch of their stories to pair with the final presentation and introduce their work.

  7. Instructors will acquire digital storytelling skills of their own (such as use of apps) to compile and provide learners with a "holy grail" Google Drive resource of digital storytelling tools/methods/techniques.