This dissertation explores how life narratives created by trans*-identified people (transsexual, transgender, genderqueer, and other non-binary identities included in the term’s asterisk) imagine new categories by re-working familiar stories; trans* life narratives are thus indispensable for comprehending how gender, identity, and self shape each other across social contexts in relation to dominant cultural narratives and embedded epistemologies. Prevailing U.S. ideologies (created and maintained through medical and media discourses) conceive of trans* identity through a binary formation, reinforce trans* people as objects who exist for nontrans* consumers, and rationalize trans* people as trapped within improper bodies or liberated within surgically constructed new ones. In opposition, twenty-first century narratives by filmmakers Jules Rosskam and Gwen Tara Haworth, autobiographers Jennifer Finley Boylan and Alex Drummond and YouTube digital storytellers Ky Ford and Skylar Kergil imagine trans* identity as productive – the goal is not to explain or justify gender diversity but to embrace it and to continue to widen its collective scope. The twenty-first century narratives I analyze reconceptualize trans* identity as viable with or without medical intervention and articulate a whole, continuous subject rather than a subject split between pre- and post-transition. Evoking a new historical moment, these life writers and media producers celebrate their identity in spite of or even because of the transphobia they experience. In so doing, radical trans* life narratives exemplify how medical models and popular media fail those who they purport to protect and represent. Gender is an identity as well as a social and historical process, which is constantly open to investigation. If laying claim to an identity makes subjects, as Michel Foucault argues, the process also occurs bi-directionally: identities come into existence through the act of naming and narrating them. As more individuals articulate what it means to be trans*, personal and collective knowledges will expand to include a range of diverse subjectivities, some of which have yet to be narrated into existence.

Digital storytelling uses technology in order to capture people’s stories digitally, weaving together images, music and narration to create a vivid, multi-media story in the form of a short movie. Story creators are taken through a workshop in order to equip them with the technical and other skills needed to create the stories themselves. In the case studied, a group of gender and HIV activists participated in intensive four-day workshops sponsored by a South African non-governmental organisation. Seven interviews were conducted with workshop participants to capture their experiences of the workshops. Following a grounded theory approach, the interview transcriptions were analysed using an open coding process, which lead to the emergence of a clear central story line. The conceptual framework or theory emerging from this qualitative case study is that in digital stories as tools for social change and activism, technology’s role can be understood through conceptualising it as a medium and a mediator, with its properties as a medium enabling it to play a mediating role in a number of different types of relationships. A potential gap in the literature was identified in the process of writing this dissertation, which is that most examinations of the use of technology in social change and activism concentrate on the Internet and email. Hence there is a need for further research into how a range of technologies are currently and can potentially be used in the services of social change. It is hoped that this dissertation will contribute to addressing that gap. / Dissertation (MPhil)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Informatics / unrestricted

This qualitative case study examined how integrating technology, specifically digital storytelling, influenced secondary student perceptions of literacy learning and student engagement in an English language arts and reading classroom in a rural district. Understanding student perceptions of literacy learning can offer insight into which technological tools can support literacy development and classroom engagement. Through the implementation of case study design and thematic analysis, overarching themes highlight participant experiences and equip education professionals to make more informed choices regarding technology integration decisions.

Cette étude de cas relève de la didactique des langues, et plus particulièrement de l’intégration des outils numériques à la formation pré-professionnelle à la didactique de l’anglais. Elle a pour objectif de décrire et d’analyser les différents processus qui participent à l’émergence de la dimension sociale de l’autonomie. Elle repose sur l’idée que ces processus viennent au premier plan lors de la réalisation d’une activité collective, située et médiatisée. Afin d’étudier ces processus, une tâche-projet basée sur la réalisation de contes multimodaux a été proposée aux apprenant.e.s d’une formation pré-professionnelle au métier d’enseignement de la langue anglaise. Les supports conçus par les apprenant.e.s de première année de licence ont été ensuite testés comme ressources pédagogiques par des professeur.e.s d’écoles primaires dans le but de conférer une dimension plus réelle, plus située, à la production des contes.Une modélisation systémique de l’activité permet d’identifier trois axes qui contribuent à l’émergence de l’autonomie sociale. Le premier est relatif au fonctionnement intra groupal des groupes restreints ayant accompli la tâche-projet. Le deuxième porte sur la contribution de la communauté des professeur.e.s des écoles primaires qui ont testé les supports. Le troisième interroge le rapport aux outils numériques sociaux utilisés par les groupes restreints pour collaborer et échanger ensemble. Les résultats issus des analyses relatives aux trois axes visent à réaliser une modélisation de certaines variables participant à une émergence de l’autonomie sociale. / This case study focuses on the integration of digital tools to the teaching and learning of English as a foreign language. It aims to describe and analyse the different processes that contribute to the emergence of the social dimension of autonomy. It is based on the idea that several processes come to the fore during the realization of a situated and mediated collective activity accomplished by small groups of learners. In order to study these processes, a digital storytelling task-project was proposed to groups of learners enrolled in the first year of university of a pre-service English language-training course. The materials designed by the learners were then tested as pedagogical resources by teachers of seven primary schools in France.A systemic modelling of the above activity makes it possible to identify three focus areas that contribute to the emergence of social autonomy. The first relates to the intra group operations of the small groups who accomplished the task-project. The second is the contribution of the community of primary school teachers who tested the teaching materials. The third constitutes the ways in which social digital tools were used by small groups to collaborate and work together. The results from the analyses related to the three focus areas allow for a modelling of certain variables that contribute to the understanding of the emergence of social autonomy.

[pt] As mídias digitais modificaram significativamente a nossa forma de adquirir, produzir e compartilhar conhecimentos. Nesse sentido, além das tecnologias digitais utilizadas nas salas de aulas formais, um outro ambiente passou a ser massivamente utilizado como um espaço educacional: as redes sociais. Tomando por base esse novo cenário, esta dissertação tem como objetivo, a partir do cruzamento do campo das Mídias e do campo da Educação, compreender o surgimento de um fenômeno: o professor influencer e como ele se constrói nas redes a partir do digital storytelling. Para que seja possível tal compreensão, tem-se como objetivos específicos: examinar a atuação e os recursos que os professores utilizam para se posicionarem e se construírem nas redes sociais; analisar quais histórias os professores contam no digital a partir das narrativas que constroem; investigar as formas de uso dos recursos das plataformas Instagram e YouTube para a construção dessas narrativas. Como principais referenciais teóricos temos Xavier para fundamentar as ideias referentes ao storytelling e Couldry para fundamentar as ideias referentes ao digital storytelling. Esta investigação trata-se de uma autoetnografia digital, envolvendo observação participante e entrevistas semiestruturadas, uma vez que, por ser nativa do campo, associei a minha experiência à experiência dos professores participantes. Ao mesmo tempo em que atuei no campo, observei e entrevistei dois professores influencers: o professor Noslen (que tem o maior canal do YouTube de Português do mundo) e a professora Carol Mendonça. Os principais achados da pesquisa apontam três características afins que perpassam o perfil dos professores influencers: o entretenimento, a ideia de que o compartilhamento gratuito de conteúdos pedagógicos nas redes pode contribuir com a democratização da educação e a venda de produtos e serviços. Os achados indicam, ainda, que a construção da subjetividade dos professores influencers se dá a partir de aspectos comuns provenientes da atuação e da exposição no campo, que foram rotulados da seguinte forma: modelos de comportamentos, posicionamentos cotidianos; modelo de negócio; linguagem; estratégias; autoridade, preconceitos e críticas. Nesse sentido, tais dados podem contribuir para o estabelecimento de novas reflexões críticas acerca dos rumos da educação em contextos midiáticos, dos novos espaços de trabalho, do papel, do alcance e das escolhas dos professores neste cenário. De modo geral, a investigação apontou que, assim como eu, os professores observados preocupam-se com as histórias que contam e, a partir delas, com a forma como se conectam intelectual e emocionalmente com seus alunos seguidores. / [en] Digital media have significantly changed the way we acquire, produce and share knowledge. In this sense, in addition to the digital technologies used in formal classrooms, another environment has become massively used as an educational space: social networks. Based on this new scenario, this dissertation aims, from the intersection of the field of Media and the field of Education, to understand the emergence of a phenomenon: the influencer teacher and how he is built on networks from digital storytelling. In order to make this understanding possible, the specific objectives are: to examine the performance and resources that teachers use to position themselves and build themselves in social networks; analyze which stories teachers tell on digital from the narratives they build; investigate the ways of using the resources of the Instagram and YouTube platforms to build these narratives. To base the issues related to the different conceptions of media, mediatization and mediation we have Couldry and Hepp, Alevizou, Rawolle and Lingard. This investigation is a digital autoethnography, involving participant observation and semi-structured interviews, since, being a native of the field, I associated my experience with the experience of the participating teachers. While working in the field, I observed and interviewed two influencer teachers: Professor Noslen (who has the largest Portuguese YouTube channel in the world) and Professor Carol Mendonça. The main findings of the research point to three similar characteristics that permeate the profile of influencer teachers: entertainment, the idea that the free sharing of pedagogical content on networks can contribute to the democratization of education and the sale of products and services. The findings also indicate that the construction of the subjectivity of influencer teachers takes place from common aspects arising from their performance and exposure in the field, which were labeled as follows: behavior models, everyday positions; Business model; language; strategies; authority, prejudice and criticism. In this sense, such data can contribute to the establishment of new critical reflections about the direction of education in media contexts, new workspaces, the role, scope and choices of teachers in this scenario. In general, the investigation pointed out that, like me, the observed teachers are concerned with the stories they tell and, based on them, with the way they connect intellectually and emotionally with their student followers.

Master of Music / Department of Music / Jana R. Fallin / Who was Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophius Mozart? He was a child prodigy who dazzled Kings, Queens, Emperors and Empresses as a young boy and lead an remarkable life in his first ten years. The facts of Mozart’s childhood are known and available, however the vast majority of research is devoted to Mozart’s music, life and career during his adult years. Perhaps the time for a child to begin to realize the importance of Mozart in history would be to create a connection between young Mozart’s daily activities to a student of parallel age. The purpose of the study is to illuminate the life of the child prodigy Wolfgang Mozart using creative digital storytelling for elementary aged students. Due to the awarding of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, research concerning Mozart’s rise and fall in fame was completed in Vienna, Austria, June 21 through July 16, 2010. The resulting focus of the research was to bring awareness to the minds of elementary students of Mozart’s child prodigy years. Using digital storytelling, listening maps, and composition projects, students will step into the world of Mozart as a composer and begin to relate his life to theirs. Data analysis will establish the effective use of digital storytelling to reveal the student’s ability to correlate the boyhood life of Mozart with the master composer. The study was completed in a pilot program in McPherson, Kansas in January 2011.

The purpose of this study was to explore the process and product of African American First Graders as they participated in digital storytelling. Of interest was the role digital tools played in the creation process. Eight participants participated in 18 study sessions during which they composed, recorded, and then shared their digital texts with their peers and at home. Data sources included classroom observations, parent and teacher questionnaires, participant pre and post interviews, field notes, video and audio tapes of sessions, and story screenshot captures and print outs. Study questions focused on the nature of the texts the student produced, the role of the digital in the creation process, and the meanings and purposes the participants had for the texts they produced. This study’s findings challenge teachers to offer students authentic experiences with writing so that children can construct their own ideas and interests, their own writing personalities. Digital texts were a particularly engaging medium for these young children and allowed them to produce texts that reflected their identities as well as their attitudes toward using digital tools. The nature of the texts varied depending on the child, his or her attitude toward using the digital tools, and likely their previous experiences with composition. One unique type of text was identified as a hybrid text that seemed to capitalize on both the ability of the child storyteller and the affordances of the digital. Due to the study’s emphasis on sharing these texts with peers and at home, the first graders were introduced to a sophisticated view of audience. This transactional role of the audience made them aware of audience as a living, breathing entity that gains ownership of the texts’ meanings once they are shared. / text

The purpose of this creative project is to explore the concept of character development as it appears in non-linear story formats. These formats are those of relatively recent technological advances that have paved the way for stories to be related to an audience in ways that are completely unique to each individual audience member. This project specifically is a murder mystery story, told in such a non-linear fashion. The story is capable of being viewed in a completely unique manner by each individual audience member. From this story, viewer's opinions have been examined, and conclusions have been drawn of the value and significance of non-linear story formats in relation to character development. / Department of Telecommunications

Interactive Digital Storytelling (IDS) constitutes a research field that emerged from several areas of art, creation and computer science. It inquires technologies and possible artefacts that allow ‘highly-interactive’ experiences of digital worlds with compelling stories. However, the situation for story creators approaching ‘highly-interactive’ storytelling is complex. There is a gap between the available technology, which requires programming and prior knowledge in Artificial Intelligence, and established models of storytelling, which are too linear to have the potential to be highly interactive. This thesis reports on research that lays the ground for bridging this gap, leading to novel creation philosophies in future work. A design research process has been pursued, which centred on the suggestion of conceptual models, explaining a) process structures of interdisciplinary development, b) interactive story structures including the user of the interactive story system, and c) the positioning of human authors within semi-automated creative processes. By means of ‘implicit creation’, storytelling and modelling of simulated worlds are reconciled. The conceptual models are informed by exhaustive literature review in established neighbouring disciplines. These are a) creative principles in different storytelling domains, such as screenwriting, video game writing, role playing and improvisational theatre, b) narratological studies of story grammars and structures, and c) principles of designing interactive systems, in the areas of basic HCI design and models, discourse analysis in conversational systems, as well as game- and simulation design. In a case study of artefact building, the initial models have been put into practice, evaluated and extended. These artefacts are a) a conceived authoring tool (‘Scenejo’) for the creation of digital conversational stories, and b) the development of a serious game (‘The Killer Phrase Game’) as an application development. The study demonstrates how starting out from linear storytelling, iterative steps of ‘implicit creation’ can lead to more variability and interactivity in the designed interactive story. In the concrete case, the steps included abstraction of dialogues into conditional actions, and creating a dynamic world model of the conversation. This process and artefact can be used as a model illustrating non-programmer approaches to ‘implicit creation’ in a learning process. Research demonstrates that the field of Interactive Digital Storytelling still has to be further advanced until general creative principles can be fully established, which is a long-term endeavour, dependent upon environmental factors. It also requires further technological developments. The gap is not yet closed, but it can be better explained. The research results build groundwork for education of prospective authors. Concluding the thesis, IDS-specific creative principles have been proposed for evaluation in future work.

A pesquisa teve como objetivo principal analisar, por meio de seus próprios discursos, os processos de construção de identidade negra de jovens do Ensino Fundamental II de uma escola pública da periferia da cidade de São Paulo. O estudo de caso foi a técnica de pesquisa adotada e os procedimentos metodológicos se inseriram na pesquisa participante. O quadro teórico sobre o qual se assentou a pesquisa teve como base a Educomunicação, as práticas do Digital Storytelling, os estudos de linguagem empreendidos por Bakhtin, a Análise de Discurso (de linha francesa) e os conceitos relacionados ao \"ser negro\" no contexto sociocultural brasileiro. A pesquisa de campo contou com a realização de oficinas educomunicativas com um grupo de jovens de uma mesma sala de aula, capacitando-os para a criação de vídeos tendo como base suas histórias de vida, que constituíram parte fundamental do corpus da pesquisa. Para além do trabalho com as habilidades técnicas, o projeto contou com rodas de discussão a respeito do conceito de identidade em suas dimensões sociais e individuais. Cabe ressaltar que também foram objeto de análise as estratégias educomunicativas empregadas pela pesquisadora e os discursos dos alunos registrados ao longo do desenvolvimento da pesquisa. Para a elaboração da narrativa audiovisual, foram utilizados os procedimentos do Digital Storytelling e, dessa forma, pôde-se observar a produção de sentidos identitários individuais e sociais, na medida em que esta coloca em marcha um processo em que os sujeitos - os alunos - constituem-se como autores de suas próprias histórias. Os resultados da pesquisa indicam que, ao se constituírem como instância enunciadora, tais sujeitos dão início a um processo de conscientização em relação a si mesmos e ao grupo social, o que se torna possível graças ao distanciamento propiciado pelo ato de se autonarrar. Deve-se enfatizar que esse processo de construção identitária, de reconhecimento de si-mesmo, ganha corpo por meio da alteridade (Bakhtin), que pode propiciar a aquisição da consciência social de si mesmo e, assim, do \"ser negro\" na sociedade brasileira. Ademais, ressalta-se a importância da abordagem educomunicativa no processo conduzido junto aos jovens, pois se entende que o mesmo foi motivador da criação de um ecossistema comunicativo, necessário para que a pesquisadora - ali atuando como mediadora - e os sujeitos pesquisados ultrapassassem possíveis barreiras da relação professor-aluno para que, libertos, pudessem falar de si mesmos e de suas experiências, tendo, inclusive, os seus relatos digitalizados. / The research aimed to analyze, through their own speeches, the processes of identity construction of young black students of a public school in the outskirts of São Paulo. The case study was the research technique used and the methodological procedures were inserted in the participant research. The theoretical framework on which sat the research was based on Educommunication, the practices of Digital Storytelling, the language studies undertaken by Bakhtin, Discourse Analysis (French line) and the concepts related to \"being black\" in the Brazilian sociocultural context. The field research included educommunicative workshops with a group of young people in the same classroom, enabling them to create videos based on their life stories, which were an essential part of the research corpus. In addition to working with the technical skills, the project had discussion groups about the concept of identity in its social and individual aspects. Note that also have been considered educommunicative strategies employed by the researcher and the speeches of the students registered during the development of the research. For the preparation of audiovisual narrative, were used the procedures of Digital Storytelling and thus it could be observed the production of individual senses of identity and social living, to the extent that this puts in motion a process in which the subjects - students - constitute themselves as authors of their own stories. The survey results indicate that, when constituted as an enunciative instance, these individuals initiate a process of awareness about themselves and the social group, which is possible thanks to the distance afforded by the act of narrating yourself. It should also be noted that this process of identity construction, the recognition of self, takes shape through the idea of otherness (Bakhtin), which can provide the acquisition of social consciousness of itself and thus of \"being black\" in Brazilian society. Moreover, it emphasizes the importance of the process approach educommunication proposal led to the youth, because we understand that it was motivating the creation of the so-called communicative ecosystem, necessary for the researcher - there acting as a mediator - and the subjects surveyed exceeded potential barriers in teacher-student relationship so that freedmen could talk about themselves and their experiences, and even having their reports digitalized.